Ganerda Grul and HAFJAK DIVIZ, publisher and author respectively of the comic strip album "STOP MAKING CRAP" sit in Ganerda's kitchen in her house in Los Angeles. It is a cold, windy day in the city of angels. HAFJAK drinks black coffee from a white cup. Ganerda sticks with decaf tea. The tape recorder is rolling.
HAFJAK: I'm glad we're doing this. It's fun.
Ganerda: Thank you for being a good sport, and sorry for my caffeine meltdown the other day. I'm sticking with decaf (points to her cup).
HAFJAK: Naw, drink some coffee. Something interesting might happen.
Ganerda: Umm--yes. I have some questions. I wrote them down way back when I first saw your work. I really relate to your work, so--I would like some answers to these questions.
HAFJAK: Okay.
Ganerda: I'm sorry, but some of them might seem a little--umm--(thinking)
HAFJAK: It's okay. Ask me anything. Just not my real name.
Ganerda: umm--I just hope you won't be offended.
HAFJAK: Gan--
Ganerda: Sorry, okay--umm--firstly--Are you--
HAFJAK: Sick?
Ganerda: --Bipolar?
HAFJAK: (Laughs) No, I'm not. Well, wait. I've never been psychoanalyzed, so I don't know what I am. I might be. This book would be a sure indicator of such a condition.
Ganerda: But are you?
HAFJAK: I've never been officially diagnosed, no. Not yet.
Ganerda: Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental--setbacks? Depression?
HAFJAK: No. Like I said, not yet. Way back, I used to be heavy--fat--and I went to the doctor because I was fat and depressed. He prescribed (an antidepressant). I took it for a week, decided that it wasn't for me and lost the weight. And became happy again. That's the closest I've come to a "mental setback."
Ganerda: Are you on any medication now?
HAFJAK: No.
Ganerda: And you weren't depressed or on medication when doing PLUS-MINUS?
HAFJAK: I wasn't on meds. I might have been depressed. But not clinically depressed. As for being bipolar, I have my ups and downs like anyone else. Sometimes I'm less hopeful than at other times. How about that? Sometimes, I'm hope-impaired.
Ganerda: Okay...
HAFJAK: Why?
Ganerda: Well--I feel a strong connection to your work, and I'm wondering if that makes me like you, and, if so--
HAFJAK: You hope you're not sick.
Ganerda: Also, a lot of artists are being diagnosed as this or that, and it seems a lot of people want to believe the art was a product of some disorder or disease. I don't like that. I like to think that art is pure and not a hiccup or belch from some disease.
HAFJAK: I'm sure this topic has been covered by more worthy, educated people. Anyway, I'm fine. Actually, a bipolar person is either high or low, right? That's my understanding. PLUS-MINUS is all about being both at the same time. Or it's more like the yin and yang. I don't know. I wouldn't worry about it Gan. Most people laugh when they read the book.
Ganerda: Okay. But no history of insanity in your family?
HAFJAK: (Laughs) Nope. I'm the first.
Ganerda: Well, okay. You're not officially sick, but you are very hard on yourself if the book is any indicator. Why are you so hard on yourself? Is the book a product of self-loathing?
HAFJAK: (pause) Sure. Why not?
Ganerda: Seriously?
HAFJAK: Yeah. But with the whole HAFJAK thing, self-loathing goes hand-in-hand with self-loving. Good with bad, all that, you know? It's both at the same time.
I'm a very common, mediocre person. I'm not extreme by any means. An extreme person would be--a murderer or a saint. I'm--nobody. Just like everybody else. I'm a little good, I'm a little bad. I'm hard on myself because I know I'm bad. I deserve it. I get down on myself because--I suck. As a person, as a human being, sometimes I really suck. I'm just bad at it. So I call myself on it when I catch myself sucking. And I hope that will lead me to improve as a person.
Ganerda: But it's rare in your work that--the self-loving is not wholly apparent in your book.
HAFJAK: I think it's there. The fact that PLUS is there and keeps painting is evidence of that. Maybe even MINUS in some way represents a rather "tough love."
I know the book--especially as many times as we've read it--it seems tough and hard and abusive on a rather nice little character, but aren't all stories like that? You've got your hero, you throw him up against terrible odds, and he makes it through. The hero goes through all this pain and such, but that's heroes. They can take it, and they become stronger and wiser after their perilous quests and journeys. PLUS just goes on a rather small, claustrophobic, verbally abusive journey.
Ganerda: Do you still hear the MINUS voice verbally abusing you? Or PLUS?
HAFJAK: (pause) I recently read "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse. It opened my mind but also allowed me to retain what my mind was before it was opened. It didn't change me. It just let me embrace more. There's a place in the human heart for a thousand different feelings and beings--there's a place for duality, a place for a completely unbiased perception--a place for the past, present and future. I'm very glad that there will always be a place in me for PLUS and MINUS. I hear them every day. I'm just glad that now I'm not limited to that narrow black and white perception of the world. But having that black and white, no BS view of the world has its uses and advantages.
(silence)
Ganerda: You're not on prescribed medications, but do you do drugs? Recreational drugs?
HAFJAK: I would like to. But I don't have time.
No comments:
Post a Comment