All words: Jeff Jetton

All Comic Strips: Nick Gurewitch (Obviously)

Oh my god, it’s the NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL this weekend, literally BYT’s favorite event of the year.

Even though we know most of the peeps over at the Library of Congress who run the National Book Festival, they never come and ask us our opinion on who they should bring each year. Even after we’ve brought them countless memories and plenty of press, and even though there was that time we asked Sanjay Gupta if masturbation makes your palms hairy and he responded: “This interview is over”.

Okay, on reflection, BYT curating the National Book Festival doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to track down the author of our favorite book and do an interview with him in honor of NBF. Nick Gurewitch is the creator of Perry Bible Fellowship. Not easily definable, PBF might be described as the ganglier, sort-of-sickly but really smart kid brother of the Far Side. It’s definitely not your father’s Family Circus.

We got ahold of Nick at his home in Rochester, New York to get a deeper understanding of the man behind the comics…

BYT: Hi Nick, is now a good time?

Nick Gurewitch: Oh you mean, well, I might just do work while we talk.

BYT: Sure, that’s fine.

Nick Gurewitch: I get personally offended when people work while they talk to me. Or like when they’re driving or something. I can tell.

BYT: Why don’t we both do work?

Nick Gurewitch: Oh yeah, so it evens out.

BYT: Do you ever Google image yourself? I was surprised at some of the things that came up. A picture of Spike Lee, Katy Perry, other random assorted stuff.

Nick Gurewitch: Really? Cool. I don’t mind the Katy Perry thing. Actually, I don’t mind the Spike Lee thing either.

BYT:You might need to get some search engine optimization.

Nick Gurewitch: Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just optimize it toward Katy Perry.

BYT: Where’d you come up with the name Perry Bible Fellowship?

Nick Gurewitch: It’s a church that my friend Albert was not a real big fan of. So we just kind of adopted it as the name of the comic. I think that can be the most devastating thing you can do to an enemy. Although I wouldn’t consider them an enemy, I just thought it would be a funny thing to do.

BYT: Seemed to have worked out. For you, maybe not for them. No cease and desist?

Nick Gurewitch: No, no. Nor do I think they’re in the position to.

BYT: You’re probably in the position to get them to cease and desist at this point.

Nick Gurewitch: That’s kinda the way the world works, unfortunately. Since you’re the bigger guy, I think you can crush the little guy. But, I’m not in the crushing business.

BYT: You’re the third interviewee that we’ve done who has also been on Fox News’ Red Eye (after Oderus from GWAR and King Buzzo of the Melvins), pretty good company. How did that arise?

Nick Gurewitch: Greg is a big fan of the strip. He just really liked it. He’s a really sweet and corny guy. I was quite pleased with his behavior.

BYT: Charles Schulz owned an ice arena and held a hockey tournament called Snoopy’s Senior World Hockey Tournament. Any chance you’d be into something similar in your pseudo-retirement from comic strips? Col. Sweeto’s Cape Cod Castle Contest! Sand castle building!

Nick Gurewitch: I’m not really good on ice, but I would love to do events for older people. And younger people. I would love to do events. I’m doing some plays at a local theater soon and I’m sure there will be some old people there.

BYT: Speaking of, how goes the retirement? I’m imagining you lawn bowling in Palm Springs, listening to lots of Sammy Davis, Jr. What’s a typical day?

Nick Gurewitch: Actually I think I’ve been working, well not just as hard because the comic had me on a lethal schedule, but I’m working pretty hard and steadily. I never used the ‘retirement’ word, I’m not sure who started that. I guess I have slowed down to a stop with the comic, but I have something in the works, and I haven’t stopped the art, actually I’ve been doing a great deal of it lately.

BYT: Just switching focus then?

Nick Gurewitch: A focus shift, yes, although that’s not a good headline: ‘Nick Gurewitch Plans Focus Shift’. I guess that’s not as attractive. Not as attractive as retirement. Retirement just sounds like you’re giving up and dying. That’d sell papers. It’s a good word. Michael Jordan retires or Paul McCartney retires, it’s going to shock people.

BYT: Especially given the age where some people are ‘retiring’ from whatever they’re doing. Like when Michael Jordan retired from basketball or when you, sort of, lessened your input into the comic strip or…

Nick Gurewitch: See you don’t even know how to put it (laughs). The truth is so awkward, it’s not even suitable for the newspapers. I’ve been doing a lot of filmmaking, I’ve got some animations coming out on the BBC this month that I put some work into. They might have a few of them up right now.

BYT: You live in Rochester, NY. How is that? I was there for a wedding recently and ended up needing to buy a tie at a mall downtown. It was insane, there were like three shops left open for business in this entire mall. Downtown seemed like a wasteland. It was almost Detroit-esque.

Nick Gurewitch: I didn’t realize we had a mall downtown. I think there’s a Detroit section and a Brooklyn section. I was telling someone the other day, I think with any city, it’s like an animal. There are going to be fluffy, wonderful parts, but somewhere there’s going to be an asshole.

BYT: An asshole?

Nick Gurewitch: Or an earlobe. Or an armpit. Something that you don’t like, but every city has the same opportunities in my opinion.

BYT: So it’s fairly nice?

Nick Gurewitch: No, but it’s like any other city (laughs).

BYT: I guess we should talk about your comic strip, although it’s been around a while and I don’t necessarily know how to broach the subject. They sort of speak for themselves. They’re amazing, I really love your work.

Nick Gurewitch: Thanks, which ones are you liking?

BYT: My favorite is the Food Fight piece:

Nick Gurewitch: Yeah, that’s a hard hitter.

BYT: The way I’ve described it is the Far Side on acid.

Nick Gurewitch: Far Side with multiple panels is how I’d describe it. I have heard the Far Side on acid though. I’m not sure how to describe it. I guess it’s a series of signs that send you to a place where the opposite is where you thought you were going to go.

BYT: Patton Oswalt heard of you through our website and comedy festival. We gave all the comedians copies of your book. Well, Darkhorse Comics donated copies for all the comedians.

Nick Gurewitch: I was at Comic Con standing next to him and I put my book underneath his cell phone. Of course he tended to his phone after a few signatures and he noticed the book and said, hey, I know this book. I own this book, I love this book. And he asked for me and one of the editors at Dark Horse had me come up and sign the book for him. So thanks for allowing me that nice experience. Otherwise he probably would have just ignored it.

BYT: Your cartoons are pretty twisted, what was your upbringing like? I remember Gary Larson saying something about how his brother used to lock him in the dark basement all day and it was that kind of torture that led his mind to become warped enough to draw his cartoons. Was your childhood fraught with torment?

Nick Gurewitch: Um, not moreso than any other child. I don’t think. When you say my work is twisted you mean it twists good things with bad things? The juxtaposition thing?

BYT: Yeah, I mean it’s a more offbeat, more sick and twisted style than a more garden-variety comic strip like Mary Worth or whatever the kids are reading these days.

Nick Gurewitch: I guess stuff that’s described as sick and twisted is not easily understood, what do you mean by that?

BYT: Dark, dark. It’s kind of a darker strip than others. I’m just thinking of, for instance, the one where the kid wins the Golden Ticket and rather than a Chocolate Factory he ends up in a sausage factory.

BYT: When I say twisted, I mean that in a good way. In a way that really speaks to someone like me.

Nick Gurewitch: Why do I like that stuff? I guess I was in tune with it when I was younger. That particular strip comes from an idea of my buddy Evan. But I guess I do like twistedness because it helps me deal with the twistedness that I see in the world.

Nick Gurewitch: And I think I’m a sensitive person. I cry very easily at films. I am bothered when things are mistreated. And so I’m surrounded by this mistreatment and I think on some level it gratifies me to see it assessed sometimes. Sorry, you were probably looking for a funnier answer.

BYT: Actually no, I appreciate the honesty. The best answers are the honest ones. Funny we can make up. Like who would win in a flick-knife fight with these famous cartoonists?

R. Crumb vs. R. Kelly

Nick Gurewitch: Probably R. Kelly, he’s a little bigger, a little faster. Crumb’s getting old.

Nick Gurewitch vs. Nick Zinner

Nick: Nick Zinner is a musician?

BYT: Yeah, guitarist of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, you look like him.

Nick: Oh, I’ll let him win.

Gary Larson vs. Gary Numan

Nick: I haven’t seen enough photos of Larson but I’m guessing that Larson is more in touch with his primal instincts than Gary Numan so I’ll take Larson.

Marjane Satrapi vs. Mary Jane Watson

Nick: Mary Jane Watson, spiderman’s girlfriend? She’s fictional so she’s bound to lose.

Dr. Suess vs. Dr. Dre

Nick: Seuss being impenatrable by blade at this point, I’ll take Suess.

BYT: Seuss for the win.

BYT: Got any hot tips on up and coming comics or strips? Our audience might not necessarily be hip to the know on Comic books.

Nick Gurewitch: I’m really enjoying Kate Beaton’s stuff lately. You have probably seen her stuff on Harkavagrant.com. She’s been doing stuff for Marvel as I have. I just got a look at her pieces for the upcoming Strange Tales collection and they’re really funny. My buddy John Moses does a strip for exactly one newspaper in Canada and his comic’s called the Midnight Inquirer. The absurd and the funny, I love those things. I’m just coming back from San Diego Comic Con, so I got to see a few new things.

BYT: We just had the Small Press Expo here in DC last weekend.

Nick Gurewitch: That’s a fun little show, I would have loved to come. I’ve done it several times.

BYT: So you’ve been to DC before.

Nick: Yeah I love DC. It’s a wild animal. Lots of fluffy parts and assholes. Claws. It’s a good place.

BYT: You won the Ignatz award at Small Press Expo.

Nick: Yes I did. I give those to my dad. He likes awards.

BYT: Which metal bands are the biggest pussies?

Nick Gurewitch: I wish I knew a metal band! I wouldn’t call a metal band a pussy, though, far too fearsome.

BYT: What kind of stuff are you listening to?

Nick Gurewitch: I’m just researching music for films right now so it would be a lot of classical. Offenbach. Brahms. Mussorgsky. Vaughan Williams is really cool.

BYT: Which classical musician is the biggest pussy is what I meant to say.

Nick Gurewitch: They’re almost all pussies, I think, but Antonio Vivaldi would crumble under the weight of a single punch.

BYT: Comics and movies, what else are you working on?

Nick Gurewitch: During this phonecall I’ve been working on a graphic novel that hopefully comes out someday. And I’ve been shooting a Western with my friends completely indoors. We’ve built a desert in a studio and we’re shooting a ten part serial.

Nick Gurewitch: So yeah I do a lot of short films and I’ve got two short films I’m working on and a feature length film.

BYT: Are you going to move out to LA?

Nick Gurewitch: I’m impartial to location. I’ll shoot them wherever I can get them shot.

BYT: Based on the success of PBF, I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.

Nick Gurewitz: As long as they’re absurd and funny I think they’ll be fine.

BYT: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. It’s been a pleasure.

Nick Gurewitz: Thank you.

Check out all of Nick’s Perry Bible Fellowship comic strips here: http://www.pbfcomics.com/

We’ll see you at the National Book Festival this Saturday. It’s on the National Mall, hard to miss.

Nick has been kind enough to donate an autographed print of his strip Book World for the person who comes up with the best idea for an author at next year’s National Book Festival. Please leave your idea in the comments. The winner will be chosen by someone from the Library of Congress. You know who you are.