An Interview with Sarah Glidden

“I don’t want to say, ‘Don’t be afraid of interviewing.’ Be afraid, but do it anyway.”

Sarah Glidden by Audra McNamee

Sarah Glidden

Sarah Glidden studied painting at Boston University and began working on comics in 2006, while living at the Flux Factory artist collective in Queens, New York. Glidden was also a member of the Pizza Island studio, which brought together cartoonists Julia Wertz, Meredith Gran, Lisa Hanawalt, and others. Her first graphic novel, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, published in 2010, resulted from her Birthright Israel tour in 2007. She won the 2008 Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent, for the several mini-comics she published documenting her experiences on the tour. Since then Glidden has gone on to publish several works of comics journalism, including short features for Symbolia and The Nib, as well as the graphic novel Rolling Blackouts (2016), documenting her journalistic work interviewing refugees in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Rolling Blackouts won the 2017 Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year sponsored by Penn State University Libraries. She is currently at work on a longform piece about environmental change and devastation.

Interview with Sarah Glidden

by Mary Hubbert and Rachel Obert (additional question by Debarghya Sanyal)

https://jsma.uoregon.edu/SarahGlidden

Debarghya Sanyal: What drew you to comics journalism, and how would you characterize your work in relation to that term?

Sarah Glidden: I don’t even know if, when I started out doing comics, that was even in my mind. When I started out, I was doing more journal comics. At that time, this was like 2006, there weren’t a lot of comics out there to find, especially not comics journalism. There was definitely Joe Sacco; his stuff was out there. Definitely one of the first books I read was Palestine, and it made a huge impression on me. But besides his work, there wasn’t a lot of nonfiction comics out there that weren’t memoir, and even memoir there weren’t a ton: Persepolis was one of the first comic books that I read; Maus, which is you know more of a biography, but those are both these nonfiction comics masterpieces that were the first time that I saw, “Oh, you can make comics that are not about funny things, that are not about superheroes. They’re about serious issues, about people’s lives in the Holocaust, and Joe Sacco reporting on places like Palestine and Chechnya and all these other places.” So it wasn’t like I read those books and was like, “Oh, I can do comics journalism,” or “I can do a memoir like Marjane Satrapi.” But it did kind of push me a little bit to think about what the boundaries of comics could be.

I started out just doing journal comics about my daily life, and when that got a little bit boring (I got tired of myself), I wanted to do something bigger and that’s when the idea for my first book, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, came about. I knew about this program called Birthright Israel, which sends young Jews to Israel for a free 10-day trip. And I had never wanted to go, because I was like, “Well, this is just propaganda for the Israeli State; I’m not interested.” But then, when I started doing comics, I was like “Wait. This could be really interesting to go on this trip and make a comic about how wild it is that they’re using this program to brainwash people.” And so I went, and it was definitely more complicated than I had imagined. But it did give interesting material for a book, and after I finished that book was when I went on the trip for Rolling Blackouts, and at that point, I was more interested in moving more firmly into journalism, just because I was really into journalism. I read a lot of long form journalism; I was really fascinated by the work that my prose journalist friends were doing. That’s how I segued into comics journalism, and by now moving into not memoir but more essayistic nonfiction comics that does still have reporting in it and elements of journalism, but it’s still at the borders of journalism. Mary Hubbert: A lot of comics journalism, like half of it, is the art, and so I would ask, how did you decide on your current medium? You have a very distinct use of watercolors and inks; how did you come to focus on watercolor? SG: It’s funny because I would like to say that, “Oh watercolor and I go way back, and I just knew I wanted to color with watercolors.” But actually when I started on How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, I didn’t have a publisher. I was just making mini-comics zines, photocopied black and white comics, and selling them at conventions. And at one of those, when I had two chapters out, this editor from Vertigo comics which was under DC at the time came to the show, and bought copies of my mini comics, and was like “Oh this looks interesting,” and I was like, “Okay Batman guy sure.” And then two days later, he emailed me and wanted a meeting to see if they could publish my book. So I went in and he’s like, “Look, I really like these two chapters; I really want to see the rest of the book, and we want to publish it. I have two conditions: one that somebody else letter it (because my lettering is not great); and two that it would be in color.” I think that that was for marketing purposes. I think they knew that they could sell a color book better than a black and white one. And I always just say yes to things when people say “we want you to do this,” and I was like “sure, I can put it in color,” but really, I was like “what are they talking about? I don’t know how to color a comic.” So just kind of racking my brain like I don’t know how to do color; I tried doing computer color with photoshop, and this is before iPads and stuff, so it was really a steep learning curve for me, and I was like “this looks bad. I don’t want to do that.” And then a colleague suggested watercolor. And I was like, “okay yeah, maybe.” I don’t really have experience with watercolor, but I did study oil painting in college. I went to an art school, kind of very traditional based art school, and so it seemed like watercolor is probably pretty similar; it’s a wet medium.

So I tried it out, and I was like, “Wow! This is great. I love watercolor actually.” And that was that, like by now it feels so natural to me, it’s kind of the fun part of making the comic. The hard part is writing; the second hardest part is drawing the layouts and the pencils, then inking is like pretty easy, and then watercolor is just the fun part where you just get to turn your brain off and get in a flow. Rachel Obert: Which stories do you enjoy investigating most in your comics journalism work? SG: Well, I mean traveling is great. I missed that a lot, because I had a child, and then COVID hit, so I haven’t been really doing much travel based reportage. But I don’t know, I just really like following my curiosity. For a while now I’ve been working on a book that started just like, “Oh I’m going to do a book about how climate change works and the science behind it.” And now it’s become much more, to me, a story about our relationship to land and to how we feel, like a lot of us feel, very separated from nature and therefore separate from climate change. And so it’s really just for me, like I really just like going down these rabbit holes and learning new stuff. I pretty much only work on projects where I’m trying to find something out, and I want my reader to find it out with me. It would be really boring to do a book about something that I already know a lot about. So for me, anything that just piques my interest, and the hardest part is narrowing that down because, especially with things like climate change, you start out thinking, “Oh, this is a very specific topic.” But really everything falls under that umbrella, you can kind of go a little bit wild. But I’m just really interested in people and our relationships to each other in all kinds of ways, and our relationships to the planet, our relationships to people who are in groups that we feel like we don’t understand: relationships between beings, I guess, is my beat. MH: What would you say is your approach to conducting your research? Once you find your idea, how do you go about narrowing down your specific path that you want to research? SG: I take a long time. (laughter) And I read a lot. I really like books, so I just pick up a book and then usually in that first thing that you read they’re going to cite other people, and then you have new books that you have to read. And I do kind of get stuck in that sometimes; you can just read forever, and never start writing. So it is just taking the time to read, but also having the time to think is really important. It’s something that I miss having a small child. For the first year of his life, I was kind of a full time parent, then he went to daycare, then COVID hit, and I was a full time parent again for about nine months to a year. Now he’s in school part time, but it is hard to get that headspace back that I had before having kids. And that, for me, is important, just having time to be able to walk around and let the stuff that you’re taking in percolate and connect to other stuff that you may have picked up somewhere else. So it is hard but it’s just kind of thinking a lot, taking a lot of notes. I’m finally using Evernote now, like the rest of the world, and just writing down all the ideas I have in there. It used to be that I would just pick up whatever notebook is hanging around and write down an idea, and then I would have notebooks floating around my house. RO: You mentioned earlier how useful it is to look at other people’s perspectives and how you always want to be learning while you do research and while you investigate in any form of journalism. How do you deal with subjectivity and, like, subjective truth in your work? Especially with comics journalism there’s that interest in displaying facts and displaying things as they are, and I know that comics journalism’s approach to truth is unique in that way. So how do you approach that? SG: I really embrace it. I try to make it very clear that this is my point of view, and you know, including myself in the work is part of that. It’s like you can’t forget that this is subjective when my face is in half the panels, at least. Also for me it’s a combo of making it very clear when it’s my opinion versus when I’m quoting someone else. But also in the background, I’m really trying hard to question my assumptions and question my biases and...there is no subjectivity and there’s no objectivity in journalism of any kind—comics, documentary, prose journalism. It might feel more obvious with comics because it’s drawn, but to me that’s its strength is that with some of these other mediums you’re kind of separated from it by text or through the television. And people can forget how subjective it is and that there’s a person behind it. And to me the fact that comics is so upfront about it makes it more trustworthy for me; I never forget someone’s telling the story. But I do think that anyone who’s working in nonfiction—or really any person—needs to think about what are my biases here?, what are the things that I grew up assuming to be true?, and might those be a little bit off? or might there be just a different way of thinking about this issue, or the world? And that there’s more than one truth. So for me it’s a combo of being very open about when I have feelings about something and also doubling down on myself and asking Have I really approached this from all the angles I should?, Is there something that I’m missing? Am I being fair? And I think that’s the best you can do really.

MH: Would you say that trying to take accountability for your own biases is one of the more difficult aspects of being a comics journalist, or do you think there are other things that are? As a medium and as a vehicle for information, is there anything you feel is the most difficult aspect of being a comic journalist? SG: I mean the most difficult thing is conducting interviews for sure. I always get really nervous. No matter how long I’ve been doing it, I always feel stupid and like I’m saying “um” too much, and like the person I’m talking to thinks that I’m wasting their time. The first book I did about Israel and Palestine, that was the first time I really like understood. I was young, when I went on that trip as well, not that young, I guess, but 27—you’re probably younger. But when I went on that trip I read the New York Times, and listened to NPR and thought those are unbiased sources of news, and I can trust everything they say. Going on that trip, I realized that there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know. There’s a lot of things that I hadn’t understood or that I felt lied to about by these media organizations that I trusted, and it kind of made me understand that these are biased in their own ways. And it’s not to say that they’re evil or something, but bias is everywhere. That I could be confused about stuff and that there was no right answer that was a real emotional process for me to get over myself and to discover that I wasn’t going to ever know everything and be really sure about what I believe. But after that it was kind of freeing: finding out that I’m wrong about something or that maybe I approach something the wrong way—it always feels a little embarrassing or stings or you’re like “that sucks”— but it’s not as destabilizing as before. And now it’s kind of cool—You go through the pain of “Oh, I was wrong about something,” but then you come out the other end. It’s like “Well now, I know more than I did before.” That’s kind of one of my favorite parts is rethinking some way that you’re doing things, but yeah interviews are scary; I don’t like them. MH: Comics journalism is still a very novel form of journalism. There’s still such a small group of people who consider themselves comics journalists, and I do think it is starting to get taken a bit more seriously. How do you think comics journalism will evolve in the future? SG: There’s so much of it now, especially with The Nib and stuff. But I do think there’s a problem when you’re trying to make comics journalism that’s really short that fits into two pages, or I’m just starting work now for them on a comic that’s going to be in their magazine. It’s going to be ten pages, but two of those pages are going to be the title page, so I have eight pages left and I’m like, “I can’t fit anything to eight pages.” That’s like an introduction. To me, books are really where it’s at. A book length project, you can fit almost a New Yorker article’s worth of information. It’s still not enough but it’s getting there, and that’s why I love reading Joe’s books, like his latest, Paying the Land, he can really go into depth about a lot of different issues in a topic, and get to some like some truth there, but I feel like it’s hard to do that in short form

comics journalism, so I would love to see more outlets that allow for longer pieces and that can pay people to do longer pieces. I see a lot of young comics journalists right now, who are really amazing and have a lot of talent and voices that need to be heard, and I just want them to have the space to tell their stories.

RO: It’s really interesting to hear your thoughts on the future of a field that in many ways is still developing very rapidly. Do you think of yourself more as an artist or more as a journalist? SG: Maybe as a mediocre writer. A writer who cheats by drawing pictures to go with them, so people will read stuff. It depends on what you’re doing at the moment. Right now that I’m in this heavy research and writing phase, I feel more like a journalist or more like an essayist maybe. And the way I work is that I usually do research and writing. I write the whole script, and then I draw everything, sometimes making a lot of big changes as I go along. But you know, I do the things at separate times, and I’m a Gemini so split personality: sometimes journalist, sometimes artist, and sometimes both at the same time. I think those things really exist together. For a long time I’ve just been a mom. So I’m happy to be back working again, boy talk about something that can just erase the rest of your identity for a while. I recommend it, but it’s hard. RO: What is the most important advice that you can give to aspiring journalists or aspiring comic writers or aspiring in fiction comic art or just aspiring artists, what advice could you give? SG: I don’t want to say “Don’t be afraid of interviewing.” Be afraid, but do it anyway. That’s kind of what I did even from the very start. When I got that book deal with Vertigo, I had never done a book before. I did not know if I could do that in the amount of time that they asked me to do it, but you say yes, and then you figure it out later. And with journalism, when I started doing interviews like I did some kind of reporting in my city, just to kind of practice. I did some man on the street interviews with people near Ground Zero because I live in New York. And it was really scary just going up to random people and being like, “Excuse me, can I ask you some questions?” But you just do it anyway, and then it’s like this big rush at the end when you’re like, “I did it! I talked to a person.” And I’m very shy. I grew up very, very shy, so it’s not easy for me. So don’t try to wait until you’re not afraid anymore, just do it. Even if you’re afraid, just do it anyway. Also read a lot, and you know, try to tell the truth. That’s pretty basic but also good advice.