Creating Comics!

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Title: Ground Zero

© 2007 Marguerite Van Cook and James Romberger

Creative Process

(As told by Marguerite Van Cook) When I first conceptualized

Ground Zero with James Romberger, we wanted to create a

comic that would break the mold. I wanted to encourage as

much reader participation as possible. We agreed that expe-

riencing Ground Zero should not necessarily be an easy ride. I

was interested in both structuralism and narrative constructions,

and to serve my concerns certain elements had to happen in

each issue; they should remind the viewer that he or she is

looking at a printed page.

We experimented with different handwritten elements and

different type fonts to function as constant wake-up signals.

We played with scale and dot patterns to alter surfaces and to

disrupt the reader from slipping into a comfort zone. Marshall

McLuhan wrote at length about the authority of the printed

page; in Ground Zero we wanted to undercut our own author-

ity and let the reader make his or her own decisions about the

narrative process. Cinematically, to make our presence visible,

we revealed our hand in the process at every turn; we are au-

thors who could be challenged by the reader. In that way, there

is another political layer to the comic, because it challenges

the traditional authority of the writer’s/artist’s voice, and goes

beyond that to question all authority. We hoped it would offer

clues for readers to become critical analysts of everything else

they saw, and to expose the codes for reuse elsewhere.

The whole paradigm of Ground Zero is one of us versus

them; the narrative and structure of the strips combine to reiter-

ate that point repeatedly. It is up to the reader to try out the

potential metaphors.

Further, we used different techniques—spatter and cutouts,

breaking the borders, and standing figures on the page.

Sometimes the characters reference the fact that they are in a

comic by lifting the panel borders. In fact, the narrative contin-

ues these metaphors, because all of the events occur within the

boundaries, which references the pages, as well as the geo-

graphical location of the story. The whole narrative itself was a

meta-narrative for our lives and what was happening, first on

the Lower East Side and later out in the world. The sometimes

science-fiction quality is most often based on things that were

happening in the actual scientific world. In 1983, when we be-

gan, all of these changes in technical style had to be done

by hand.

As if all of this isn’t enough, the storyline had to be important

too. Roland Barthes’s Mythologies was a great influence on

me, and James and I worked hard on the potential for myth

busting in the storyline. Meta-biography offers great potential to

reinterpret life from a different perspective. Something as simple

as buying a quart of milk can become a whole adventure if it is

seen as an odyssey. After all, life feels like an epic as one lives

it—why not treat it as such? Hopefully, the reader questions our

re-envisioning of reality.

James Romberger/

Marguerite Van Cook

Creating Comics

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M

arguerite Van Cook and James Romberger

are internationally exhibited gallery art-

ists who are also immersed in the comics

medium. They began their autobiographical serial sci-fi

strip Ground Zero in 1984, publishing self-contained

installments in a purposefully wide range of downtown

NYC literary and small press magazines, such as the East

Village Eye, Redtape, Avenue E, Pretty Decorating, Legal

Action Comics, World War 3 Illustrated, and Semiotexte.

When the entire saga is collected it will have to be pub-

lished under a different name, because of the profusion

of books about 9/11.

Van Cook and Romberger collaborated with the late

writer and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz on the ac-

claimed graphic novel Seven Miles a Second, published

by Vertigo/DC in 1996, and have created other comics for

Vertigo’s Gangland, Weird War, Heartthrobs, Strange Ad-

ventures, and Flinch, as well as Image’s NYC MECH, and

the current revival of Tales from the Crypt as a children’s

comic from Papercutz/NBM.

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James Romberger/

Marguerite Van Cook

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James Romberger/Marguerite Van Cook

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