IvanBrunetti creates some of the sickest and funniest one panel comic strips in his book Haw that I have ever read. His deconstructed style makes it seem like a Family Circus strip gone mad. Some of my favorites include a captionless image of a man sitting naked on the floor with a gun clicking empty at his penis. On his penis is a hand puppet of his wife, who had just walked into the room. Another one has someone tilting a jay of dark liquid into their mouth and the caption says Now where is my jar of AIDS blood? His work will make you laugh out loud, as you run around showing the panels to your friends.
Buy Haw!
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that you teach part time, what do you teach?
Ivan Brunetti: Well right now Im not teaching anything. But I teach a class on writing the graphic novel.
DRE: What school?
IB: Heres the thing, I teach at the University of Chicago but I work at Columbia College so my full time job is a web designer at Columbia College. Im also going to be teaching at Columbia next spring too. So I will have three jobs.
DRE: Do they know you make these sick comics?
IB: I think people are aware of some of the things I do but not everything.
DRE: What would happen if they did know?
IB: Probably nothing at this point.
DRE: Is having a secret identity fun for you?
IB: I never thought about it like that but maybe theres an element of doing something on the sly. I do go out of my way to not tell people whats going on with me.
DRE: Youre probably the only Fantagraphics cartoonist that wants to do it on the sly and wouldnt want his books to sell a lot better.
IB: Ive never really cared if my book sold. I never even drew it to sell it. When I started drawing stuff I just assumed I would be making 25 Xeroxes and just giving it to people I know. So its very strange for me to have people read some of this stuff. Sometimes I regret putting it out there.
DRE: Is it too personal?
IB: Its personal, yeah. There is something loathsome about publishing. Its almost better people saw it after you die. I think thats the best in that situation because the minute people see it and react to it; it just starts to ruin the purity of what youre doing.
DRE: When did you develop that concept, did it come from seeing it happen to other people?
IB: Yeah, Im aware of people whose work was mostly seen after they died but just from my own experience, it tends to screw you up. Theres a lot of nonsense you have to deal with. When you put something out there, people start misunderstanding it and criticizing it.
DRE: Do you get hate mail?
IB: I actually dont get that much. But nowadays people can just go on the internet and have that little protective screen of posting under a fake name on a message board or something. So thats annoying.
DRE: What books did you do before Haw?
IB: Ive done three issues of an autobiographical book called Schizo. Its half autobiography and then the other half is whatever goes through my mind. To my mind its all biographical on some level. The last one came out seven years ago but theres going to be a new one thats coming out in early January. Unlike the other ones which are black and white comics; this ones going to be full color and oversized. Its been seven years in the making so of course its going to be disappointing to everybody.
DRE: Your work has probably changed quite a bit.
IB: Yeah, the first three books I did were really angry. This one is just sad. Before I was angry and depressed, now Im just depressed. I dont have the energy to be angry anymore. I give up, the world wins.
DRE: How old are you?
IB: I just turned 38.
DRE: Being close to 40 can be depressing.
IB: Yeah, the years go by faster and faster ever since age 30 or so. The things that I think they happened two months ago happened two years ago. Time goes much faster every year that goes by.
DRE: How far back do the cartoons in Haw go?
IB: Haw first came out two days after September 11th. The jokes that are in there I probably did in 1996 and 1997 because I remember doodling them at a job I used to have back then. So I had a big stack of doodles and jokes that I would do on my lunch hour. I took me four years to sift through them and pick my favorite ones. Then I did another gag book that just came out this summer. Its a miniature Haw so its called Hee. Its like a retarded little brother to Haw.
DRE: I think my favorite gag in Haw is probably, Now where did I put my jar of AIDS blood?
IB: I dont know where those jokes came from. I cant even explain them; they just were stream of consciousness. I would doodle them in my lunch hour or when I was on the phone. I doodle all the time so they just pop into my head. I cant even figure out what theyre about.
DRE: But they are funny. Do they always make you laugh?
IB: Yeah. I had a huge stack of them and then when Id look at them much later, like a year or two or even four or five years later, I see if they still make me chuckle. If that happens then they go in the book.
DRE: How did you first get to Fantagraphics?
IB: The first issue of Schizo was done with a different publisher and after it was published I got a nice letter from Kim Thompson, whos one of the publishers of Fantagraphics. Then I asked him if he would be willing to publish it. They reprinted the first issue and from that point on they became my publisher.
DRE: Why do you create one panel cartoons?
IB: Ive always done them. I think it was because I read those New Yorker collections in college and the 1925 to 1950 collection was the seminal book in my opinion. Ive just always liked one panel cartoons. I was collecting a lot of those gag cartoonists books from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
DRE: Are you married?
IB: Im getting remarried in the next two weeks but I dont have any kids.
DRE: Did your first wife like your comics?
IB: No, she hated them. The darker they got the more she hated them. I was definitely going into darker and darker territories.
DRE: How about the upcoming wife? Was she a fan?
IB: Yeah, she hadnt read a lot of what I had done before we met, but shed seen some of it and she didnt freak out about them. Shes been really supportive.
DRE: She must have a good sense of humor.
IB: Yeah she does. I think she understands where its coming from. Im not just a depraved pervert or something. I think theres a little more of a cerebral angle to what I do than some people notice. To me theres a philosophical undercurrent but maybe Im just crazy. Sometimes Im embarrassed that Ive put a lot of things out there, maybe I should have just kept them to myself. But then I see somebody else laugh at them.
DRE: Whats the process for writing this new issue of Schizo?
IB: Its when I can do it. What I ended up doing are one page stories in color so theyre kind of like old Sunday comics. So the whole issue is one page stories.
DRE: How many panels per page?
IB: Its about 24 panels or something like that.
DRE: Are they all connected story wise?
IB: They are but I didnt plan it that way. Its not a continuous narrative. Im printing the pages in the order I drew them. For the most part they were done as one page entities but when I put them together they told a story. Its like the last seven years of my life, one step at a time.
DRE: How does doing Schizo affect your doodling, if it does?
IB: Its interesting. My drawing has gotten closer and closer to my doodling. I tend to doodle all the time so Ive taken the way my doodles look and Ive tried to incorporate that more and more into the finished work. I think in the past they used to over construct what I did. Ive tried to find a way of drawing thats a little more natural for me, because I tend to over think. So Ive been forcing myself to simplify and try to get it to look a little more spontaneous.
DRE: Do you look the way you draw yourself?
IB: Im sadder in real life.
DRE: Your artwork is very stripped down. Have you ever done more detailed work?
IB: Not really, the first issue of Schizo has a story that where I used photographs for reference and you can really tell. So Ive done things like that but theyre just not as enjoyable for me. But more and more Ive just been trying to simplify the graphics. Its also a way of getting some work done because since Im working two or three jobs and there are other projects that Ive been involved with too. I just curated a show of about 75 cartoonists.
DRE: Where was that?
IB: That was at Columbia Colleges art and design gallery. Now Im editing a 400 page anthology of comics for Yale University Press. I had to write the introduction which Im almost done with and I had to pick a lot of different works for it.
DRE: Did you grow up in Chicago?
IB: Yeah, I grew up in and around Chicago but I was born in Italy.
DRE: Did you read many comics when you were a kid in Italy?
IB: I read Tom Mix. I copied all the Disney comics when I was a little kid. They were very popular in Europe.
DRE: What comics did you read besides Disney?
IB: Mostly there were genre type things like westerns. There were a lot of western comics. I remember one comic that was about this Davy Crockett type character. There were all these different books that were in those genres.
DRE: Do any students take your classes expecting a wild man?
IB: I dont know. There have been a few students that knew who I was and were familiar with what I did but for the most part the students arent aware that I did these really filthy horrible comics. To be honest, a lot of times students are very guarded and even if they do know something, they never let on. Its very strange. Part of the challenge is to get them to open up as people so they open up more with their work. They tend to be very guarded with their work as well.
DRE: Does doing your filthy horrible comics help you be less guarded with something like Schizo?
IB: Yeah, probably. Im generally a pretty shy person so maybe its a part of myself that Ive repressed and now I put out it out there. But it wasnt thought out, thats just what came out of my head. I cant really control it that much.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Haw!
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that you teach part time, what do you teach?
Ivan Brunetti: Well right now Im not teaching anything. But I teach a class on writing the graphic novel.
DRE: What school?
IB: Heres the thing, I teach at the University of Chicago but I work at Columbia College so my full time job is a web designer at Columbia College. Im also going to be teaching at Columbia next spring too. So I will have three jobs.
DRE: Do they know you make these sick comics?
IB: I think people are aware of some of the things I do but not everything.
DRE: What would happen if they did know?
IB: Probably nothing at this point.
DRE: Is having a secret identity fun for you?
IB: I never thought about it like that but maybe theres an element of doing something on the sly. I do go out of my way to not tell people whats going on with me.
DRE: Youre probably the only Fantagraphics cartoonist that wants to do it on the sly and wouldnt want his books to sell a lot better.
IB: Ive never really cared if my book sold. I never even drew it to sell it. When I started drawing stuff I just assumed I would be making 25 Xeroxes and just giving it to people I know. So its very strange for me to have people read some of this stuff. Sometimes I regret putting it out there.
DRE: Is it too personal?
IB: Its personal, yeah. There is something loathsome about publishing. Its almost better people saw it after you die. I think thats the best in that situation because the minute people see it and react to it; it just starts to ruin the purity of what youre doing.
DRE: When did you develop that concept, did it come from seeing it happen to other people?
IB: Yeah, Im aware of people whose work was mostly seen after they died but just from my own experience, it tends to screw you up. Theres a lot of nonsense you have to deal with. When you put something out there, people start misunderstanding it and criticizing it.
DRE: Do you get hate mail?
IB: I actually dont get that much. But nowadays people can just go on the internet and have that little protective screen of posting under a fake name on a message board or something. So thats annoying.
DRE: What books did you do before Haw?
IB: Ive done three issues of an autobiographical book called Schizo. Its half autobiography and then the other half is whatever goes through my mind. To my mind its all biographical on some level. The last one came out seven years ago but theres going to be a new one thats coming out in early January. Unlike the other ones which are black and white comics; this ones going to be full color and oversized. Its been seven years in the making so of course its going to be disappointing to everybody.
DRE: Your work has probably changed quite a bit.
IB: Yeah, the first three books I did were really angry. This one is just sad. Before I was angry and depressed, now Im just depressed. I dont have the energy to be angry anymore. I give up, the world wins.
DRE: How old are you?
IB: I just turned 38.
DRE: Being close to 40 can be depressing.
IB: Yeah, the years go by faster and faster ever since age 30 or so. The things that I think they happened two months ago happened two years ago. Time goes much faster every year that goes by.
DRE: How far back do the cartoons in Haw go?
IB: Haw first came out two days after September 11th. The jokes that are in there I probably did in 1996 and 1997 because I remember doodling them at a job I used to have back then. So I had a big stack of doodles and jokes that I would do on my lunch hour. I took me four years to sift through them and pick my favorite ones. Then I did another gag book that just came out this summer. Its a miniature Haw so its called Hee. Its like a retarded little brother to Haw.
DRE: I think my favorite gag in Haw is probably, Now where did I put my jar of AIDS blood?
IB: I dont know where those jokes came from. I cant even explain them; they just were stream of consciousness. I would doodle them in my lunch hour or when I was on the phone. I doodle all the time so they just pop into my head. I cant even figure out what theyre about.
DRE: But they are funny. Do they always make you laugh?
IB: Yeah. I had a huge stack of them and then when Id look at them much later, like a year or two or even four or five years later, I see if they still make me chuckle. If that happens then they go in the book.
DRE: How did you first get to Fantagraphics?
IB: The first issue of Schizo was done with a different publisher and after it was published I got a nice letter from Kim Thompson, whos one of the publishers of Fantagraphics. Then I asked him if he would be willing to publish it. They reprinted the first issue and from that point on they became my publisher.
DRE: Why do you create one panel cartoons?
IB: Ive always done them. I think it was because I read those New Yorker collections in college and the 1925 to 1950 collection was the seminal book in my opinion. Ive just always liked one panel cartoons. I was collecting a lot of those gag cartoonists books from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
DRE: Are you married?
IB: Im getting remarried in the next two weeks but I dont have any kids.
DRE: Did your first wife like your comics?
IB: No, she hated them. The darker they got the more she hated them. I was definitely going into darker and darker territories.
DRE: How about the upcoming wife? Was she a fan?
IB: Yeah, she hadnt read a lot of what I had done before we met, but shed seen some of it and she didnt freak out about them. Shes been really supportive.
DRE: She must have a good sense of humor.
IB: Yeah she does. I think she understands where its coming from. Im not just a depraved pervert or something. I think theres a little more of a cerebral angle to what I do than some people notice. To me theres a philosophical undercurrent but maybe Im just crazy. Sometimes Im embarrassed that Ive put a lot of things out there, maybe I should have just kept them to myself. But then I see somebody else laugh at them.
DRE: Whats the process for writing this new issue of Schizo?
IB: Its when I can do it. What I ended up doing are one page stories in color so theyre kind of like old Sunday comics. So the whole issue is one page stories.
DRE: How many panels per page?
IB: Its about 24 panels or something like that.
DRE: Are they all connected story wise?
IB: They are but I didnt plan it that way. Its not a continuous narrative. Im printing the pages in the order I drew them. For the most part they were done as one page entities but when I put them together they told a story. Its like the last seven years of my life, one step at a time.
DRE: How does doing Schizo affect your doodling, if it does?
IB: Its interesting. My drawing has gotten closer and closer to my doodling. I tend to doodle all the time so Ive taken the way my doodles look and Ive tried to incorporate that more and more into the finished work. I think in the past they used to over construct what I did. Ive tried to find a way of drawing thats a little more natural for me, because I tend to over think. So Ive been forcing myself to simplify and try to get it to look a little more spontaneous.
DRE: Do you look the way you draw yourself?
IB: Im sadder in real life.
DRE: Your artwork is very stripped down. Have you ever done more detailed work?
IB: Not really, the first issue of Schizo has a story that where I used photographs for reference and you can really tell. So Ive done things like that but theyre just not as enjoyable for me. But more and more Ive just been trying to simplify the graphics. Its also a way of getting some work done because since Im working two or three jobs and there are other projects that Ive been involved with too. I just curated a show of about 75 cartoonists.
DRE: Where was that?
IB: That was at Columbia Colleges art and design gallery. Now Im editing a 400 page anthology of comics for Yale University Press. I had to write the introduction which Im almost done with and I had to pick a lot of different works for it.
DRE: Did you grow up in Chicago?
IB: Yeah, I grew up in and around Chicago but I was born in Italy.
DRE: Did you read many comics when you were a kid in Italy?
IB: I read Tom Mix. I copied all the Disney comics when I was a little kid. They were very popular in Europe.
DRE: What comics did you read besides Disney?
IB: Mostly there were genre type things like westerns. There were a lot of western comics. I remember one comic that was about this Davy Crockett type character. There were all these different books that were in those genres.
DRE: Do any students take your classes expecting a wild man?
IB: I dont know. There have been a few students that knew who I was and were familiar with what I did but for the most part the students arent aware that I did these really filthy horrible comics. To be honest, a lot of times students are very guarded and even if they do know something, they never let on. Its very strange. Part of the challenge is to get them to open up as people so they open up more with their work. They tend to be very guarded with their work as well.
DRE: Does doing your filthy horrible comics help you be less guarded with something like Schizo?
IB: Yeah, probably. Im generally a pretty shy person so maybe its a part of myself that Ive repressed and now I put out it out there. But it wasnt thought out, thats just what came out of my head. I cant really control it that much.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
courtneyriot:
Ivan Brunetti creates some of the sickest and funniest one panel comic strips in his book Haw that I have ever read. His deconstructed style makes it seem like a Family Circus strip gone mad. Some of my favorites include a captionless image of a man...
northsider:
I can't believe nobody else has commented on this article. If you are deeply depressed and terminally bitter, the best thing you can do for yourself is to find some of this guy's work. It won't make you feel any better, but you *will* know that you're not the only person out there who is just as far beyond the point of no return. In addition to that, the art work itself is wonderful; very spare, clean lines, elegant. This guy deserves a wider audience, but having met the man once, I'm quite positive attention is the last thing he wants.