An Interview with David Cowen and Gabriel Wexler
This was a living, evolving, obsessive creative process...
I met Dave Cowen online when he reached out for an interview about Unfiltered: A Cancer Year Diary for his Substack, SerioComics. Dave provided a thoughtful analysis of that graphic memoir and told me that he was working on his graphic novel, Should We Buy A Gun? Recently released, this comic tackles the American gun debate, via a collaboration between Dave (a left-wing scriptwriter) and Gabriel Wexter (a right-wing cartoonist). Dave and Gabriel answer a few questions for us this month, about making comics and about collaboration.
Describe your comics journey—how did you get into making comics?
The moment I realized Should We Buy A Gun? had to be a graphic novel, was the one I stopped caring Hollywood gatekeepers didn’t want it as a screenplay. Maybe it was too political, too personal, too much. But I knew this story wasn’t something I could just let sit as a PDF. First, I tried adapting it into a novel…but it wasn’t enough. The story needed images, movement, cinema on the page. That’s when I turned to comics…I grew up obsessed with Calvin & Hobbes, but later, I fell in love with Harvey Pekar’s and Alison Bechdel’s memoirs, and I became fascinated by how Jodorowsky and Mœbius turned the ruins of their failed Dune movie into The Incal comics…transforming utter failure it into something even better. That reinvention spoke to me…I studied a lot of contemporary graphic lit, but at the heart, Should We Buy A Gun? was driven by a relentless need to share a serious yet fun story about one of the biggest topics of our time to help others and myself with it…
How did you develop your voice in the comics medium? How did your background in screenwriting translate into this work?
I went to USC for an MFA in Screenwriting. When I read Jen Wang’s The Prince and The Dressmaker it was one of the first graphic books I loved that had a very traditionally cinematic story structure. So I started to think of Should We Buy A Gun? as a kind of moviebook…It could still have discursive book elements, dialogue that might feel too much in a movie, sequences that might be cut as well, but it would be experienced at a pace and immediacy that enthralls your consciousness like cinema…When I was in film school, a professor once told me that I was too smart for the movies, but I joked that I was too dumb for books. So perhaps these graphic novels are the perfect medium :)
How did the collaboration process work? Do you have any advice for folks who might want to try a similar approach to making a graphic novel?
From Gabriel :
We worked very closely together, communicating every time I’d submit a new few pages. There was certainly a learning curve. We put together almost a whole version that we ended up redoing. But we both went into it knowing it would be a big class on how to do this, so there was no terrible disappointment or ill will. In our case Dave and I are both too agreeable so it was a lot of “are you sure you’re good with that?” “Yeah, totally, are you okay with it?” Dave is very generous so I had to be careful I didn’t take advantage of that. He was incredibly open to hearing my thoughts on every aspect of the project, and really saw it as a collaborative effort. So much so that I’d have to remind him that he’s the boss, he’s the writer, and ultimately, I’m replaceable. My only advice would be to have a hard deadline and plan things in time chunks that help you stay on track. And have the final draft of writing finished before beginning the drawing, because it’s easy to spend forever making changes. And that will get expensive.
From Dave:
This was not a traditional collaboration where the writer hands over a locked script and the artist executes it. This was a living, evolving, obsessive creative process...I had already worked on the story for seven years before Gabriel came on board for four years, and even after he started drawing, we kept rewriting, redrawing, and redoing…to the point that Gabriel illustrated an entire version of the book that no one will ever see…Gabriel jokes that he was my gun for hire, but to me, he was the physical manifestation of my vision…I was the writer/director and he was the camera/acting/costumes/sets…My advice for others? If you’re attempting an auteur-style partnership make sure you are also acting as the producer…keeping it on budget and on schedule…otherwise, perfectionism will make trouble for the financier you…😂
What were some of the joys and challenges of working on Should We Buy a Gun?
From Gabriel:
This was my first time collaborating with someone on such a large project. I’d illustrated some short kids books and many articles and had storyboarded a few films. Storyboarding has some similarities but with that it’s largely frame by frame and there’s no real pressure to get the emotion of the scene. It’s all character and camera movement. So I had to understand what the characters were feeling. Dave is great at explaining exactly what he means to say in a scene, and knows what each character is thinking, even when they’re not the one driving the action. The story evolved and changed during its making, so there was a lot of redrawing, and that was challenging, but we chalked it up to the learning process. There were no huge stresses, but again, Dave is so generous and forgiving I can’t imagine him letting any project become stressful. So I guess it’s largely about the temperament of the people involved. Dave and I became pals over the process, and making new friends is always a joy.
From Dave:
Yes, the friendship and partnership Gabriel and I built was one of the most gratifying of my professional life and continues to be as we plan a follow-up project together. The other biggest joys were seeing something that only existed as a PDF for years become real page by page. The biggest challenges were the need to constantly update it. This book wrestles with guns in America but also my semi-autobiographal life. Every time there was another tragedy, another law, another debate, or an evolution, change, or development in my own understanding, I wanted to rewrite, redraw, redo. For a long time, I genuinely believed this book could solve gun violence. Which sounds crazy now. But I felt that burden…that responsibility…to heal the personal divides in my life and relationships and to heal the polarized divides in our country and others’ relationships. In the end, I had to accept that no single story can “fix” that. But it can still help…And that’s what Should We Buy A Gun? is meant to do.
What are you up to now?
You can buy the book now at shouldwebuyagun.com, Amazon, Bookshop.org or ask your local bookstore to order it via Ingram. I’ll also be doing events in Los Angeles and Long Beach this spring/summer. For instance, I'll be tabling at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC on Saturday and Sunday April 26th and 27th and I'll be doing a book party in Long Beach at Page Against The Machine on Saturday May 17th. To stay updated, subscribe to my Subtack, SerioComics, where I publish weekly enthusiasms for works of graphic literature with Q&As with the creators. Or my Instagram @_davecowen_ ... Should We Buy A Gun? has been a decade-long passion project. If you check it out, I’d love to hear what you think.
Dave Cowen has authored ten other books including two featured in The New York Times. He has written for The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. He produces two Substacks, the NPR-celebrated Shuffle Synchronicities and SerioComics.
Gabriel Wexler has made storyboards for film and TV, drawn for newspapers and magazines, taught art at schools, and illustrated a book for young adults.
Current Reviews
"The brilliantly understated approach to the look and tone of the graphic novel can't be overlooked. The seemingly simplistic drawings by Gabriel Wexler create a stark contrast to the complex subject matter; Wexler manages to convey an impressive range of emotions experienced by the characters through an uncluttered and minimalistic perspective." —Kirkus Reviews
“This book was born out of a fruitful collaboration between a left-wing scriptwriter, Dave Cowen, and a right-wing cartoonist, Gabriel Wexter, – which, in such a polarized country, is a kind of event in itself...it is a book of intervention, which uses comics to enrich the public debate.” —Thierry Groensteen, Author of Système de la Bande dessinée