Pat's New Grant

Will H-S

Pat's work-in-progress wall. patgrantart.com

ASL's favourite cartoonist Pat Grant recently had to cease work on the monthly madness that was "I Shit You Not!"
We caught up with Pat to find out what makes him tick and what he's working on next.

How old were you when you realized you could draw and paint?
I thought I was pretty shit hot in the first grade, all the girls used to get me to draw pictures in their English books, but then this kid called Clinton Kardi moved to Sawtell and enrolled in my school. He could draw Looney-Tunes like you wouldn't believe. I kind of gave up after that because I didn't like being second best. I did a bit of drawing in high school but I was always more interested in telling stories. This led to an interest in creative writing while I was at uni, which led me back to drawing comics. I had to work like a bastard at my cartooning skills to catch up on all those lost years.



What’s your own favourite drawing or painting?
I did this giant screen-print of terrace houses and monsters inspired by East Newcastle. One of them is hanging on the wall in our living room and I still get a lot of pleasure from looking at it, which is rare, because usually when I look at my work all I can think of is how I could have done it better.



Tell us how surfing has inspired your art?
I'm not really into a surfing philosophy or any of that spiritual wallop, but going surfing can be inspiring for an artist in that it can be a real sensual overload. I was sitting out at Winki Pop with Tim Fisher the other day as the sun was coming up and I just couldn't stop looking at the way the light was bouncing off of the cliffs down towards Bells. There was a colour in those cliffs that I didn't know existed. When you're surfing you're more likely to be immersed in sensory extremes, even if it's more bodily things like cold, or fear, and sensory extremes tend to rattle us out of drab sedentary routines and make us look around a bit more.

The comics by Mark Sutherland, Ben Brown and Tony Edwards were really important to me when I was a grommet. Surf mags were as close as you got to an underground press back in Sawtell in the mid 90s and my appreciation of these comics transferred seamlessly to an appreciation of cartoonist like Robert Crumb, Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, who are my inspiration these days. The surf Media and coastal culture in general remains a huge influence despite the fact that I've lived most of my adult life in inner cities. I'm always coming back to the coast in my work.



You had to give “I Shit You Not” the arse to work on your latest project, tell us about that.
Well I've been wanting to work on my own 'serious' comic book for a while so I've been putting some energy into weaseling money out of institutions to help me pay for it. Kevin Rudd saw fit to give me a few of his literature grants to pay some of my bills while I'm working on it and Maquarie Uni agreed to sponsor the project as part of PhD research. So in four years time I guess I'll be a doctor with a graphic novel, but I'll be releasing it in smaller chunks as part of my regular zine. The first one will be out by the end of the year.  

I'm not really one to go pitching stories to people before they're written, but the book is very much a surfing comic. It's set in a coastal town that looks a bit like Maroubra and there are a lot of carefully drawn waves, awkward grommets and some weird supernatural stuff. Think puberty blues... with tentacles!



In the spirit of “I Shit You Not”, tell us a funny surf related experience of your own.
Ha Ha. Well I was on a trip in Mexico and got stuck in Puerto Escondido for weeks, surfing all day and getting stuck into the cervezas all night. I was in the water on particular day, it was only about two foot but at the Mexican Pipe you can still get barreled on small days.  Anyway, I took a wave and this giant mexican on this big rhino-chaser of a board dropped in on me. He had a big hairy back and, get this, he was wearing one of those mexican pro-wrestler masks, like Jack Black in Nacho Libre. Don't ask me what was going on with that. So, I called him off the wave but he ignored me then he put that rhino-chaser on the rail and turned the board right into me. Somehow, in the resulting collision, the pointy nose of his board todged me fair up the cake hole. It was a pain unlike any I have experienced before.

I spluttered to the surface and started yelling at the bastard, in English, all of my broken Spanish having been forgotten in a red cloud of arsehole pain. He was cordial enough. He said that if I was going to visit, I should respect the locals, and then he paddled off. In hindsight I see that, as I didn't want the piss beaten out of me, I probably shouldn't have yelled at this enormous local charger within earshot of his hombres. Pain will make a man do reckless things though, and I gave that bloke an earful before I hobbled up the beach.

Do you have any advice for aspiring artists out there?
D.I.Y. OR DIE YOU MONGRELS! Make zines, put on your own art shows, promote your own gigs, publish your own books, press your own vinyl, send your heroes mail, and try not to use Photoshop too much.

Click here to check our Pat's site, he's got the full range of "I Shit You Not's" plus more awesome art.