An Interview with Maggie Umber

I find it frustrating that a thing drawn in a cartoony style or with word balloons is a comic, but a thing with panels that lacks word balloons and a cartoony style is not.

I (Nora) came across Maggie Umber’s work in the latest Rust Belt Review. As someone interested in the intersection of comics with other genres, I was immediately struck by her work as something harnessing the rules of poetry, painting, and more in a comic. To find out more about Umber’s origins and approach, check out her interview below, just in time to pre-order her latest work, the graphic novel Chrysanthemum Under the Waves, which drops on October 25th.

from Rust Belt Comics

Describe your comics journey--how did you get into making comics?

I got into making comics first through children’s picture books. My parents took us to the library every week, and we also had our own growing shelves of books. Recently, my mom gave me the picture books left in her house. Books like LIGHT by Donald Crews, Watch Out! A Giant! By Eric Carle, and Good-bye Kitchen by Mildred Kantrowitz and Mercery Mayer.

I’m influenced by the way words in picture books sit on the page and interact with images, and the way that some of the books have panels. I remember folding paper and taping the pages together to make books that read left to right. This was before I could write, so I drew wordless adventures. In school, I wrote and illustrated several picture books as assignments.

I grew up reading the funny pages in the newspaper; my favorite was The Far Side. When I was an older kid, I read a collection of Mad magazines in my grandparents’ basement. A best friend in middle school got me into my first floppies – Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Vampire Hunter D, The Maxx. 

At arts high school, I had a best friend who was a comics person. After I graduated from college and gave up being a gallery artist, he introduced me to conventions. I saw world famous cartoonists mingling with their readers. It seemed like an accessible career. I decided to go down that path with him, and it led to 2dcloud. Now my path has forked again, and I’m self-publishing.

from Chrysanthemum Under the Waves

How did you develop your voice/unique comics style? How would you describe your work--do other mediums inform your approach?

My way of working comes from my background in picture books and my training in fine art. I attended art afterschool and summer classes from 3^rd-6^thgrade. I also went to an arts high school, had a painting mentor, and got a studio art B.A, and both my high school and college schools trained me in art history. I was a security guard at an art museum for a decade. I spent a lot of time making and examining art in many mediums and had a lot of art teachers. I’ll be forever grateful for their time and attention. 

from Sound of Snow Falling

What are the joys and challenges of working in comics?

I enjoy the accessibility of comics. It’s affordable to be either a reader or a creator. I like that you can go to a comic convention and see famous cartoonists tabling next to people who have one zine that they maybe didn’t even remember to staple. I like that there is a community of people who organize festivals and drawing nights and put out anthologies. It’s a labor of love, and there is a lot of love in comics. I work in many different mediums and this has always been the community that I come back to.

I find it frustrating that a thing drawn in a cartoony style or with word balloons is a comic, but a thing with panels that lacks word balloons and a cartoony style is not. I’ve read over and over again in reviews that my work isn’t comics. To be fair, I’m not trained in comics, I’m trained in everything else. Maybe they’re right. Ultimately, I draw stories that get printed in physical books – be they comics, zines, graphic novels or picture books.  

from Jonesy

 Are you working on something now? / Anything you want readers to know about (current projects, upcoming talks or forthcoming work)? Please include any links you would like to share.

I just finished my first self-published graphic novel, Chrysanthemum Under theWaves. It’s a collection of nine comics that I made in a variety of mediums from 2016-2021. I spent this this year printing front and back matter and page numbers with my hand carved alphabet and office stamps then digitally putting everything together. This was the first time I’ve ever done book production on a graphic novel. Two pallets of books arrived at my apartment yesterday! You can preorder it here: https://maggieumber.com/chrysanthemum-under-the-waves 

Chrysanthemum Under the Waves is a book of mourning. Each of the comics is a rendition of the demon lover theme. This theme comes from the 17^th century ballad James Harris: the Daemon Lover. As a folk story belonging to the people, it continues to be explored. For me, most notably by Shirley Jackson, Elizabeth Bowen, Sylvia Plath but many other writers and singers have done their own versions.  

A lot of the comics from Chrysanthemum Under the Waves have been published in anthologies (Fantagraphics NOW, BOMB magazine, Rust Belt Review etc.). The first comic I made was for Rob Kirby’s The Shirley Jackson Project. I was inspired by writer Shirley Jackson’s example to try and get as many of the comics into magazines as possible before collecting them.  

The book launch is October 25th at Tangible Books in Chicago. I’m still on my Less is More Zine Tour, so check out my website for final tour dates…and to learn more about Chrysanthemum Under the Waves:

https://maggieumber.com/