Silver Hell is the work of James Jajac, which he sums up as being “the process of self-destructing and the gradual process of rebuilding your life.”
“The strip is about an artist in the vein of Jim Davis, of Garfield fame, having a nervous breakdown in the midst of drawing his happy comic strip called The Silver Lining. This period is known as Silver Hell. The concept is that these strips have never been seen by the general population and are being published against the authors will. I want the strip to read as a man who has hopelessly lost his way, that it is being drawn by someone who has gone off the deep end but does not know it. Try to imagine an average strip like Ziggy, or the Family Circus being crossed with The Shining and a heavy helping of existential dread and you have a pretty good idea of what I am going for.”
To show the emotion of his character, James allows his drawing style to become frenetic, smudging and smearing so that the strip itself devolves along with the breakdown of the character. “Drawing the strip in this style is a bit of a tight rope act and I am hoping that, in the end, in context, the messy style will work for me rather than against me. The hardest part is getting the backstory across to people.”
James Jajac was born in Queens, New York. He first encountered comics at a bus stop: “I have really young memories of standing at the bus stop with the comic rack at eye level and these beautiful shiny colorful exciting things just staring back at me. It was completely hypnotizing.” Jajac was born with a cleft palette, severely hindering his ability to be understood: “I was told by others, with a miserable frequency: ‘I can’t understand you.’ It made me hate talking.” This isolation led to his immersion in art which as he puts it, ”gave me a way of communicating that did not require words.” Jajac also struggled with a diabetes, which he was diagnosed with when he 18. This too affected his work: “Those years before I was diagnosed I thought I was losing my mind. It brought about a whole range of shifting moods made worse by my inability to manage my blood sugars and brought about a deep depression that I couldn’t shake for years. It took me almost a decade to adjust and feel like I had my feet back on the ground.“
These setbacks did not slow down his desire to pursue his art. His list of what he did to support himself while he drew is immense: “A seasonal tree trimmer at Fortunoff, a door man, a porter, an usher at a movie theater, a clerk at a video store, a clerk at a comic book store, a circular delivery boy, a baby sitter, a slide labeler at a slide company, a mock up artist at an embroidery company, an intern for James McMullan, a (non bike) messenger on two separate occasions, a freelance illustrator and finally … a substitute teacher getting my degree in art education.”
Along with Jajac’s eclectic work history, his commitment to his art is reflected in an illustration manifesto he has posted to his website. He writes: “Illustrators should be bigger than rock stars, they should dwarf actors like the shadow of big foot. They should reign and conquer and shower down on the earth like an explosion of gold coins. I’m talking about good illustrators, great illustrators, and basically that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.” He expanded on this, saying that:” I do enjoy the anonymity of being an artist but I still want (my) art to be an event. I think art should be spectacular and take you on a journey and give you something you can come back to again an again. Silver Hell is the creation of that journey.”
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WEBSITE: http://jamesjajac.com/
The Rumpus Spotlight Series presents one time posts of select pieces from working cartoonists and comic artists.
Interview by Lucas Adams
Series Editor Paul Madonna
