Jim Rugg, in conversation with Matthew Manos
The following is a transcript from a Zoom conversation between Jim Rugg and Matthew Manos, in May of 2021.
Jim Rugg is a comic book artist, book maker, illustrator, and designer, living and drawing in Pittsburgh. His books include Street Angel, the PLAIN Janes, Afrodisiac, and Octobriana 1976. Jim also teaches visual storytelling at the School of Visual Arts, and is co-host of the popular YouTube show, Cartoonist Kayfabe. Jim participated as an artist in the Comix From The Heart project.
Matthew Manos is an artist, designer, and educator passionate about making creativity and innovation more accessible. He is the Founder of verynice, a design strategy practice that gives half of its work away for free, and an Assistant Professor at the USC Iovine and Young Academy, where he has taught courses in design strategy and storytelling. Matthew participated as an artist and storyteller in the Comix From The Heart Project, and is the editor of this publication.
Matthew Manos: It’s always struck me when I see a comic book, flip to the credits section, and it says “words by…”, “inks by…”, “pencils by…”, “art by…” instead of just “by”…, because a comic is not a comic without the art. It’s not a comic without the words. That hyper specific delineation of roles is mysterious to me, but it’s so common with the big publishers that slap a thousand different credits. How do you feel about that?
Jim Rugg: People argue about this a lot in my circles, and it’s an argument that goes back historically… “who created the Marvel universe? Was it Jack Kirby? Or Stan Lee??” There are legal and economic reasons for splitting it up, but beyond that, it’s impossible to separate. If you point to your favorite comics, it would be really challenging to untangle who contributed to what. Working creatively, the sum is always better than its parts, and at that point it gets really difficult to untangle.
I work with a writing partner a lot, Brian Maruca. We go back and review our work, maybe for a new edition or something, and with some of my favorite parts, I’ll be like: “wow, Brian, this is really good”, and he’ll be like: “you wrote that.” These ideas get passed back and forth so much, it gets really hard to actually say “you get the credit for this”.
MM: Collaboration’s been a big part of my life, and my work, for sure. The moment I decided verynice was a studio, and that I felt the need to come up with the name, was when I realized I wasn’t working on anything alone, and so therefore, it’s not Matthew Manos. That was a turning point for me, when I first started my company. I started verynice really young; my sophomore year of college, and I’ve been doing it every since. But that realization was the catalyst, so collaboration is one of the key things in my way of thinking about work.
JR: How do you sum up verynice? Say, you’re at a dinner party with a bunch of strangers, and they want to know what you do.
MM: I hide under the table.
JR: Ha!
MM: No, verynice is a design strategy practice that gives half of its work away for free to nonprofit organizations. And when I say “design strategy”, I think it’s important to define that term, because it can sound a bit mysterious…
JR: … and a bit jargony.
MM: Yeah. So, what a design strategist does is work with an organization to find out the paint points and problems that organization is facing. Then, they go and talk to the people that organization actually serves, and they find out what their pain points and problems are. And then they take all of that information and say: “this is what we should design”.
verynice started as a graphic design firm. I was 19 when I started it. It was about creating logos and marketing collateral. The services kept evolving and changing, as the needs in the market kept changing. So, eventually we did web design, and I just kind of had to learn that. And then, eventually, I kind of fell in love with this strategy thing.
Falling for strategy kind of surprised me, because I’m an artist at heart. But in the work, I found that I could provide people with recommendations that could have this ripple effect of a lot of other work being created. It kind of grows and has a life of its own at that point.
JR: When did you start? You said you were in college, what year was that?
MM: 2008.
JR: And were you studying design in school?
MM: Yes, I studied Design Media Arts at UCLA, and then after that I got an MFA at ArtCenter College of Design in Media Design. Both of those were very multidisciplinary programs. Before college, I was a painter… I had a comics zine in high school… I was very much a tactile person.
Essentially, out of fear of not being able to support myself – and this is perhaps one of my biggest regrets – when I was picking a college major, I thought to myself: “ok, well, design sounds like art, but I see a lot of jobs for it” (chuckles).
OK, regret is a strong word, but for years, I felt like I was diverging a bit from where my heart actually was. And that’s part of why the kind of work I do moved away from graphic design, into strategy… and by night, I’m drawing comics and making art.
JR: I went to school in the 90s, and I chose design for exactly the reason you describe: this is close art, and I think I can pay the bills. I look back at it very fondly. I mainly do comics now, and it’s words and images combined… and that’s basically design!
The thing I remember when I was in school is that specialization was a really big deal, but I think that’s completely changed. Everybody does everything now. Whether as an agency, or as an individual. Whatever you have an idea of making, it’s probably within your grasp to make that thing now. And that can be underwhelming on its own.
MM: Yeah, and it’s part of why when you asked me “you’re at a dinner party, how do you describe what you do”… it’s part of why I said “I hide under the table”, because it’s really hard to describe!
verynice is one slice of what I do, even though it’s the thing I’m known for, it’s just one slice of what I do. It’s not as easy as my dad being able to say “I’m a lawyer”; my mom being able to say “I’m a tutor”; or I have friends who say “I work in real estate”. I just feel like there are so many occupations where people can say it in one line.
What I think about when I think of this generalist versus specialist debate is that I specialize in being a generalist. Being a generalist is a specialty, too.
JR: Yeah, no doubt about it.
[With verynice,] I like the idea that you give half of your work away for free. I do think there’s some interesting ways to approach “free”, and working it into half of your output is… that’s jumping into the deep-end. That’s pretty radical.
MM: I had learned that every year, in the United States alone, nonprofits spend close to 8 billion dollars per year on people like me: design and marketing professionals. When I heard that, I couldn’t help but think: “what would the world look like, if nonprofits had a spare 8 billion dollars per year laying around. Frankly, the mission of these organizations is not to pay people like you and me, it’s to create impact.
Now, the reality is that having a designer or marketer do this kind of work does allow the organization to do this impactful work. It helps them reach more people, fundraise, etc…
So, I faced this dilemma: clearly this work is critical to the needs of an organization, but also this whole “spare 8 billion dollars per year” thing was like… wow.
So, I had this, maybe existential, breakdown. Was the best way for me to make an impact as a designer to simply not charge for the work? And this was the realization I came to: perhaps my work ultimately won’t make a direct impact, but offsetting the burden of it can allow them to reallocate some of these resources and funds to their impact initiatives. This was the driving force behind trying to do something a bit radical. Ultimately, I’m motivated by saving nonprofits money.
JR: I took a job where [Emigre Magazine] was on the shelf. I started reading it, and it blew my mind, because those weren’t ideas I was given as an undergrad. The idea that graphic design could make an impact on the world in a positive or negative way, and what role you as a graphic designer could take to shape the world. Were you engaging with these ideas in the design world that you were a part of?
MM: The years leading up to verynice, say ’05-’07, I would go to protests and whatnot. One thing that really attracted and inspired me were protest posters, and the use of words and images in this environment to shift perspective, raise concerns, or just shed light on something.
I had previously mentioned this initial regret of going to design school instead of art school. It was in my exposure to protest posters that I had the realization – and this may be very similar to your reaction to Emigre – that I realized design can do really powerful things.
And that’s when I fell in love with design for a period of time.
JR: Do you think your love of zines were part of that? A lot of zines are about political awareness or person ideologies, so…
MM: I love zines for a couple of reasons. Some of it might have been that. The social impact side of it; the political side of it. But I think more so, it was like… “oh, man. This person made this thing, and they are giving it to people.” And that, to me, I don’t know, it’s just one of the most amazing things a person could do with their time: to put something that’s in their head into words, and images, and just staple it. It’s just such a gift to the world.
I think zines got me really interested in publishing, too. I remember being in a book design class in college. We were given the text to The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, a really surreal sci-fi book of sorts. The professor asked us to create an entire design and layout for the book. I really enjoyed the exercise of designing a complete book, but about halfway through, I remember thinking to myself, as much as I loved Casares’ work: “why isn’t it my text?”. And I realized, I wanted to design the book, but I also wanted to write the book. And this triggered for me an urgency to pursue writing and publishing.
JR: Maybe this brings us to the project that brought us together. Do you want to talk about that?
Editor’s Note: Matthew Manos and Jim Rugg collaborated on a one page comic about Matthew’s first allergic reaction to peanuts. This comic was part of a publication created in partnership between verynice and the American Heart Association which aimed to experiment with, and showcase, the genre of graphic medicine. The publication was created by way of a “graphic medicine workshop”; an event that brought together artists, and storytellers (patients and healthcare professionals), to create a single-page, 9-panel, comic about a medical experience of some kind.
MM: I’m curious, prior to this project, how familiar with graphic medicine were you? Had it been on your radar? If it was, what was your impression of the genre?
JR: It was a little bit on my radar. I have a friend who was teaching a course on comics at Carnegie Mellon, here in Pittsburgh, and we met when he was in the early stages of putting his curriculum together, which involved exposing his students to a lot of different stuff. There were examples included that would qualify as graphic medicine; memoirs of people dealing with various afflictions. Many of those books become celebrated. There’s a different audience. A more mature, adult, audience.
It’s not a genre that I seek out, or read a lot of. In my mind, they feel like heavy work a lot of times. I’m often chasing something else. You know, I could probably name a lot more crime genre comics than I could graphic medicine comics, but it’s certainly something that’s been on my radar.
One example I think of is Our Cancer Year, by and about Harvey Pekar’s experience with cancer. For me, as fan of independent comics and independent publishing, Pekar is someone whose work I’ve followed (editor’s note: Harvey Pekar is best known for American Splendor). That’s one that would come out of alternative comics probably before graphic medicine was what it is today.
I knew cartoonists who went to school for art, and they went for medical or scientific illustration. For a lot of cartoonists, of a certain age that might be something you’d study in college that could possibly help you into a career in comics, at least skillset wise. It would be things you see in textbooks a lot of times. Diagrams, infographics, etc. Some of these artists would go on to create comics, like Phoebe Gloeckner who created Diary of a Teenage Girl. It feels like there’s overlap between (medical illustration) and graphic medicine in certain ways, and that’s about how can graphics enhance the story we’re telling about a medical condition.
The third thing I think of when I think of graphic medicine are doctors who would draw these crude illustrations, say when you’re having a consultation, in order to help further explain what they do. I have a friend who recently had this experience with a heart doctor whose daring a heart on a big pad with colored markers, using arrows to try and indicate certain areas and what they do. Again, not comics, but that idea of cartooning as a way to better explain something, or to better communicate. Graphic medicine feels like high-level craft version of that.
MM: That’s fascinating. It makes me think, in some cases graphic medicine, in the way you’re describing it, can be life or death. (chuckles) There’s high pressure there!
JR: I hope there’s not that much pressure! I know some of these illustrators, and I don’t want lives to depend too much on them!
JR/MM: (chuckles)
MM: So, I guess it’s safe to assume that this page we worked on together was your first time trying out graphic medicine. Is that right?
JR: Yeah, I think that’s a fair thing to say.
MM: Now that you’ve tried it, has your impression of the genre changed in any way?
JR: It did. We did a very light story. I didn’t know what to expect going into this. Your description said, it would be stories of, say, medical practitioners, patients, and researchers. So, I was expecting something that might be very scientific. Like, I’m going to have to figure out how to draw open heart surgery or something. The story that we did is much more whimsical. That surprised me, and is not something I’d previously think of when I think of graphic medicine genre.
MM: The interesting thing, thanks to the partner being the American Heart Association. When I first started working with them, I thought everything would be about heart attacks and stroke. But, I realized that that wasn’t really true. They actually talk about their mission in a very broad way, seeing heart health as directly related to total wellbeing. So, therefore, everything is related to the heart. This ended up being an influence to this publication having these 14 wide-ranging stories. Some are about heart attacks, or heart surgery, but many are not! We’ve got stories about pregnancy, trauma, addiction, food allergies, and more.
JR: I’m curious to hear how the project came about. It’s an anthology comic book, depicting examples of graphic medicine that we created on a weekend, for the American Heart Association. How did this come about? What does this project address for organizations like the Heart Association, and why was it important to them?
MM: This was a really good example of me just asking permission to do something that I’m personally excited about.
During COVID, I’m watching hours of you and Ed flipping through comics on Cartoonist Kayfabe; I’m reading a bunch of comics; I’m writing and drawing my own, etc. At some point during 2020, I stumbled upon graphic medicine. It was listed as a genre on the Fantagraphics website. I remember thinking “what on earth is this?”. I’d never heard of a genre referred to as “medicine”. This was the beginning of a longer curiosity. Months into 2020, I started reading some of these, and became more and more fascinated by the concept.
Editor’s Note: Matthew picked up Dancing After TEN by Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber, DUMB by Georgia Webber, Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life by Ellen Forney, and Wrinkles by Paco Roca (translated by Erica Mena).
After self-publishing my first full-length comic in 2020, I had set a few goals for 2021. First, to refine my craft. Second, to do something professionally in the comics world. Do accomplish the latter, I first thought I’d come up with a script, and a pitch, and submit it to publishers. But then I quickly moved away from that idea, as I didn’t want to rush my next story. So, I thought: “how else can I get into the comics world?”
Then, I thought of graphic medicine, and remembered a conversation I’d had with the Heart Association about their work in health equity, and how important storytelling is in the work they do with communities to showcase the disparities that exist. Immediately, I connected the dots. I wrote to them to see what they say. I got on a call with Kristi Durazo, who focuses heavily on health equity, and told her: “I want to edit an anthology of graphic medicine comics. Would you be up for collaborating”. She said “yes”, and the rest is history!
So, for this project, the Heart Association was responsible for assembling our “storytellers”, who would be patients, or healthcare practitioners. And then verynice would assemble a team of artists to pair them up with to bring these stories to life.
In my mind, this was such a fulfilling event. It allowed me to accomplish my goal of doing something professionally in the comics world.
Hopefully one day, I will be able to have my own comic or graphic novel published, but for now, this role of editor plays to my strengths of making things happen by bringing people together.
JR: What’s your reaction to the event and publication? What’s the next step?
MM: I do workshops all the time that are really creative with all kinds of brainstorming and playful activities. People at these workshops are constantly telling me “oh my god, this was so much fun!”, or “this made my week!”. But funny enough, I rarely feel that myself. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy facilitating workshops and whatnot, but it’s become a job. In many ways, this could have been just another workshop, but it ended up being the most fulfilling workshop I’ve done in my life. That’s because it allowed me to connect a lot of dots between what I’m passionate about, and what I’m actually good at, too. So I was high from the event for days, and whenever I got one of the finished pages in my inbox, I was blown away.
Format-wise, Shelley Wall’s keynote was so incredible and helpful. It provided us the context we all needed to be able to do this work, because none of the storytellers had written a comic before, and none of the artists had engaged in graphic medicine before. And the rest of the event felt really smooth, and as though everyone genuinely enjoyed themselves.
In terms of next steps, the Heart Association is having these comics peer-reviewed by their community of scientists, and will be presenting them at their upcoming science conference. We’ll also be publishing a short run of these on my wife, Katie’s, new risograph. And I’m also hoping to do more of these kinds of things. Katie and I are thinking of launching something called The Nine Panel Project which would host more events like these with non-comics people, in partnership with incredible organizations, to tell vulnerable stories.
I’m curious to throw it back at you. Was there a key takeaway from the event, or this process, that stood out to you?
JR: One, it was run really professionally. Much of the comics industry is very unprofessional. I often describe it as industry in air-quotes, because if you define what makes an industry, I bet comics don’t qualify. So, it’s always refreshing to bring comics outside of the typical setting because they are always met more professionally.
I also enjoy doing comics with non-comics people, in whatever setting that may be, and that was the experience with this as well. Whether it was the keynote, which was fantastic, or just being in a virtual room with a bunch of people interested in comics, comics storytelling, and creating comics that would presumably appeal to people who don’t read comics. These are all pluses for me. Going into is, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it certainly exceed all expectations.
MM: You end each Cartoonist Kayfabe video with a call to “read more comics”, and I’ve also heard you say “comics are for everyone”. Can you talk a bit about what you mean by that, and why comics should be for everyone?
JR: Comics for me were a really personal thing. I grew up pre-internet, and in a very rural setting. I’d been to one art museum by the time I was 18. I never went to a concert until I was 18. There was all this stuff that I did not have access to. We talk about jobs that you might grow up and become, and what I could imagine was pretty much what you’d see on Television. You know, I could find a teacher. I could find a farmer. I could not find an artist. Comics were this thing that opened the world for me.
I also felt very depressed growing up, because I did not feel this connection or hope for the future. Comics were the escape. I think it’s the same thing people may find in any sort of reading experience. Comics, might just reach those who may not be interested.
From a graphic medicine point of view, I have a friend who achieved a great success in his vocation. He was feeling troubled, and we were talking one-time, and I brought up the term “imposter syndrome”. It was something he was not familiar with, and when I said this to my friend, he was so thankful for giving him this term – it described what he was feeling. Just having this knowledge sort of changed for him the way he viewed it, and his perspective on it. I feel like comics, in terms of graphic medicine, can have this effect. They give us this chance to communicate in a way that words fail. Comics have a lot more tools. In my life, I feel like communication is the skill that is a key to everything, and something we can all improve on.
Editor’s Note: You can follow Jim Rugg on Instagram at @jimruggart; support Jim on Patreon at patreon.com/jimrugg; watch Jim and Ed Piskor nerd out on comics by subscribing to Cartoonist Kayfabe on YouTube.
