Arizona-based illustrator Mark Wang has a passion for trash, a skill for surrealism and dreams of writing a horror comic about space nuns on mars.
Describe your workspace to us.
I just moved, so as of right now I work from my apartment. The space consists of a desk, my laptop/scanner combo, loose sheets of paper, and a bag of assorted pens, pencils, and other miscellaneous drawing utensils. To further clarify, my drawing desk for the past month or so was/is a cardboard box. I'm young so I don't require high maintenance to make art as of right now. #scoliosishereicome
What’s your guilty pleasure?
I have the first two Vanessa Carlton CDs, and whenever A Thousand Miles comes up I don't skip over it. If anything discredits me as a human being, it's my honest enjoyment of early 2000's pop hits.
What do you value about trash and trashiness? Do you feel that trash is underrated in an artistic context?
My favourite thing about trash is that you can get a way with being a meanie under the pretence of being trashy. You can be a genuinely awful person, but people will still respect you if you are doing it for the sake of nihilism. As for trash being underrated, that is simply not true. Ever since artists could choose their own subject matter they been fixated on trash. Look at Gustave Courbet, if you give him an ounce of freedom, he goes and paints obscene subject matter such as peasants and their working conditions. Ever since then art has been about disgusting social issues and vulgar stone-breakers.
Where do you start and how do you know where to finish?
Usually from the end. It just feels easier for me to work back from the punchline rather than work towards it. Building a narrative has to be organic. The process is kind of like trying to blindly follow a map and ending up at your destination (or somewhere even more interesting).
Tell us about that grand project that you may never complete or even start but think about often?
I have several ideas. I want to do a story about a intergalactic botanist hero in the vein of Tin Tin. I have had some interest in doing a magical girl comic. I also have a superhero duo called Apple Girl and Orange Boy that I would like to work on. It’s about a petty, selfish, teenage super heroine figuring out petty and selfish teenage stuff by hurting people. I also think it would be fun to do a horror comic about space nuns on mars, or something like that.
What are you working on right now?
I'm slowly making headway on a possible comic series called Young. Its going to be a bunch of short story comics about unrequited love.
What’s the secret to a successful comic?
Timing. Comics are all about telling a story and the pacing of the story. Making comic "panels" is like making a soundtrack to a movie. Try reading Scott McCloud or try to figure out Frank Santoro's grids. They’ve got it down better than I do. Also comics about dog p****** and weeaboos are all the rage these days. Ride those trends. Ride them hard.
Where would you like to be in a year’s time?
Alive (not dead).
If you could spend one minute with one person that has had an influence on your work, who would they be and what would you ask them?
David Lynch — "How do you get your hair to be like that?”
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