I try to employ a different strategy for each story. Often, I'll have a specific look in mind before I even have the story to go with it. I'm not so much interested in forcing the issue of reader identification through various graphic tricks. I'm more interested in creating specific characters that resonate with my own particular inner struggles.
Daniel ClowesIt's embarrassing to be involved in the same business as the mainstream comic thing. It's still very embarrassing to tell other adults that I draw comic books - their instant, preconceived notions of what that means.
Daniel ClowesIf you think about it enough to have a really articulate answer, you're not doing it right. That's how I feel about art. If your thought process could take you to knowing exactly what you're doing and why, there would be no point in making the art. It would become like propaganda. It's more nebulous than that.
Daniel ClowesIt's a challenge to express real life in dramatic terms. In an entirely "made-up" story, you are sometimes overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities.
Daniel ClowesSomething I always wanted to do, to capture that later half of the '70s. It's like the early half of the '70s is still the '60s, in that there's still kind of a playfulness and inventiveness in terms of design and the things that were going on in the culture. The second half, it got much more commodified. It's possibly the ugliest era of architecture and clothes and design in the entire 20th century, from 1975 to '81 or '82.
Daniel Clowes