Interviewed by Mia Beach
Editor’s note: This piece’s unique lowercase formatting is intentional.
Funny Times: tell us a little about your new book, Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies.
Stan Mack: my book is big and heavy with 275 busy non-fiction comic strips that ran weekly in the village voice from ’74 to ’95. in every strip, i take the reader to some curious, kooky, odd, unexpected goings on, each with a different cast of new yorkers.
All the dialogue in these toons is real. Really?!
the dialogue is entirely in people’s own words. i might edit for length, but i never rewrite. and my drawings show where the words were spoken and what the people looked like—or at least, what cartoon versions of them looked like.
You originally had a career as an art director for print publications, including The New York Times. From there, you changed course and began cartooning- how long until that move “made sense” to your family?
for eight years, i was an art director at the new york herald tribune and the new york times. i was the a.d. of the ny times sunday magazine when i decided to quit and go back to free-lance illustration. wherever they are, my folks are still in shock.
Your cartoons have you intentionally entering spaces outside of your comfort zone. Did you ever find a scene that felt like your kind of place? Any groups or scenes you ended up joining?
my stories came from all over town, but in the late ‘80s, i focused on the squatter movement in the east village. warehoused buildings were being illegally occupied by the homeless. i came out as a real reporter. i hung out with the squatters and the homeless advocates and did comic strips of the real people. i had a ‘beat’ for the first time.
How did you get behind the scenes in some of these more intimate circumstances. Have you always been good at being a fly on the wall or mingling with new communities?
except for the squatter movement, i usually entered situations, not as a reporter, but as a method actor. meaning I had to perfect techniques on how to stealthily make notes and sketches while seemingly just being another participant.
If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
i’m thinking two weeks in yogyakarta, indonesia. i’d stroll, stop for a steaming local dish at a food stall, soak up the culture… and, for a short time, be far from our troubled america.
