Autobiographical Conversations

by Ryan Claytor with Dr. Harry Polkinhorn

A few years ago, Ryan Claytor had an appearance at the comic store I shop at, as he was travelling around supporting his self-published series And Then One Day.  That series is an autobiographical one, and creating it led to his pondering the nature of autobiography.

This book depicts, in comic book form, Claytor's conversation with Dr. Harry Polkinhorn,  a professor at San Diego State University, who teaches classes on the personal essay.  At the time the two men met, Claytor was doing graduate work on comics, and they had a long and kind of rambling discussion on autobiography, the concept of objective versus emotional truth, and the proper way to convey personal experiences in a comic format.

Of course, the conversation is shown as a comic, and the two men move from Polkinhorn's office to a lunch spot, and then walk around the campus while they chat.  The conversation is pretty academic, but is rendered in an easily understood format, and is quite interesting.  They do discuss other cartoonists, such as Craig Thompson and David Chelsea, but most of the conversation is given over to Claytor's own approach to his work.

What has me most curious after reading this is seeing how the concepts touched on in this conversation shape Claytor's future work.  He thinks about things at a level that few cartoonists do, and so I'm interested in seeing how these notions get applied.

This is an interesting little book, which can be grabbed at Claytor's website, if it sounds like it might be your thing.

The Collected And Then One Day Vol. 1

by Ryan Claytor

I have a friend who writes and posts on Facebook a daily haiku.  More often than not, they are about food, beer, or coffee, but taken as a whole (there are over 500 of them written so far), they become a substantive chronicle of his everyday existence.  What does that have to do with this small book, which collects the first four mini-comics in Ryan Claytor's series?  Almost this entire book reminded me of my friend's haiku.

Each page in this book is a strip that represents, in some way, a day in Claytor's life.  Many of them, especially in the first half of the book, are kind of banal and quotidian, but are also very charming and affirming.  Claytor is a pretty happy guy, and even though, at the start of the book (Spring 2004) he is still living with his parents and struggling to land a full-time teaching job, he maintains a positive outlook on a life that he shares with family and friends.

Last summer I met Claytor when he came to Toronto, and I bought and read the eighth book in his series (I got this first one at TCAF this year when he returned to TO).  That issue is a book-length discussion of the role of autobiography, and it's pretty dense.  It's interesting to me to see where he has taken his original idea, of chronicling his life, and has used to explore some pretty academic areas.  Both books are quite enjoyable (for different reasons), and Claytor himself is a great guy.  You can check out his work at his website.

And Then One Day #8

by Ryan Claytor with Dr. Harry Polkinhorn

Ryan Claytor is currently undertaking a lengthy tour of some 25 places across the Eastern US and Canada, and today made an appearance at my favourite comic store. 

Claytor creates these lovely little mini-comics around the concept of autobiography.  Originally, he was telling stories about himself, but the project changed as it progressed, and as he became more interested in literary theory and how it applies to autobiography.

This comic is the second of three that basically just recount a conversation between himself and Dr. Polkinhorn, who it is safe to assume is a professor of literature (although I'm not sure where).  It is unfortunate that this issue picks up partway through the conversation, as I felt I was missing some context to what these two are talking about, but I quickly found myself interested in their discussion.  Much of what they talk about is pretty academic, but is also kept interesting by the decision that Claytor made to include whatever conversational ticks, asides, and lulls the conversation endured.  I also like that it is set on the patio of a fast-food restaurant.

This is an interesting comic.  The fact that the entire thing consists of two people talking (and, at one point, walking) makes it a graphic update of the classical Socratic dialogue approach, which I think is pretty cool.  The production values on this book are high, with nice thick cover stock and a gilded quality to the cover's background.  I noticed that all of the books he had on offer were very well made.  Claytor's approach to comics is interesting, and worth checking out.