Illinois native and underground comic book artist, Jessica Abel took a big chance when she moved down to Mexico for two years. The Fantagraphics alum hung with journalist expats in the Mexican art scene for two years and even though her adventures are long and storied she created an original story set in Mexico for the book La Perdida. It is about Carla, an American estranged from her Mexican father who heads to Mexico City to "find herself." She crashes with a former fling, Harry, who has been drinking his way through the capital in the great tradition of his heroes. After Carla ends her time with Harry she ends up hanging out with some new friends who are quite unsavory when it comes to politics.
Buy La Perdida
Daniel Robert Epstein: What was the inspiration for La Perdida?
Jessica Abel: I lived in Mexico for two years between 1998 and 2000.
DRE: So is this like semi-autobiographical?
JA: No, thank God.
DRE: Why did you go down there?
JA: Just to have a broadening experience. To live somewhere outside the United States and see what that was like.
DRE: How did that work out for you?
JA: It worked out really well. It was really an excellent experience and did exactly what it was supposed to do. It made me think all sorts of new things and learn all kinds of new things and meet lots of new friends. It was an extremely good idea.
DRE: Did you meet any revolutionary types down there?
JA: Not really. I made it all up. What made me think of this particular story was my experiences of knowing lots of people who were living there. I just found the different ways the people engaged or didnt with the society that they were living in really interesting. I saw that right from the very beginning because when I arrived I didnt know how to speak Spanish and our friends were, some Mexican intellectuals and a bunch of expat journalists. When I saw the way that they lived it was just really interesting to me that there were people who had Mexican friends in their own lives but whenever we would get together in a group it was almost exclusively expat journalists. Not all Americans but there just werent a big mix in the parties and in the social scene. I was with my boyfriend who is now my husband and he spoke Spanish and I learned Spanish so we were immediately starting to get involved in the Mexican arty intellectual scene and stayed friends with those people.
DRE: So it interested you to come up with a story of someone getting involved with many of the crazy things that happen there?
JA: It was more than that, but that was one of the things that led me to think about those kinds of things. People have a lot of ideas about what its going to be like and what people are like and what theyre going to get out of something. I think that goes for whether youre an expat in Mexico or you move to a new town in the United States. People have preconceptions and I find that interesting. The other issue is the way people communicate or how they fail to communicate, the things they assume about each other and how that deforms their behavior, thats something Ive been interested in for a long time in my work.
DRE: This book is so radically different from your previous work.
JA: Yeah I wanted to shake myself up and try something more challenging in length and complexity. I wanted to shake my readers up a little bit and let them know they didnt know who I was necessarily. That every time they got a book from me, they wouldnt know what to expect. I think that it is important for an artist to be able to have that latitude.
DRE: Did you know from the beginning that this book would go to an audience beyond comic books?
JA: I assumed so. I think that my earlier work does get seen a little bit that way too because its in book form and sold in bookstores and stuff. I didnt see it as such a radical departure from what Id done before.
DRE: How did your husbands experience with you in Mexico shape the book?
JA: Im not sure it did. It did in a way, in a sense that I was able to become more connected to the place and the people faster because he spoke Spanish when we arrived. Together the two of us were braver than we would have been alone. We went more places and met more people than we might have done alone. That affected my experience a lot and what it meant was that my experience was really positive. It was a really good, really deep experience of being there and it might not have been that way.
DRE: Was the book ever going to be autobiographical?
JA: No, I was never interested in doing that. I did not have a book in mind when I went. It didnt even occur to me that I was going to be doing a book of this scale certainly. I thought Id do a story or two but when I arrived in Mexico for the first year I was still doing Artbabe. It just got increasingly weird to me to be writing stories about characters who lived in Chicago as I was plunging into all these new experiences with these new people. So I wanted to stop doing that and think about the things I was experiencing and the thoughts that I was having about Americans in the world so thats how I changed gears. But I didnt start drawing it until I got back to New York.
DRE: Were you ever a very political person?
JA: No.
DRE: Is it just impossible to avoid politics when youre hanging out with those kinds of people?
JA: Actually its completely possible. We didnt talk about politics at all really. There were little elements that I drew from people that I knew but most of the people that I know down there, both Mexican and expat were nothing like the characters in the book. A character like Sylvia is like people that I knew.
DRE: It seemed like you were really making a comment on America with a character like Harry, who was a wealthy young American living there.
JA: Harry has the arrogance of America. That I can come through here and take what I want out of this and it doesnt have to touch me. I think thats a very American attitude that somehow you can be immune.
DRE: When did you know this was going to go to Pantheon?
JA: Somewhere around between the fourth and the fifth issue. I was really happy. I feel like its a really good home for the book.
DRE: Are you still going to do serialized work?
JA: Maybe. I dont know what my next projects going to be.
DRE: What is the process for finding out what your next book is?
JA: Its organic, but at the moment Im working on a bunch of other projects that are not comic books. So I dont have room in my brain to be thinking about the next comic thing Im going to do.
DRE: What are the other projects?
JA: I wrote a script and Im working on working with the artist on a comic called Life Sucks and I am writing a textbook with Matt about how to make comics.
DRE: What approach does the textbook take?
JA: Its a very hands on book. Its not a how-to book. It is intended for classroom use but also for individual use. But it is based on a classroom approach where you have a lesson, you have an essay about some aspect or something and then you have examples, exercises and homework.
DRE: Was the textbook your idea or the companys?
JA: We teach at The School of Visual Arts so it came out of that.
DRE: Will you be using it in your class?
JA: Somewhat. We probably have a more flexible approach. Because we teach in a cartooning program we dont have to go through all aspects of comics in one class. We can break it down more.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy La Perdida
Daniel Robert Epstein: What was the inspiration for La Perdida?
Jessica Abel: I lived in Mexico for two years between 1998 and 2000.
DRE: So is this like semi-autobiographical?
JA: No, thank God.
DRE: Why did you go down there?
JA: Just to have a broadening experience. To live somewhere outside the United States and see what that was like.
DRE: How did that work out for you?
JA: It worked out really well. It was really an excellent experience and did exactly what it was supposed to do. It made me think all sorts of new things and learn all kinds of new things and meet lots of new friends. It was an extremely good idea.
DRE: Did you meet any revolutionary types down there?
JA: Not really. I made it all up. What made me think of this particular story was my experiences of knowing lots of people who were living there. I just found the different ways the people engaged or didnt with the society that they were living in really interesting. I saw that right from the very beginning because when I arrived I didnt know how to speak Spanish and our friends were, some Mexican intellectuals and a bunch of expat journalists. When I saw the way that they lived it was just really interesting to me that there were people who had Mexican friends in their own lives but whenever we would get together in a group it was almost exclusively expat journalists. Not all Americans but there just werent a big mix in the parties and in the social scene. I was with my boyfriend who is now my husband and he spoke Spanish and I learned Spanish so we were immediately starting to get involved in the Mexican arty intellectual scene and stayed friends with those people.
DRE: So it interested you to come up with a story of someone getting involved with many of the crazy things that happen there?
JA: It was more than that, but that was one of the things that led me to think about those kinds of things. People have a lot of ideas about what its going to be like and what people are like and what theyre going to get out of something. I think that goes for whether youre an expat in Mexico or you move to a new town in the United States. People have preconceptions and I find that interesting. The other issue is the way people communicate or how they fail to communicate, the things they assume about each other and how that deforms their behavior, thats something Ive been interested in for a long time in my work.
DRE: This book is so radically different from your previous work.
JA: Yeah I wanted to shake myself up and try something more challenging in length and complexity. I wanted to shake my readers up a little bit and let them know they didnt know who I was necessarily. That every time they got a book from me, they wouldnt know what to expect. I think that it is important for an artist to be able to have that latitude.
DRE: Did you know from the beginning that this book would go to an audience beyond comic books?
JA: I assumed so. I think that my earlier work does get seen a little bit that way too because its in book form and sold in bookstores and stuff. I didnt see it as such a radical departure from what Id done before.
DRE: How did your husbands experience with you in Mexico shape the book?
JA: Im not sure it did. It did in a way, in a sense that I was able to become more connected to the place and the people faster because he spoke Spanish when we arrived. Together the two of us were braver than we would have been alone. We went more places and met more people than we might have done alone. That affected my experience a lot and what it meant was that my experience was really positive. It was a really good, really deep experience of being there and it might not have been that way.
DRE: Was the book ever going to be autobiographical?
JA: No, I was never interested in doing that. I did not have a book in mind when I went. It didnt even occur to me that I was going to be doing a book of this scale certainly. I thought Id do a story or two but when I arrived in Mexico for the first year I was still doing Artbabe. It just got increasingly weird to me to be writing stories about characters who lived in Chicago as I was plunging into all these new experiences with these new people. So I wanted to stop doing that and think about the things I was experiencing and the thoughts that I was having about Americans in the world so thats how I changed gears. But I didnt start drawing it until I got back to New York.
DRE: Were you ever a very political person?
JA: No.
DRE: Is it just impossible to avoid politics when youre hanging out with those kinds of people?
JA: Actually its completely possible. We didnt talk about politics at all really. There were little elements that I drew from people that I knew but most of the people that I know down there, both Mexican and expat were nothing like the characters in the book. A character like Sylvia is like people that I knew.
DRE: It seemed like you were really making a comment on America with a character like Harry, who was a wealthy young American living there.
JA: Harry has the arrogance of America. That I can come through here and take what I want out of this and it doesnt have to touch me. I think thats a very American attitude that somehow you can be immune.
DRE: When did you know this was going to go to Pantheon?
JA: Somewhere around between the fourth and the fifth issue. I was really happy. I feel like its a really good home for the book.
DRE: Are you still going to do serialized work?
JA: Maybe. I dont know what my next projects going to be.
DRE: What is the process for finding out what your next book is?
JA: Its organic, but at the moment Im working on a bunch of other projects that are not comic books. So I dont have room in my brain to be thinking about the next comic thing Im going to do.
DRE: What are the other projects?
JA: I wrote a script and Im working on working with the artist on a comic called Life Sucks and I am writing a textbook with Matt about how to make comics.
DRE: What approach does the textbook take?
JA: Its a very hands on book. Its not a how-to book. It is intended for classroom use but also for individual use. But it is based on a classroom approach where you have a lesson, you have an essay about some aspect or something and then you have examples, exercises and homework.
DRE: Was the textbook your idea or the companys?
JA: We teach at The School of Visual Arts so it came out of that.
DRE: Will you be using it in your class?
JA: Somewhat. We probably have a more flexible approach. Because we teach in a cartooning program we dont have to go through all aspects of comics in one class. We can break it down more.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
bigwobbles:
La Perdida is an awsome story and Art babe kicks ass too.
hipsterdad:
La Perdida is a wonderful story, and I was incredibly impressed by how the plot unfolds so naturally and believably. I really felt for Carla's situation. Thanks for the interview!