Filmshi: I'm calling you in Oakland. How long have you called Oakland home?

Clowes: Let's see, it has been 6 years now.

Filmshi: Outside of the rigueur of where we live and all that matter, I wanted to ask you some questions about ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL and your work previous to that with Terry Zwigoff. Clichés and stereotypes are comic elements that are really important to the world of Strathmore and to the Art World depicted in the film. Do you feel they're in the story because they're parody or because they're truth?

Clowes: One of the main interests in the story was that I found people in art school tend to create themselves into living stereotypes. They migrate in that direction. It occurred to me one day that everybody in art school - their identity in high school was the "weirdo artist" and once they went to art school - was in a conglomerate of the class "weirdo artist" so all of the sudden, everybody's identity was somehow the same thing. At that point everybody migrated into a much more specific version of what their perceived identity was and you'd see people sort of trying out new personas every week. One week they'd be dressed like a dandy from the ‘30's and the next week they're wearing leather chaps and they're like a Village People cowboy or something. It's really interesting to see that kind of thing going on. And, of course, once you get to know them you realize most of them weren't nearly as interesting as their created persona.

Filmshi: Something that's interesting to me about your characters is that they follow some rules, which I don't think this is a bad thing at all. When I think of Enid (GHOST WORLD) or Jerome, your protagonists seem to define themselves by their relationships with a mainstream.

Clowes: That's one of the personal things I deal with on a daily basis. I'm an artist trying to do work that is both personal and satisfying to myself and then also trying to do things that are published and seen by an audience or made into movies. This is something I always have to navigate within myself. How far do I go to just please an audience when I'm no longer pleasing myself, or do I do that at all? Do I try to only please myself even though I know an audience won't like it? I think that comes out in all my characters.

Filmshi: This comes out in your storylines too; it's not just the struggle between pleasing yourself and fitting in (or not for that matter) with the mainstream. I read an interview you did at Superherohype.com with Ed Douglas. You talked about this struggle of yours balancing the task of making something accessible to an audience while also making it meaningful to you.

Clowes: And to me there's something interesting about what makes something accessible. Can you make something that seems accessible -and really isn't accessible - accessible? Or can you make something that doesn't seem accessible accessible? I like kind ofplaying around with those notions. People have these preconceived ideas about what it is and maybe it's not exactly what they think it is.

Filmshi: Tell me about how awkwardness fits into this. It's a quality your work embraces.

(Clowes scoffs)

Filmshi: Is that an evil question?

Clowes: I find awkwardness to be dramatically interesting, I guess. I've felt extremely awkward my entire life and I've always sort of made dramatic moments in my own life out of the tiniest little things that to most people wouldn't be tension filled at all. I've often had experiences just making a doctor's appointment on the phone and it has this great dramatic import for me and so it's something that I've always gravitated towards as good material. I know a lot of people who don't respond to that in their daily lives and find it just odd that anyone would have found these little awkward moments interesting.

Filmshi: It's funny, when you describe these moments as drama; awkwardness takes upon itself a different value. It's not just awkwardness it's importance too.

Clowes: It's part of the language in which we all communicate. Everything we do seems somewhat awkward to me. This interview for example.

Filmshi: Thanks for that.

Clowes: No personal reflection, it's always weird to talk about the film and "what you were thinking". As an artist it's something I don't necessarily put into words and then when all the sudden I'm doing these interviews I have to think about what it was I was actually doing. Often it's stuff that - while you can put part of it into words, you can't put the whole thing into words - or why do it as a work of art instead of as an essay on your blog.

Filmshi: That's kind of the beautiful thing about it; you're never quite getting at it.

Clowes: If you do it's no longer interesting.

Filmshi: I have something of a self-conscious take on your characters and their relationships with the mainstream that we brought up a bit before. It seems to me that these characters have a small city versus big city thing going on. I don't know how true that is which is part of the reason I asked how long you've lived in Oakland.

Clowes: It's funny that people are always referring to my work as "tales about small town characters." I did a book called ICE HAVEN, and really, of all my work that's the only one that's supposed to be in a small town. Everything else is really supposed to be in some kind of undefined urban area. In GHOST WORLD it's supposed to be a west coast Metropolis like either L.A. or Oakland or someplace like that. Where most of my work is really set in some version of Chicago or New York, and it's really not all about small town America. I've never really lived in a small town and have spent very little time in small towns. I find it odd that I'm identified with that. My work is also sometimes called "suburban" and I've never lived in a suburb either. I've only ever lived in urban areas.

Filmshi: About your work with Zwigoff: one of the traits I identify as consistent in his films is that he starts off quirky and self-parodical but by the end of the second act they film takes a dark turn.

Clowes: That's something both he and I gravitate towards. It seems like sort of a natural progression to me, sort of like, you know if you analyze any humor deeply enough, it becomes troubling and I think that's sort of the process of these two films.

Filmshi: I'm covering THE TREASURES OF LONG GONE JOHN for DocFest next week and in my research I found an Enid doll with a cat helmet accessory.

Clowes: Is that a film? Has that already been made?

Filmshi: It has! I was going to ask you if you were going to come. It's playing at the Roxie on Friday.

Clowes: Oh, our film opens Friday, so I can't. I was actually asked to be in that film but I had so little connection to Long Gone John -I'd only met him twice - and I thought that's retarded for me to pontificate about a guy who I barely know at all. But I'm really curious to see the film. He's a really interesting guy!

Filmshi: Seems that way. I should mention that it isn't just one Enid doll I found -

Clowes: There's several. His is the only American one. The rest are Japanese.

Filmshi: So, can we expect a Jerome Platz doll?

Clowes: (Giggle) I don't think so. This picture is released by Sony and they're very careful about their merchandise. I think it would be too much red tape to cut through to do something like that.

Filmshi: Something that's kind of funny thematically - we have a lot of things going on with both of your films between acceptance, self-acceptance, rejection, etc. And we've talked about that some...GHOST WORLD was nominated for an Oscar for best-adapted screenplay. Other countries tend to think little of their cinema awards but the US still banks on them for box office attention. What were your feelings about the nomination?

Clowes: To me it was just funny. It was absurd. It was sort of beyond even commenting on. I don't put a lot of faith in awards, I don't' really have a lot of respect for any awards. I don't really believe in that kind of competition. I think with art it's an absurd thing - all movies are so different in their attempts, to try to judge them all together like that just makes no sense to me, but that being said it was a really interesting experience and it was something that's been very useful to me like if I ever want to get a meeting with somebody or if I want to do something with movies, to be able to say that it's really very useful. So it's great in that regard but it sort of unfortunately came at a time when the movie was out of theatres and it wasn't yet on DVD and it didn't really do us any good at all, it was sort of unfortunate.

Filmshi: Tell me about your plans for more film collaborations. I heard something about Backyard Resistance -

Clowes: That I'm actually almost done with. They're waiting ‘til the script is done to give it to any directors. That one, I don't know who will be involved but they had a lot of interesting ideas for that.

Filmshi: The concept itself is so marvelous! I'd read that you found the RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK film very moving. For those who haven't heard of the story of Backyard Resistance, it's about a group of kids who began re-filming RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK when they were 12 and - how would you put that?

Clowes: They remade the film shot for shot, every single set up is replicated in some way and it's not a joke, they didn't do it in a stupid way, they did it in an amazingly detailed, unfathomably perfect kind of way. I got really attached to the story. When I started with it I just found it amusing but the more I got into it the more I found it moving and felt that it was something more than just a human interest story.

Filmshi: How are you approaching that? Are you looking at this story like these are kids coming of age while they're doing something they care about?

Clowes: That's sort of the basic story; these kids kind of filmed their adolescence. They didn't really live their puberty they kind of created it in this artificial filmic world. There's so much to the story, it's really dense and interesting and the guys themselves are among the few people I've ever met that I would want to glamorize on film. They're really great people and I've really grown to like them as adults.

Filmshi: This seems a little heavy but your film really begs it: Is art a sham?

Clowes: I think No. I think we must try hard to not make it a sham. There are many traps and pitfalls and it's a minefield but I think it's essential that any person who hopes to be an artist has to navigate it as best he can.

Filmshi: Are there any films that you were attracted to or inspired by when you did this work?
Clowes: I go through phases where I get sort of addicted to a certain film and it tends to be the same 10-15 films in cycles. One film I think resonates with this film is Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM. I think that's perhaps the best script ever written, but it's a movie that on the first viewing  - it's kind of hard to get what's going on. The more you read it the more it comes together and resonates. I love everything about that film

Filmshi: Well that's a beautiful parallel, that film is credited with Michael Powell's demise. It's known for ruining his career. Called the "British Psycho" and things like that, the "American Psycho" seemed to be fine with everyone.

Clowes: Hitchcock had that cache of being a thriller guy and so that's an extension of his work but Powell did these funny comedies and delightful fantasies and this was such a departure for him. It really is a hard to take film in many ways. The thing I love about it is that actor Karl Bohm, the main character, has this German accent, and yet the whole film is about how he grew up in this specific house in England and his father has a very thick English accent and yet it somehow works perfectly that he has a German accent. There's some subtext that's implied by that that's so brilliant.

Filmshi: Like saying "I'm closer to Freud than I am to my father"

Clowes: It implies a lot about his mother, his exhalation from those people living in his house. I think it was thought of as a very odd choice by the director but I can't think of a better choice. I guess he originally wanted Lawrence Harvey, which would have been interesting but I don't think as good.

Filmshi: He was more suited for MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE by that point.

Clowes: He projects a little too much of the seething quality of the characters whereas Karl Bohm is so innocent and likeable as he's murdering -

Filmshi: Yeah, it's important to still be attractive while you're killing prostitutes! Thank you so much for talking to me today, Daniel!

Clowes: Thank you, they were interesting questions.

Filmshi: I thought it was awkward...In retrospect that's a really good compliment coming from you.

Clowes: I only mean doing an interview in general is awkward. There's nothing specific to this interview that's awkward.

Filmshi: Don't steal my thunder!

Clowes: This was the most awkward interview.

Filmshi: Thank you, you know exactly what to say! Brighten my day. I hope to meet you someday what with us being so geographically close. And I can't wait to see Backyard Resistance

Clowes: That's not actually the title. It doesn't have a title.

Filmshi: No title?

Clowes: I'm not good with titles, either I come up with the title in 10 seconds and that's the title or I can never think of a title so I actually said to the guy, "look, you let the marketing department come up with a title", I just couldn't come up with anything that doesn't sound ridiculous. Really, it's a tough title to come up with because you need to get across RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK without making it sound like the prequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, or something. If you think of something let me know.

Filmshi: If I think of something I will.

Clowes: We should have a contest online.

Filmshi: That's a damn good idea! Hey, is there some kind of metaphor between the idea of the Ark and puberty?

Clowes: Oh yeah, it's there but put that into something that puts that across. I don't know what "Backyard Resistance" means. That was one of the things that made us all scratch our heads, like "who came up with this?"

Filmshi: Well, for listeners of shicast, post your ideas on our blog! Thank you so much, Daniel!

Clowes: You too, take care.