Dean Giagni – An Xperience Interview

Dean Giagni – An Xperience Interview 0 by Liam Sweeny.

We reached out to artist and writer Dean Giagni about his new book Main Character Syndrome: Diary Entries 1971-2001 First Friends, First Kiss, First Love, First Death, First Memories from the Last Century. This is what he had to say.

RRX: Main Character Syndrome: Diary Entries 1971-2001 First Friends, First Kiss, First Love, First Death, First Memories from the Last Century, “an illustrated historical journal” of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. That sounds pretty interesting. Tell us about it. How did it come together?

DG: My usual artistic output was intellectual, idea driven, not personal in any way but I’ve had a lot of funny, weird, sad things happen to me in my life and I can tell a good story using those emotional elements. I initially thought the stories or pages were going to be a series of individual drawings. Just an image and a handwritten story below it. I was looking at the work of Raymond Pettibon. I had always done singular evocative images, frozen moments in time but when I added the words I saw that one individual page or image wasn’t going to be enough. Each one suggested the next, I had many stories from different stages of life, each story supported the next so I said I’ll try for a book.

RRX: When you’re putting illustration and storytelling together, does one idea come first? Does the art ever lead? Or does it always lead?

This is the first time I’ve attempted a book so this is really the first time the words really lead the way the majority of time. There’s a lot of visual imagery in the writing, that’s something I’m really proud of, that I was able to translate my eye and imagination into words. The art that supports each story really came from me reading my own finished text.

RRX: When you write a book, you always have that paragraph that was so decadent you almost didn’t leave it in there. That “darling” bit. What was that for this book?

DG: As an experienced artist I came to terms with “killing your darlings” a long time ago. I had a good group of artist friends in the Philly art scene and we were very critical of each other. I do believe it’s a good thing to do. If something is impeding everything else from flowing, I get rid of it. I’ll usually save it to make myself feel better but being ruthless about editing is a big thing for me as a visual artist too. There are parts of the book that were written in the very beginning where my style was different after a year of constant writing. A little more raw and simple but I didn’t torture myself over it, I polished it up and moved on.

RRX: Do you think it’s harder to sell as an illustrated storyteller rather than as, say, a novelist? Is it easier?

DG: Being my first effort I don’t know. I suspect 20 years ago it was more difficult to sell something with a comic book influence but this is the 21^st century. Adults now, grew up with anime, mange and Japanese culture. Theres a category in Japan, Korea, Europe called the “light novel” combining pages of text, illustrations and some traditional comic panel style. I’ve seen so many adults reading manga and anime apps on the street and graphic fine art is well established in everyday culture with books like Maus, Ghost World, Palestine and Love and Rockets.

RRX: How long did it take you to put Main Character Syndrome together? Was it smooth sailing all the way, or was it rocky? Any rogue waves?

DG: It took me 2 years to really figure out the notes and sketches for the whole thing. I wrote little chunks, bullet points, a few sketches until I had what I thought was the outline of the full book then I dug into the empty spaces between the notes to fill it in. First there was three solid months of writing, followed by three months of drawing. Then I stopped to assess if it was looking like what I was intending and how much I had. Then the next six months I worked on both writing and drawing together as it became time to combine the two and design the pages. My biggest problem was the font. I wanted the book to look hand lettered but didn’t want to letter 32, 900 words so I created a custom font of my handwriting. Great idea, right? Wrong. Because my handwriting is not designed for a font, the kerning or spacing between the letters and words was all off so I basically hand corrected almost every word myself. I would estimate it took 6-8 weeks of 8-10 hour days. My eyes and my neck were on fire the whole time!

RRX: If Main Character Syndrome is made into a movie, how would you like it to go? Big Production? Indie? DIY?

DG: TV shows are usually the best format for book adaptations, I think. There’s more time to get into the nuance that even a two hour plus movie just can’t. In the rear cover blurb John Gray said it reminds him of The Wonder Years and my other author friend says it’s perfect Gen X material. Happy Days and The 70’s Show explore similar nostalgia. Stories of people growing up have a universal quality that my readers have really responded to.

Main Character Syndrome: Diary Entries 1971-2001 First Friends, First Kiss, First Love, First Death, First Memories from the Last Century can be purchased here.

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