The reason I love comics is that they DON'T move, and there is NO sound. As a creator I have to evoke those elements in the drawings and writing, and the reader has to create those elements in their own minds.
I've always used masks. I think it's a lot about the fact that masks often reveal a sort of subconscious element to a character. The mask is carved and given an expression or markings to reveal something, even though it's shielding the face. Even though it's hiding the face, it seems to reveal something underneath.
I'm interested in the parallel narrative of our fantasy lives. How the moment of 'now' that is palpably real, is surrounded by our memories, our dreams and hopes, the stories and connections that our brains make as we navigate a universe of fantasy, or unreality, or surreality. I'm keen to explore this very human experience, how our minds create our own realities, a blend of fact and interpretation of fact.
I like being able to do anything. I think that's healthy, doing anything and everything, rather than just getting completely obsessed with one particular genre or particular kind of work.
Pride in what and who you are is a strong foundation, but don't be defined by your oppression; use your anger, don't let it use you.
The inspiration is all in the script, in the text. So whatever it is, either it is a film or a book to be illustrated, anything. Everything you need to know is in the text. So the thing is trying to find right tone and voice, the right style, the right way of expressing the emotions in a story or in the location of the story, but it is all in the text.
Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely.
I love telling stories. And even in single images, I tend to have stories inside them. I've always loved film, but I was making drawings and paintings and photographs. And you put art and narrative together, and that really is comics.
The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view.
The human face is the most deeply ingrained image in our brains. It is the two dots and a dash we connect with as babies. It is the focus of our attention in our relationships with each other. The face and the human figure express all we are. Everything else - architecture, art, even landscape - we usually understand in relation to us.
Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed.
So I really love this very difficult feeling of being completely out at sea. I don't know what I'm doing, and I kind of like this feeling. So I think for the moment, I'm going to continue to try and nail film down in some sort of shape where I'm happy with it.
I'm always thinking about story, and the development of ideas or images, so with all types of media, I'm simply trying to communicate the feelings and ideas in the story or characters in the most appropriate and effective way.
I do very, very, very simple, skimpy doodles, nothing too committed. Because people tend to fall in love if they like it - if you color it in and they like it, then they want exactly those colors, even if they were just indications. You really have to do it as simple as possible so they can concentrate on the idea and composition. And then all of the energy goes into making the final piece. And the final piece can be anything - it can be a drawing, a painting, a collage - and usually, it's obvious what that should be. Usually, the idea dictates what medium you use.
I think the two jobs I dreamed of doing as a teenager were comic book artist and record cover illustrator. Maybe film director was in the mix as well, but that seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb.
Reading a good comic is a creative act. Watching a film is often a more passive experience, and since I'm interested in engaging that conversational aspect of creativity, I'm trying to find ways of achieving that in my films.
I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era.
I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world.
I've always liked making things that don't deny the medium that they're made in. If it's collage, I'm happy for it to look like that. If it's a film made with computers, I don't mind that it looks like a film made with computers as long as it still has a feeling or a mood or an atmosphere that is relevant.
But actually making pictures to look like my pictures, I've done it for so long, I'm kind of used to it now. So at the beginning of the process, designing and storyboarding everything, I sort of did all that. And then designed the characters, and doing the textures for the characters, and the texture maps to cover all the animated characters and the sets, I did those, because that's where my sort of coloring and textures get imprinted on the film.
Usually, the most difficult thing to do is photo-real stuff. Something that has to actually look like the real world, because it's just so difficult to do that. We're just so used to looking at the real world, our brains instantly see when something is not quite right.
Film gives me live actors, editing, music, sound, a huge and powerful toolbox to play with. If there is a problem for me, it is that film gives me too much. There is less room for the audience to add their side of the conversation.
When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world.
I kind of enjoy the limits. If you've got no limits, you can do absolutely anything, it's very difficult, actually. I always enjoyed working with machines like color photocopiers and letter-pressing type settings, things where the limits are very apparent. You push the machine to do something, and it tries to do its best, and it usually has wonderful qualities all of its own. Then you get a sort of dialogue going, and the limitations become qualities.
There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind.
