Ganerda Grul, publisher of "STOP MAKING CRAP," and HAFJAK DIVIZ, writer and illustrator of "STOP MAKING CRAP," sit at Ganerda's kitchen table in her house in Los Angeles. Coffee is served, and a tape recorder is rolling.
Ganerda: Hello HAFJAK.
HAFJAK: Hello Ganerda.
Ganerda: I'd like to ask you some questions about the book, and I'll transcribe it and put it on my blog.
HAFJAK: Okay--sounds fun.
Ganerda: "HAFJAK" isn't your real name. It's a pseudonym.
HAFJAK: Yep.
Ganerda: Your real name doesn't appear anywhere on the book. Just "HAFJAK DIVIZ." You were very adamant about that. Why the alias and what does it mean?
HAFJAK: I like aliases--aliases were big in the eighties when I grew up: "Prince," "Madonna," "Cher." Those were the mainstream ones. I love when writers use aliases, like Mark Twain. I just saw a documentary on Twain. They explained his alias. His real name was Samuel Clemens. His alias "Mark Twain" was a sailing or nautical term meaning that there are two yards of water beneath a boat, and the boat is safe to pass through those waters without danger of hitting the bottom. Read into that what you will. Or don't. He used to work on riverboats. That's where he got the name. They would call out "mark twain!"
I like aliases because it's part of the project, part of the art. I'm creating not only the stuff but also the identity that creates the stuff. I always felt that PLUS-MINUS were coming from a dark corner in my brain, so I named that corner "HAFJAK DIVIZ." What does the name mean? It means I'm going to be sued! Have you seen how many hafjaks are out there?
Ganerda: We googled it. There's quite a few.
HAFJAK: Yes! I remember the day I sent you all the final files for the book. You were sending it to the printer. I got on the computer, looked up "HAFJAK"--again, saw all the hafjaks--again--and was about to call you to postpone the whole thing, so I could change the pseudonym!
Ganerda: You told me you had some doubts, but you didn't change the name. Why?
HAFJAK: I calmed down, then reasoned that there are thousands of Johns, a million Michaels, why not a whole lotta Hafjaks? If there's a legal issue, my case would be--hey, look in the phone book. There's John Smith, John Carter, John Jones. Why not Hafjak Miller, Hafjak Mignola or HAFJAK DIVIZ? Actually I think Hafjak is a polish female name.
Ganerda: I didn't realize you were that worried about it. So the name must really be dear to your heart.
HAFJAK: Yes, like I said, it's the name I gave to that portion of my personality where PLUS-MINUS come from, that dark dual place where things are black and white, good and ill, ever in combat and conflict.
Ganerda: Is that what "HAFJAK" means? "Conflict?'
HAFJAK: I suppose. It means divided: Jack's in half, divided, HAFJAK DIVIZ.
Ganerda: In caps, right?
HAFJAK: Always.
Ganerda: Why?
HAFJAK: Just how it comes out. Just came out as is. HAFJAK DIVIZ. a subconscious thing. I'm listening more to my subconscious and less to my doubts and fears.
Ganerda: That's good to hear! I feel the same way!
HAFJAK: What kind of artist would I be if I didn't follow my instincts and inner feelings?
Ganerda: Yes! What inner feelings brought you to do the PLUS and MINUS cartoons?
HAFJAK: I was doing a comic strip called "Frost & Miko." Not for a newspaper or anything, just for myself. It was about an ostrich and a raccoon or something, their wacky adventures. It was an "& strip." "Ren & Stimpy," "Tom & Jerry," "Bob & Doug MacKenzie." You hear that "&" and you know what the content is: Two idiots getting into trouble. "Laurel & Hardy."
The strip wasn't much. It ran out of steam and ended without becoming much of anything. It was an exercise. The characters looked like PLUS-MINUS. One was a tall bird, the other, a short rodent creature. One was happy, the other, less happy. When it ran out of steam, I was disappointed with it and myself. Why did it end when other characters seemed eternal and necessary? I unraveled myself, asked myself why I draw. What do I really want to draw? I concluded that "Frost & Miko" was just practice, a replication of what I had absorbed, an exercise.
Then I started drawing what was really on my mind, what stung me, what made me feel something and care about what I was doing. With "Frost & Miko," I was trying to make a strip everyone had seen before. When I started doing PLUS-MINUS, that stuff just came out. I didn't try to do anything except be true to myself.
A lot of PLUS-MINUS isn't funny to me, but it's true and it hits me. It's real. It represents my feelings of being an artist, the struggle to make something true and beautiful, the impossible attempt to create something original.
"COMIC BOOK STORY" at the end of the book was one of the first PLUS-MINUS things I drew. It encapsulates what PLUS-MINUS is.
Ganerda: The book isn't in chronological order?
HAFJAK: Not at all, in fact, I think it's backwards because I followed my subconscious. It told me that particular order was correct. It was. With that order, there's a happy ending.
(To be continued...)
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