Winston interviews Evan Munday
Publicist-Illustrator Extraordinaire Evan Munday tells Winston about the shenanigans it takes to make people notice such literary gems as Jon Paul Fiorentino’s Stripmalling, which TINARS launches on March 2 at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom.
W: Stripmalling provides an incisive portrait of misspent youth. Did you have to do a lot of research to figure out how to depict it visually?
E: I probably should have, as much of my youth was spent perfecting nerd-dom at school and in my basement at home. I voluntarily took classes like physics and calculus, joined the school band and painted sets for high school drama productions. I think the one night I broke curfew, my parents were waiting for me at the door as I snuck in, and that scared me away from any youthful misadventures. I did, however, watch a lot of television. And television loves programs about misspent youth.
W: Have you ever worked for a faceless, giant corporation? If so, did you have as much fun as the non-unionized “Hypermart” employees do in the book?
E: I'm the publicist at Coach House Books, the Toronto-based literary press which, as you know, currently owns Viacom. But they're very friendly and down-to-earth there. Not at all what you might expect from a global corporate giant. I also worked for a short while at a chain store -- one of Pages' rivals in the book business. No smock, but I did wear a vest, and some of the managers were very insistent on making hourly sales quotas. But one of those same managers also sounded a lot like Tricky when he talked. So it was kind of cool.
W: The “Dora Reports” in the book contradict those by her ex, Jonny, about his “pre-emptive mid-life crisis” For instance, she starts one with the line, “That obviously never happened.” Should readers trust one voice more than the other? Or should we take a slice of both?
E: I would trust anything that the back cover copy says.
As far as the narrators go, I think you have to realize where the narrators are coming from, why they are telling you certain things, not telling you other things. Somewhere in-between, I think you'll find some truth. It's like a Venn Diagram of memory. And truthfully, I think more novels should use the Venn Diagram as a structural frame for their narratives. What's the big deal with arcs? Overlapping circles, my friends. Overlapping circles.
W: Where do you stand on that perennial conundrum: rock, paper, or scissors?
E: Scissors. Then, after the inevitable stalemate, paper. It's almost foolproof.
W: Which one trend in the world of graphic novels would you like to put on ice?
E: I think I'd like the trend of graphic novels to be put on ice, in general. Don't get me wrong. I love comics. But it's become a huge trend in book publishing. Everyone wants to get into graphic novels, and as a result, there's a lot of garbage that's being published. And this is especially true of the traditional trade publishing houses. There are a lot of books being green-lighted for their content alone. Everyone wants to publish the next Maus or Louis Riel, and there are a lot of well-meaning stories being told in sequential art by people who don't know how to tell stories in sequential art. And the result is usually awful. There are also a lot of graphic novel memoirs that don't need to exist. For every Fun Home, there are about a dozen really boring, way-too-personal comic autobiographies.
As far as the traditional comic books go (the ones you get in 22 pages every month or so), I'd really like for writers to stay on books for longer than 6 or 8 issues. When I was growing up, writers would work on comic book series for years and years. Now you're lucky if you make it through a few months without the creative team entirely changing.
But I also realize I'm an aging comic nerd who yearns for the glory days. ('In my day, we didn't need to kill Captain America to make a good story.')
W: Who is your favourite Sesame Street character? Why?
E: Guy Smiley. He's a sharp dresser.
W: Do you start the process of creating illustrations based on themes or do you wait for the text?
E: For Stripmalling, I waited until Jon Paul has sent me scripts. He wrote out screenplay-style text for me to work from, and that was the best way for me to work from someone else's words and ideas. Though I asked for some general information about how characters should look before receiving the final script.
When I'm doing my own stuff (writing and drawing comics by my lonesome), I tend to do stuff the 'Marvel way.' Pioneered by Stan 'The Man' Lee, that involves making up a really basic script, drawing thumbnails and layouts based on that, then doing a full script and dialogue after the drawings have already been planned out.
W: What books are currently on your bedside table?
E: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno
The Night is a Mouth by Lisa Foad
Expressway by Sina Queyras (yes! Coach House plug!)
And because I'm a nerd, there are a lot of comic books on that table, too. Actually, it's a dresser, and there are stacks of comic books. Some highlights:
Gotham Central: Dead Robin by Greg Rucka and Kano (It's like Law & Order, but in Gotham City!)
Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Countless New Teen Titans issues (Wolfman & Perez era)
W: Why did you agree to spend a weekend sitting in the main window at Pages Books, creating a mural? Did you lose a bet?
E: I don't bet, as it goes against my Mormon upbringing. The weekend in the window was more a test of endurance, which I like. Television marathons, Ironman competitions, lent -- all kinds of awesome.
And, in my day job as a book publicist, I've learned that publishers and authors -- bookstores, too -- often have to work like demon- packmules to get people to pay attention to good books. The window stunt is just one part of that.
W: What five songs would you put on a mix-tape soundtrack for the “Evan Munday” character in Stripmalling?
1) Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey
2) Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
3) Desperate but not Serious - Adam Ant
4) Bratcore - VCR
5) Old Friend - Rancid
