“Cartooning is an incredibly isolating thing on top of existing in what I think is a very isolated society,” says Paul Hornschemeier, who broke into the field with the self-published comic Sequential in 1999. “When I started off, Sequential was primarily just gag strips,” he says, “but after spending that much time by yourself over and over again, you really start to gravitate toward very sad stuff, which is not good. It’s not very beneficial to your mental health or for other people either–you don’t want to get bummed out reading all that stuff all the time.”
That sense of loneliness is all over Hornschemeier’s work, even more so since he moved to Chicago. “I think Chicago’s one of the best places to be a cartoonist, especially if you want to do a sad cartoon, because this is such a gray, depressing city,” he says. He arrived two years ago, straight out of college, precisely because he didn’t know anyone here. “It was an opportunity to start from scratch, and you don’t get many of those chances.” Plus, he says, Chicago is a city where people come to work, not to hobnob or hang out: “Dan Sinker, publisher of Punk Planet, actually said this in some interview he did–Chicago’s a really great place because it’s a place to come if you want to work. I agree with that. If you want to be seen, go to New York. People actually do work here. They stay in their studios and get stuff done. While that may not work with your social life, it’s certainly very cool to see all the stuff that comes from it.”
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In Sequential Hornschemeier experiments with time and pacing. In “The Devil’s Lonely Day,” a three-part story, for instance, the pages run out of order but still manage to convey a narrative. Each issue made gains in terms of design and production. The first was xeroxed, stapled together, and only 20 pages long; the final issue was perfect bound and 128 pages long.
“But as far as opening myself up, it’s not like I’m scared that anything bad is going to come of it, or that someone’s actually going to, hell, write me a letter,” he continues, “because most people don’t. That’s kind of the weird thing, and I think this is unique to underground comics to some degree–you can put these intensely personal stories out there and only a couple thousand people are going to see it. It’s like the least public way of opening yourself up possible.”
One of the nice things about working in a niche medium like independent comics, he notes, is that you don’t have to make sense. You don’t have to play to a test audience or sell a lot of books–no one, not even your publisher, is expecting huge numbers. You don’t have to please anyone but yourself. And if you’re the kind of person who becomes a cartoonist, even that’s a long shot.
