First off, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. I like to start off all of my interviews with the same question, who are you and how do we know each other?
I am a New York-based writer and artist with an interest in comics, television writing, and children's lit. We know each other from the early wild, wild days of Tumblr, when people still talked and met each other on that platform!
Right, I rarely talk to people on there since they created the messenger feature, which ironically makes it easier to talk to people.
I’ve been very impressed by the range of creative projects you’ve done from poetry to drawing and of course writing, can you highlight some of your favorite projects and the ones you’re most proud of?
Over the past year and a half, I've been writing for this great online comics magazine called PanelxPanel. It's a platform that is really pushing the level of conversation around comics forward, and I've been really proud of the work I do there. I've also finished a chapbook of ekphrastic (aka in response to art) poems titled "Moon Garden at the Met," which is a response to pieces of art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Last but not least, I have a few paintings on display at a great little cafe called Little Bean in Harlem right now.
Yeah, I've seen pictures of them. I think they're great!
Thank you!
Who is your favorite artist and writer and why?
My favorite fine artists are Stuart Davis, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Phillip Guston, George Bellows, and Lynd Ward. That list is tragically male and western, which is something I'm really working on lately.
My favorite prose and poetry writers are Jorge Luis Borges, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and C.S. Lewis, John Le Carre, and Auden. Oh and Oscar Wilde. Also a painfully male and western list.
I feel that it's a shame that the literary canon is so male and western, but at least in my experience I've had some great professors that did their best to include female writers and non-western writers. Depending on the class though. You can't really study Asian writers in a British Lit class.
Haha. That's true. Luckily, when I was an undergrad, my Comparative Lit program really pushed us to read contemporary and more marginalized writers.
Focusing on books, what has your history of reading been like? What kind of books are you drawn to?
I guess what I haven't really talked about yet is comics themselves. While I grew up reading Archie comics and Sunday strips (Calvin and Hobbes was definitely my favorite), I wasn't really introduced to comics as I know them until I was a sophomore in college.
A friend of mine was starting to get into Marvel stuff, and she recommended I go pick up Fraction, Aja, and Hollingsworth's Hawkeye. I think I was a few pages in when I knew that was it. The next day, I went to my advisor and told him that I wanted to change directions in my studies to focus on comics.
Hawkeye yes! That's probably my favorite drawing style that I've seen in comics.
Aja has this lovely minimalist line. It's so complex.
You kind of answered this already but what was your favorite comic growing up? Have you gone back and read it within the last couple of years?
I read Archie religiously. I don't see them as often now, but they used to sell them in the supermarket aisles as you're checking out. And I'd read them until they fell apart.
I've gone back to some of them, and some are great and some are very much surface level. You kind of start to notice who was thinking deeply about the work and who wasn't. But as a kid, who cares? I also read Heathcliff and Marmaduke. Calvin and Hobbes obviously holds up spectacularly.
Definitely! I would check out Calvin and Hobbes books from the library all the time.
How do you think nostalgia influences our interest and enjoyment in stories? For example, the many reboots of classic TV series and film franchises.
I think it's just a new marketing/packaging ploy that works when it is done well and sucks when it doesn't. Smart storytellers know how to play into the past just enough while making something new. As much as we can get tied up with the online drama around reboots and stuff, good work is good work.
What reboots have you really enjoyed and what were some that missed the mark for you?
I really liked the Star Wars reboots, especially Rogue One (which I guess is more of a prequel). But I also never had a history with the original Star Wars films. Mad Max Fury Road is my favorite movie, but I also didn't have feelings about the old Mad Maxes either. Spider-Man Homecoming is one of my favorite standalone superhero movies, which is funny because I've never even really liked Spider-Man. I think it really shows that with a strong story, you can grab a completely new audience. Doctor Who is a great example of a successful reboot that has really resonated with people. As for the bad, I was hoping for a little more depth out of the first couple episodes of Charmed. I haven't seen all of it so it may have gotten better, but the story was a bit weak.
Final couple questions. What is your favorite book (and/or) comic of all time? Feel free to give a few answers if they are from different genres.
I feel like my favorites change quite often, but here is a list of books I find myself returning to. Call for the Dead by Le Carre. Labyrinths by Borges. Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat and On Writing by Stephen King. Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. Locke & Key (Hill and Rodriguez), Hawkeye (Fraction/Aja), Southern Bastards (Aaron/Latour), Bitch Planet (DeConnick/De Landro), Journey Into Mystery (Gillen/Hans) Are You My Mother (Bechdel), Pygmalion (Shaw), and recently The Flayed City (Hari Alluri).
So many answers! But these are definitely books I turn to at least once a year.
Looks like lots of great stuff! So thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. Is there anything you'd like to plug? Any upcoming events or projects?
This was really fun! For those in New York, I'll be tabling at the NYC Feminist Zine Fest at the end of the month. In the very near future, I will be starting a blog/mailing list about living an intentional life. For those who are interested, sign up for updates on my website www.tiffanybabb.com. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram @explodingarrow
Awesome! Lots of cool stuff. Keep up the good work.