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Stephen Pellnat
1.5k Plays10 months ago
Stephen Pellnat "I have been making comics for as long as I can remember understanding the written language. I received my formal education at the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 2005 to 2009, graduating with a Bachelor’s of the Fine Arts. I have self published comics for years, including Kitty of the Dead, Ma, Heaven and now, Upstate. I have been featured in a number of promotional campaigns in the northeast, including the tours of Klezwoods and Cocek Brass Band. I provided album artwork for Klezwoods’ Album Toy Monkey and Cocek Brass Band’s album Here Comes Shlomo. Upstate is my latest work, and the work I’m proudest of to date.
I was born in Albany, New York in 1987. I grew up in the town of Stuyvesant New York, a location which may have partially inspired the fictional town of Heinrichville. I currently live in Portland, Oregon, which is not, at the time of this writing, aflame. I have a wife and a cat. I dislike parties and desperately want to be liked. I am not good about updating my website bio."
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Volante, editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Meeting at Comic Con and Influence of Floating World Comics
00:00:16
Speaker
This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I am super excited to have the creator of Upstate comic, Stephen Pelnet, here on the show. Welcome, Stephen. Hey, thank you for having me.
00:00:31
Speaker
It was great to see you at the Rose City Comic Con, and one of the fun parts about a Comic Con is, uh...
00:00:38
Speaker
bumping into some stuff maybe I haven't picked up. I saw, I think it was issue two of Upstate Comic at Floating World Comics. And when you see someone at Floating World Comics, you take note, you remember the image and I had.
Cultural Significance of Floating World Comics
00:00:56
Speaker
So it was great to meet you, but tell us about what you do. Tell us about Upstate. Let's jump into it. I will, yeah. I'll start by
00:01:05
Speaker
Additionally, throwing some glow on Floating World. Jason is such a great guy and he's always been a really big supporter of mine. Yeah, Floating World is a spectacular culture shock here in Portland, Oregon. Well worth the visit if you get in there. They're not paying me for this, to be clear. I just really love Floating World. I don't get paid for it either. I don't get paid for it either. This is Floating World stuff. Yeah. Nope. Just really love what they do.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm grateful that they've cornered that market, but I wish there was a floating world in every city. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
Inspiration Behind Upstate
00:01:43
Speaker
So Upstate, I am from Upstate New York originally, a little town in the Hudson Valley called Stuyvesant. The fictional Heinrichville is a thinly veiled version of that. Heinrich, Hudson, Pater, Stuyvesant, just kind of a
00:01:58
Speaker
The sort of silliness I one of those things that I sort of wish I hadn't done now is naming it that I should have just named it the real place. There's no there was no one cares. Stuyvesant has a town of like a town of maybe 2000 people, maybe 10 of whom have read upstate. I don't think anyone would really have cared if I just called it Stuyvesant. But
Turning Personal Grief into Art
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, so upstate, let's start heavy. Upstate was inspired when my uncle Eric died of all the cancer you could possibly imagine six or seven years ago. I didn't immediately artistically process that. Little things began showing up. The tube in one's nose to kind of assist with breathing, that started being something I would just sketch around.
00:02:46
Speaker
I did not make it to my uncle's funeral. I was living out here in Oregon at that point, and I've felt bad about that ever since. He is the direct visual and comprehensive inspiration for Ryan's father in Upstate. Part of that is my own regret. Part of it is also just being a guy in his mid-30s who's aware that his parents are getting older. This is something that I think about a lot.
Evolution of Upstate Comic
00:03:14
Speaker
Upstate began as a, I think, unpublished. I'm pretty sure I never published it anywhere. There was a little seven-page story I did that had some of the characters in it. Definitely not all of them. Ryan was there, but she looked really different. Her mom and dad were there. Their designs have probably changed the least. But Amanda wasn't there. Sam wasn't there. Luke wasn't there. None of that was there. It was just like this weird sort of frictionless,
00:03:41
Speaker
vibe comic about going back home because your father is dying. I don't know. I did that one in 2020 when I hadn't really published a lot of comics for a long time. Quite honestly, I fell out of the industry for a number of years because I'm from New York. I was living in Brooklyn until I was almost 30 and I was just trying to keep my head above water. I was unsuccessfully trying to do that.
00:04:10
Speaker
And Upstate has changed quite a bit from when I began it. The origin of the story is going home to help care for your dying parents, just like this ticking time bomb on the story that is going to happen. Tom is going to die. That's just the, there's no two ways about it. But when I began writing it, the Ryan character was very much inspired by my sister, but also by me in a lot of ways. Like she, you know,
00:04:40
Speaker
a monkey of myself and other people in my life. She drinks too much. She makes poor decisions. She's a millennial in 2018 with no savings. She's been working a series of dead end bar jobs, which not to brag, I still do. But it's changed a lot since then because
00:05:01
Speaker
The series began in late 2021, so I'm nearing the two-year mark on this thing, about 200 pages into it, which for needing a day job or two the entire time I've been producing it, I can't kick myself too hard for only having that much done.
Themes of Identity and Imperfection
00:05:17
Speaker
Well, thank you. But it's changed quite a bit in that time. It's become less about the dread of loss and more about just living
00:05:28
Speaker
Trying to live conscientiously in the time that you have with the understanding that there is no God, there is no accountant, no one is keeping track of what you do, but that cuts positively and negatively. Not only is there not going to be a punishment for the bad things you've done, but there is no undoing the bad things you've done either. Like the language that we so frequently use, I'm not that person anymore.
00:05:55
Speaker
Yes, you are. You are still the same person who did all of those appalling things. You're not required to have kindness for the version of you that did those things. That's still you. It's all on the continuum of who you are. And that's something that I really try to explore a lot in Upstate.
Exploring Masculinity and Vulnerabilities
00:06:16
Speaker
There's the third book,
00:06:20
Speaker
has her father kind of trying to reclaim autonomy and masculinity. And we see a more aggressive part of him than we've seen before. And of course, you know, it culminates in him not being able to have sex with his wife because the cancer has rotted him from the inside and nearly crashing his daughter's car and then puking on her. It's just like this very pitiful exploration of what this guy's belief in masculinity is. But yeah, I mean, the book has evolved
Artistic Journey and Influences
00:06:49
Speaker
quite a bit i'm really excited for the next the next uh little bit here and i've been talking straight for like five minutes apologies hey i asked you to drop in on on upstate i i i love it uh the three issues uh that are out um love the art style and there's something about that story you know the the land that we're talking about that i think that you go in of uh you know that that that that real life that dropped you in the uncomfortable
00:07:19
Speaker
witnessing the uncomfortable and dealing with that. I'm originally from Rhode Island. So for me, the upstate thing just works for me in the metaphorical tick. I don't know if it works everybody for Pacific Northwest, but I just think upstate as the idea, the upstate New York. And for me being from Rhode Island, tiny state, and that might have been the other side of the country from my little world,
Balancing Art with Day Jobs
00:07:45
Speaker
growing up in New England.
00:07:48
Speaker
And yeah, so just great work. And everybody, Floating World Comics, publisher, distributor. I've had a couple folks, Santos Sisters, does the Santos Sisters comic. Yeah, they're great. They've been on the show. Oh, nice. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've actually met them. I've had limited online interactions with them, but they're great.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah, great, great folks. And for everybody who does read Santo's Sisters, the Halloween special has a special something rather than nothing added in there. Oh, no kidding. That's awesome.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah, pretty, pretty fun stuff. Pretty good, pretty good funny book fun here. So, hey, so Steven, like, you know, you're working hard. Are you doing jobs? You've mentioned teaching more tendon and in arts, arts can be a beast unto itself. You know, like you gotta, you gotta love, you gotta love it to fit it in and to do the amount of work that you've been doing on, on, on this great, on this great comic. Let, tell me, tell me,
00:08:55
Speaker
Get involved in this. What what is art for you? I mean, like like what? What drives you with this
Art as Communication and Self-Exploration
00:09:03
Speaker
stuff? A lot of different things. As I as I mentioned earlier, I sort of fell out of art for a number of years just trying to keep my head above water living in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is nearly Brooklyn. Yeah, Brooklyn. Yeah, you bet. Yeah, still miss it all the time. I moved out here with my wife back in 2015. I've been here for about eight years now.
00:09:25
Speaker
And yeah, what is art for me? On one level, when I was a younger person, it was an academic pursuit that I think I believed foolishly would also yield me and no one else money. I thought that it was going to be something that I would put creative coins into this machine and financial rewards would come out because
00:09:54
Speaker
I was the best artist in a small town, you know? And that's not a significant thing to be in the world, not really. I mean, nothing against the best artist in small towns. It's great to be the best at something. But what it has become for me in recent years is self-communication, external communication as well, but the Ryan character, the protagonist of Upstate,
00:10:25
Speaker
She is an iterative version of a lot of things I dislike about myself. Like speaking about what is art specifically with Upstate, this is a communication with a version of me that I don't care for. This is someone who, not simply a version of me, but you mentioned bartending. She is that person who comes to the bar that I honestly have a great deal of contempt for. She is just like,
00:10:54
Speaker
She's this person who... Here comes the mess. Yeah, kind of. Here comes the person who... The only thing she's been living for is the next drink. And I should say, this is not to be shitty about anyone who likes to drink. I have historically liked to drink. A lot of this is my own sordid history as someone who used to drink a lot. But...
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, I probably come off a little prudish in this, at least in judgment of her. But art in this way is kind of an ouroboros of internal and external communication. I have found that with the reactions that I've had to upstate, the more granular I get with these experiences, either things that I have experienced or specifically in upstate, a lot of things I haven't. I'm writing from perspectives which are not my own, which
00:11:54
Speaker
I find that to be a really appealing thing to do. There's a reason I'm working in kind of adult literary fiction rather than memoir. Like, I don't consider my own perspective even filtered through the sort of semi-fictional gauze that all memoir work sort of naturally has to go through. I just don't consider my own perspective to be that interesting or engaging.
00:12:25
Speaker
I think art is that too. Art is trying to see through eyes that aren't my own. That's narrative art specifically, which is what I do. There are obviously a million other kinds. For me, it's just a, it's the way that I am best equipped to communicate with the world around me and to communicate with myself to understand other people by writing people who I would not like if
Comics as a Language and Influences
00:12:51
Speaker
I met them in person and trying to find the things that are,
00:12:54
Speaker
contradictory about them, you know, like the things that the the Luke character who, you know, no spoilers, I suppose, but he does something pretty appalling at the end of the first issue. There is a an issue coming up that focuses exclusively on Luke, the the reader's eye does not leave him for a moment. He's the central character of that. And you're going to see kindnesses that he does, you're going to see ways that he's
00:13:23
Speaker
that he tries to do the job that he has in a way that does the least amount of harm. And none of that erases that he did this awful thing in the first issue. I really, I want art to be able to hold those contradictory thoughts in its head. Like, the reader will always be aware that he did those things. Nothing he's doing now undoes that. That's something that is very appealing to me about that.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Um, Stephen, before we got on, you, uh, you had mentioned, uh, I was just chatting a bit about, uh, illustration and, and you had mentioned a quote by art Spiegelman, uh, that really helped out for me. I wonder if you could tell, to tell the listeners that one. Yeah, I should say this is going to be a paraphrase. I don't remember the exact quote. They all are on podcast. Don't worry about it. Big believer in transparency. Um,
00:14:16
Speaker
Art Spiegelman said something to the effect of comics are the language of dreams, which I think is kind of true, not in the sense that they're like wacky and covered in like spiral candy striping, but in the way that inherently what you're looking at is abstract. You are reading something, but what you're looking at is lines or color on paper. The visual vocabulary of comics is dream logic. It's all made of things that aren't really there. And, but it's, you know, it's also,
00:14:45
Speaker
It's also personal and emotional assemblages of things that you've experienced or things that you'd want to experience or things you wouldn't want to experience. It's all being filtered in this highly abstract way into, typically, at least in my work, something a little more representational. My influences tend to be across the board, all kinds of people. Gary Panter is one of my favorite artists. I don't draw much like Gary Panter. Gary Panter is probably one of the best
00:15:12
Speaker
examples of comics as the language of dreams. If you haven't read Jimbo and Purgatory or Jimbo's Inferno out there, that's one of the... Yeah, he was one of my teachers at SVA. He's an incredible guy. Yeah. Just really a fascinating dude. Loves art. Liked being a teacher at the time. I haven't spoken to him in years. I'm not sure where his mind is these days, but yeah, great guy. Also, just a spectacular example of that. Same with the Fort Thunder crowd. Same with
00:15:41
Speaker
Spiegelman himself I think for sure, but you know or John Stanley little Lulu any of that stuff like this is all just kind of it's all visual dream language Yeah, I love that it really helped me yeah ever since I was really young comics are like like super important for me and there's something about the way you described it which for me is kind of like
00:16:06
Speaker
that quick path I enter, which is into that world that is dreamlike. And one of the things I noticed more recently, like I would always be like reader, reader, read the content, but now I've noticed myself over a lot of time just feeling myself with the colors and the space and the mood, like entering into it. And I'm not sure if everybody can do that with comics, but if you can, and if that's what happens, that dream is like,
00:16:35
Speaker
what we're talking about and be like, Hey, Steven, like, you know, like in this world, it's really, it's really quite amazing. Yeah. This is maybe one of the more challenging things about being a professional cartoonist, making comics to be read.
00:16:51
Speaker
I'm not sure that I really understand how people read comics. Do you know what I mean? Like I understand that people read in like in like the way that you read English text on the page, kind of like going doing the Z pattern across the page. I am not sure that people are doing anything more than just like lingering on the words for the time it takes to read them and sort of letting the images sort of peripherally penetrate, if at all, or vice versa.
00:17:20
Speaker
Ideally, you want some nice middle ground. One of the ways I attempt to tease that out, maybe unsuccessfully, I don't know. My lettering tends to be pretty dynamic compared to a lot of other, not to say that they're bad letterers, but my lettering tends to be a little more explosive and a little more
00:17:42
Speaker
I really am not trying to disparage anybody else by saying this. I use more illustrative, emotionally designed lettering than some artists might choose to, because I like the lettering to be every bit as evocative as what's in the pictures that you're looking at. I like that. Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
And I should say, a lot of the lettering tricks that I've learned have been from awful sources like Dave Sim, who is an incredible letterer and just a truly wretched person. He has. I don't know if I have that on record, but it's certainly true. It's one of those viewing the art and the separation type of thing there with Sim, for sure. Well, with him, it's
00:18:30
Speaker
borderline impossible. His views on whether or not women should be allowed in university or able to vote in Canadian elections became the text of Serabist for the last 10 years that he was writing the book. He makes it impossible to separate the art from the artist. I think you're right. I had read some early stuff.
00:18:53
Speaker
And with Sim is like it was it was deep in there and stuck out as bizarre like early on when I look at it and I'm like, like it makes
Inclusivity and Diversity in Comics
00:19:04
Speaker
it's weird. It kind of makes sense to read some of that shit now, like in the way the political climate is. But like I look at some of those old issues. I'm like, what the hell is this guy popping off? Like, what is this nonsense? Like, I mean, he he's a guy who had a
00:19:20
Speaker
not I mean as well publicized in a self-published comic as you can be I guess a well-publicized mental break in the mid 80s he found a version of God that I don't think makes a lot of sense to most people something that you know I'm not even gonna try to summarize Dave Sims views because I don't want to give him that much airtime now if you're interested people who are listening there is a great deal of writing on Dave Sim most of it is
00:19:47
Speaker
rightfully very condemning of his views and his basically Dave Sim has a view of the world where women are voids and men are light and women are the voids trying to consume that light. Men are providers. Women are takers. It's an extremely retrograde view, which would not be out of place on something like louder with Crowder or info wars, but he's sort of, yeah, he,
00:20:14
Speaker
He's sort of on an island of his own. Probably the kindest thing I can say about his views is that he's alone out there. I don't think anyone has really rallied around him the way that they have these other sort of canceled figures in the past. He did it to himself far too early. Serab has ended in like 2004 or something like that. And he's kind of a forgotten figure now and probably rightly so.
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, comics are different. I think comics are different now, too. If you go to a comic store, I mean, just as far as maybe more of the stories that are being told, those stories have always been there in comics. It might have been really difficult to find that underground comic or what the hell store do I have to go to New York City?
00:20:57
Speaker
Get it but but but but the but the exactly but the culture in In what you see there for me is really expansive is a really expansive area of independent publishers and voices and I don't see that in other art forms in other places So no, it's like that's that's the beauty and the glory about what we're talking about here You know what? I mean like the I agree that
00:21:24
Speaker
incredibly male comic world of the past, which has its elements in geek culture, has been blasted at for as long as I can remember. It has. And I think it's across the board a positive. Like two of the best shows I did this year were the Toronto Comics and Art Festival and SPX. SPX is like the venerable, you know, U.S. small press expo. Probably my favorite show. Like I just love it. It's great.
00:21:54
Speaker
The makeup of the artists tables at SPX and TCAF are so different now than they used to be, and I think it's nothing but positive. You know, like, comics has always had people who feel marginalized or on the outside, rightfully or wrongly, in the last 10, 15, 20 years,
00:22:14
Speaker
You've seen that be pushed to a degree that this culture, which has grown enormously, is one of the most inclusive cultures I can think of. Inclusive kind of media cultures, I should say. I agree. And I think it's nothing but positive. These are voices that we're not receiving
00:22:35
Speaker
legitimate publication 10 years ago, you know, these are these are people who even someone huge like Simon Hanselman probably wouldn't have been published by a legitimate publisher at 15 years ago, because he often wears women's clothing, you know, like, and that is the right and there are plenty of issues there aside from that. But that level of
Comic Events and Discoveries
00:23:01
Speaker
Again, not to repeat myself, it's much more inclusive now than it ever used to be. When I went to New York Comic Con as a kid, it was just tired old white guys who needed to go back to their drawing tables when they were done tabling and making $200 selling sketches of Spider-Man's mask or whatever.
00:23:25
Speaker
It's not like that anymore. You have figures and groups represented in the comic scene that they've always been there to a greater or lesser extent, but now it's much greater, and I think comics are a lot healthier for that. I think that some basic rules of comics haven't changed. When you go to these shows, it's the old joke of all the artists are passing around the same $20 bill to buy each other's new book. There's still no money in it at all,
00:23:54
Speaker
There is, you know, there are still it's still significantly better than it was in terms of just the way it looks now. I think it's great. Yeah, yeah, it's nice. It's nice to chat about that. And I found that
00:24:11
Speaker
I found that being in Portland and in near Portland and being in the Pacific Northwest and thinking like Seattle, Fantagraphics, the monozines and small press, one of the things that's greatly improved
00:24:30
Speaker
I don't know, maybe it's just me as I've gone along or stopping and looking at things. But as I've done the podcast and dropped into comics, dropped into zines and all that stuff, it's so exciting to me. And it's just something I think I would have walked past certain things in the past. But there's like these gems, you know, as a comics guy, like, you know, oh, you know, you find something right there. And I didn't know somebody was making this.
00:25:03
Speaker
I wanted to, uh, we're doing some, we're doing some philosophy here.
Existentialism and Personal Beliefs
00:25:07
Speaker
I'm going to hit the, I'm going to, I'm going to throw the, the, the big, uh, big question at you to take it a little, little, little curve ball here. We're talking comics with Steven and upstate New York. And we're talking about all this great stuff, but why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there something rather than nothing?
00:25:22
Speaker
Garbage pail kids crossover with this type of thing, but I needed it. Oh, yeah
00:25:31
Speaker
I knew this question was coming. All right, let me. During the same spot, everybody is. I'll tell you one thing before I let you go on the question. I gave, and I'm not gonna do this for every once in a while, I gave one guest, I got the ice from American Gladiators, the original ice from the American Gladiators show. And because of her strength and other things, I said, you can answer the question,
00:26:01
Speaker
Or you could tell me to fuck off Say fuck off then and she um She answered the question add a little bit more than told me to fuck off So the question is kind of like that, but why is there something rather than no? I kind of appreciate that as an answer though where you can both answer the question and have it be equally valid to say like but also Yeah, you have that merit. Yeah Why is there something rather than nothing? Oh?
00:26:28
Speaker
I do not believe in a divine creator. I do not really think that there's anything more than this. I don't think that's a bad thing. I take some, you know, upstate, as I've previously mentioned, is largely about death. Everything I've ever done is kind of about death. And I, I, my strongest suspicion is that at the end, it's three, two, one lights out. That's it. And, uh, you know,
00:26:54
Speaker
I could be wrong. We're all going to find out the same way. I don't have an answer to that. Why is there something rather than nothing?
Existence and Interaction
00:27:06
Speaker
Well, it's hard to take an answer to that question that isn't very present tense. The way that I'm thinking about it is because it's here.
00:27:22
Speaker
for the same reason that I find anti-trans rhetoric on the part of far-right conservatives completely intellectually dishonest. It exists. It's here. You can't act as though it's not there at all. You can't pretend that it's invalid. It is here. Why is there something? Because we interact with it, because we legitimize it by moving through the world and
00:27:46
Speaker
interacting with each other. I assume that's true on a molecular or an atomic level as well, because all things are interaction because there's no such thing as survival of the fittest. It's survival of the most successfully collaborative. I thought that would probably be that would probably be my answer because it's all like we are all pieces of an engine that is essentially
00:28:11
Speaker
self-sustaining. I think that would probably be the answer. It is here rather than nothing because we're using it. I like your answer a lot. A lot of times don't get into the interactivity of it. And by interactivity, I mean like phenomena and people and
00:28:34
Speaker
like how that how that creates how that creates the reality yeah the question is the questions oh the the questions um the question is a goofy one and particularly when you talk about the creator because i'm i'm agnostic uh myself the something the something rather than nothing question for me
00:28:56
Speaker
The way I like to kick it around is tied to creation and thinking about that we're creating these incredible things. Underlying it, god-like power to create.
00:29:11
Speaker
The the something this I go along with you, the something this is like there, right? It's like it's a presence. It's a reality. And that's what we're in, you know. Yeah, pretty much. That's why I said it was hard to think of the answer as anything other than present tense. You know, it's like you can't put yourself out of it.
Cultural and Religious Influences
00:29:32
Speaker
Right. Or I mean, yeah, no, you really can't. It's all it's all just actions within a limited expansive.
00:29:39
Speaker
wildly expansive but still limited number of actions that you can take I think like it's a There is a limit to what you can do and the final thing of course is die, but it's a you know, that's I Don't know I take Agnostic is probably how it would be more accurate to describe me when I say I don't believe in a creator I am NOT Christopher Hitchens aggressively opposed to the idea that one could exist I I
00:30:08
Speaker
I recognize that the idea of God or an afterlife or something greater than this world has made life more tolerable for the vast majority of poor bastards who've ever been alive on this planet. And there is also kind of off topic, there is also a part of me that I had this
00:30:29
Speaker
drunk revelation years ago, I'm privileged enough to not need God. My life doesn't suck that much. I don't need an afterlife to look forward to where my suffering is rewarded. I'm a tall, reasonably handsome looking white guy. The world was made for me. I'm playing the game on easy mode, as they say. The travails that I am personally dealing with are
00:30:57
Speaker
Nothing it you know jason is bill has that song relatively easy compared to folks on a on a global scale are kind of had it relatively easily get no shit it's absolutely true and yeah i'm thinking in terms of compassion in.
00:31:15
Speaker
You know, just the others. No, I view for myself, you know, I I, you know, I studied philosophy at the university and, you know, it's my relationship with the God question strange because I'm I'm agnostic and not being able to to answer. I politically, I'm an atheist because I don't want to fucking deal with it. Well, you're in an arms. Like like Namchand Nam Chomsky is like.
00:31:40
Speaker
Like politically, I am an atheist for the purposes of positioning against the fact that our moral code is driven in social policy. But anyways. Were you raised in the church? I was raised Roman Catholic, total Rhode Island, total Rhode Island, maybe over 80% Roman Catholic, a lot of Catholic immigrants. Now, I'll tell you something, Stephen.
00:32:08
Speaker
So Catholic, where I grew up in Pawtucket, that my parents moved to a white suburb where I went to high school. And somebody told me they were Protestant. I didn't know
00:32:26
Speaker
what that was like i'm a like i'm a i'm a smart guy and i was like 15 or 16 i thought they said communist or if they were from another country i mean it's super super catholic so i i grew up with that because you yeah you're not that much older than me either it's just these weird geographical things like so i i kind of i'm turning this around i kind of have questions for you you were growing up you grew up roman catholic do you find that that sense of
00:32:56
Speaker
Guilt, that weight of original sin. Is that something that you carry with you as an agnostic philosopher?
00:33:03
Speaker
Absolutely. One of the things within, I've thought about Roman Catholicism actively, outside of just rejection and all that stuff when I was younger, like actively about what it is as part of my being, right?
Spiritual Journeys and Philosophical Views
00:33:21
Speaker
Like, why is it once in a while I'll go to church without a hint of irony? I'll go to Catholic Mass without irony? Why are these things
00:33:29
Speaker
Happen I want to tell you one big piece for me because strangely enough time Tying my spiritual path in New England. There's a very important author and philosopher and thinkers Deeply influenced me as Jack Kerouac. Oh, yeah, of course and in in with with Kerouac he was
00:33:52
Speaker
deeply raised and almost like a mystical French immigrant peasant Catholicism. I think it would be fair to call it like Gnostic occult almost. It was almost right.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, and then that heavy influence of the mother and such like that. Yeah, he goes out He goes out and he does his thing and he goes on his quest and he gets all the way out to Big Sur and when he's he's he's converted and he's preaching the Buddhist Dharma Yeah, I've read his stuff and I've studied Buddhism the guy fucking understood it in his bones to me. Yeah, and
00:34:33
Speaker
His journey of course, you know with the alcoholism and towards the end I can understand that Kerouac at the end is Proficient he was within the Buddhism. He ends up dying and praying to Mother Mary Yeah, he ends up in
00:34:51
Speaker
I understand maybe it's the predominance of the culture of Roman Catholicism or how it's like, I don't know what this is and I don't think these hands are together for a God. But this is what I know. This is what my aunties would do and they put the hands together and I don't know what else to do. That type of desperate piece to it is something with it. Tell me more. That's so interesting. Tell me your thoughts.
00:35:21
Speaker
Well, I'll turn it back on myself for a second. I was raised Lutheran, which is kind of like the Catholicism of Protestants. I didn't really realize this until I was a little bit older. And I also had the benefit of being from upstate New York, which
00:35:38
Speaker
You know, it's a fairly conservative provincial place where I grew up, but it's not far from New York. It's not far from the Canadian border. It was predominantly white, but religiously a bit more diverse up there. One of my closest friends is Jewish. Not half, but a significant number of the kids I went to school with were Jewish. A lot of the people I knew were Catholic. Some people were Baptists, Episcopalians, etc.
Religious Beliefs and Mortality
00:36:02
Speaker
It was not homogenous. Lutheran is a
00:36:06
Speaker
particularly humorless and prescriptive and severe version of Christianity. Catholics have the option to confess. There is some built-in
00:36:19
Speaker
human merit in the idea that you are an imperfect being and you can confess to your creator what you have done, repeat your mantras that might keep you clean for the day and kind of go on with your life. Lutheranism does not have that. You are eternally inadequate in Lutheranism, which I think is actually kind of a healthy mentality, separate from the separate from any of the Christ of it all. But yeah, it's
00:36:48
Speaker
That's something that I, I've heard about Kerouac, you know, praying to Mother Mary and God on his way out. That makes sense to me. It's scary. It's, it's, it's the last thing you're ever going to experience. You look for some kind of comfort, you know, it's, it's people saying, oh, mama, oh, mama, as they're dying on the battlefield, you know, it's I, it makes sense to me. Like I said, I have no particular judgment for believers at all. I think that, I think that
00:37:17
Speaker
belief in a higher power makes a certain amount of sense. And as someone who has said all of the things that I've said up to this point in this interview, when my time comes, I don't know if I'm not going to be saying, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I don't know that I'm not going to do that. Those things are in there, the things that you get when you're young. My work is not particularly Christian, but it does
00:37:45
Speaker
I think that there is a lapsed version of it. Its absence is notable in a lot of ways, but I don't know.
00:37:54
Speaker
That's a tough one to answer and thanks for talking about yourself there too. I always have this thing on the rare occasion that I'm interviewed where I feel like I'm monopolizing the conversation even though I was asked to be spoken to. I love to kick it around too and I think a lot about that stuff. I think about how I've ended up interacting with Catholicism and Christianity and I think one of the strange parts about me,
00:38:24
Speaker
close to me know about it is I have this weird type of thing where I've um
00:38:29
Speaker
I've studied it enough, or have enough traditional training and type of things, or I've just kept going as an agnostic and still be interested in it, where I end up out arguing believers all the time. I can't, not arguing against them, but talking about the imploring parts of the history or the message, and it's still on talking a foreign language. It's really interesting, I think,
00:38:58
Speaker
What I would say, ultimately here, the intellectual relationship for believers, right? Like, how are you engaging with, like, you or I, we're, like, trying to figure all these type of things out. And sometimes if you look at the quiet believer with idolatry just waltzing down the street, you'd be like, what the fuck, man? It ain't that easy. It ain't that easy. It's not, but I think for some people it is, and that's
00:39:28
Speaker
I don't know. I found myself thinking a lot about that over the last couple American election cycles.
Concerns on Moderate Belief Systems
00:39:34
Speaker
Obviously, we had Trump in 2016, and we had a far closer election than we should have had in 2020.
00:39:45
Speaker
Just the way that, and I'm not speaking specifically or solely about the sort of far-right, you know, Earth is 6,000 years old, Jerusalem will be the battlefield of the return of Christ's ultra-conservative types, that I still consider that group larger than it should be to be relatively fringe to most community understandings of individual relationship with the divine. There is, however,
00:40:16
Speaker
a version of the moderate and their place with the divine that I find troubling in a lot of ways, where the rules are set, people are where they're supposed to be, God is on his throne, all is right with the world, amen. I just don't know how you can view the world that way, ever.
00:40:38
Speaker
Really like I don't yeah like as the best of all possible worlds like Voltaire wrote that as a joke That is not a that is not an attainable Yeah, I I don't know I It's tough because I knew
Philosophy's Influence on Art
00:40:54
Speaker
I
00:40:54
Speaker
I knew I was coming on a podcast about philosophy. I should say I have a very lay, largely unacademic understanding of philosophy. I studied a little bit in college because I was in college and that's when people who are studying art do that kind of thing. Hey, that's how we get you. We get you. You got to take one of those. Yeah, it's interesting though.
00:41:19
Speaker
I'm not opposed to God or a divine creator of some sort fitting into your life.
Cultural Observations from Japan
00:41:25
Speaker
And then, I don't know, I was in Japan earlier this year. We took our first international trip, my wife and I ever, and it was incredible. Not only because Japan is an 8,000 year old culture and here in a nation in its infancy slash death throes, it's strange to look at something where tradition and modernity coexist in that way.
00:41:46
Speaker
The relationship of Shinto in everyday life was fascinating. You know, people will go to their shrines, they will throw in their coin. I'm not going to imitate it because I don't want to be offensive. But you know, there's like a sort of little clapping ritual, lowering your head to have your thought with this parallel version of the spiritual world. It doesn't seem above in the same way that Christian dogma does. It seems more
00:42:14
Speaker
like it's there, but just on the periphery of your vision, but then you just go on with your day. That's really interesting to me. Now, that said, this was as someone who is an American tourist observing what appears to be a more casual relationship with religion than we have in this country. I am certain I am wrong about that. I'm sure there are Shinto fundamentalists or something like that, or Shinto non-believers, any number of
00:42:38
Speaker
humanity contains multitudes. I'm sure there's as much diversity within Shinto as there is within Christianity. I just didn't, I don't have the academic background to recognize that. But it is very interesting to me. It's really, it's something that I hadn't really seen expressed in American culture. We don't have a public and private version of religion here. It's one or the other. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't thought about it.
00:43:05
Speaker
I hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah, good. Great to hear about your trip to Japan, a country I'm fascinated with. And for us comic guys, we appreciate that they are tapped into that comic bookie culture there to do it so well. God, I wish we had that market here.
00:43:29
Speaker
It's so normal to read manga there. Everyone does it. It's great. It's so cool. It's been amazing to see the changes culturally here. I view a lot of the art objects, music, food, whatever is potential cultural contacts in the world, which sometimes screams it doesn't want to come in contact with each other.
00:43:51
Speaker
Music, those manga, those books. Alright, so Steven, we've been chatting philosophy and art and upstate.
Supporting Indie Comics
00:44:02
Speaker
I want you to let the listeners know where to find your stuff. We talk floating world.
00:44:10
Speaker
Molly partner does some some some art yes lead us lead us into the future alright i'll start with molly my wife molly to shane does a terrific auto bio comic called unpopular before it was cool.
00:44:26
Speaker
All spelled exactly like it sounds you can find it online just got a website got an instagram presence it's really fun and you can see my deck in there so you can look at that. That's part of the artistic license i don't know she what goes on there so not gonna see it in my work so you can see it in molly's and.
00:44:49
Speaker
You can find my work if you're listening in Portland, Floating World, Books with Pictures. I need to restock Cosmic Monkey, but those guys, all the sort of micro press indie short stores out here will carry my stuff. It's available most places in the US now in limited numbers. It's now at the Beguiling in Canada.
00:45:06
Speaker
If you have a local comic book store and you don't have it, request it.
Portland's Comic Scene
00:45:11
Speaker
Retailers are significantly better for me than people who buy them specifically from me, because retailers will buy multiple copies and then people who are not coming directly to me will see it. I should say my name is spelled weird, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, last name, P-E-L-L-N-A-T. And you can also just get my comics on my website, www.stevenpalmet.com.
00:45:34
Speaker
There are three numbered issues, too many comics, about 200 pages of upstate content so far. Next year, we'll see how true this winds up being because I still have three jobs. But I'm hoping to transition the comic to a roughly bi-monthly schedule, shorter installments released every two months or so, maybe quarterly. I've given myself a fair amount of lead time to get started on getting them ready to hit the presses next year.
00:46:02
Speaker
But any number of things can happen in a year. You never know, but there will be significantly more upstate content coming out next year.
00:46:11
Speaker
Awesome everybody check out upstate. I was lucky enough to meet Stephen at the Rose City Comic Con got those three issues also got a Molly wasn't there, but I also got a signed a signed copy of of her zine I don't know if Molly knows that there's a ghost signer out there Yeah, if you didn't Molly now, you know, you're you I requested a ghost sign copy. What can I do? I
00:46:37
Speaker
But yeah, love the material. And seriously, if you're new to comics or a comics lover, you know, talk to your store. Talk to your store. Tell them you heard about the Upstate comic. And yeah, they'll get a few copies. And that's how, look, you and I, Steven, we know this.
00:46:57
Speaker
You go to this comic book store for the for some of the books that you want and you got the time you look all around and say, well, let's look at that one. Oh, look at that one. And that's kind of how it it seems to work. Yeah. You know, that's how you find how you find the new stuff. So really appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll throw one last plug in for Floating World. Floating World has an awesome staff. They always have really terrific recommendations.
00:47:24
Speaker
Pretty good friends with Tim and Sam over there. They both have excellent taste, and you should definitely, if you're in Portland, and if you're not, if you're visiting Portland, come visit. It's not as bad as Fox News says it is. It's a lovely place to live, and Floating World is well worth the visit on its own strength if you're a comics fan. All right. I'm going to add on again, and again, this is not sponsored by Floating World. No. This is independent level. We just really like you, Jason.
00:47:49
Speaker
So I recorded an episode outside of Floating World Comics in Lloyd Center Mall. There's a tattoo shop, a mortal emblem, that's opened up down at the end. I got a tattoo down there after going to the comic shop. Floating World Comics, great publisher,
00:48:17
Speaker
Great comics just to find some old-timey some underground stuff And you could find them Online as well. So not only do we both love this. I record the podcast outside of it I get my tattoos near it a lot of floating world comics love Steven great to meet you in Portland at the Rose City Comic Con and I
Future Podcast Plans and Conclusion
00:48:44
Speaker
lovely having you on the show and be able to kick around growing up upstate or in the city. Yeah. Roman Catholic or Lutheran. Yeah, this was great. I would do another one just about Lutheranism. This is always fun.
00:49:03
Speaker
I think, oh, one further thing before I let you go. And I remembered it before. There's been a couple kind of gold berserk comic episodes I had with panels. And these are the longest episodes you'll find in the show. One, which ranged almost two and a half hours, which was called, what if comic book geeks,
00:49:31
Speaker
got together and talked about what-if comics, that type of thing, two and a half hours of that. And the one episode, which I don't know if this is up your alley, I suspect you can tell me, the famous one, which included a botanist, a painter, and a poet, and myself, was the swamp thing rather than nothing.
00:49:52
Speaker
Oh, so which was it seemed like an extensive exploration. I think with the panel that we had, we did an hour and 40 minutes and maybe, you know, when you install in a game and it's about one percent, there's a lot of swamp thing. There's a lot of swamp thing that I was going to say. I noticed the Alan Moore on the show on the shelf behind you there. So that probably like right right behind me. So what I'm saying, Stephen, is for the folks to know is I'm going to call on
00:50:21
Speaker
Steven is a special guest panelist when we do another comic book episode and yeah for your talents and Input so started with what if? Moved on to Swamp Thing Don't know what's next, but I do know I'll be contacting you. All right. Hey, that sounds great. This has been terrific Thanks, brother. You take care. Yeah you as well. Thank you much. I
00:50:53
Speaker
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00:51:23
Speaker
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00:51:51
Speaker
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