Harry Nordlinger is a cartoonist/artist/illustrator from San Francisco, specializing in absurdity, surreal horror and the macabre. He is known for the self published comic book anthologies Softer Than Sunshine and Vacuum Decay.
Honestly, the less I say about his work the better. It’s best enjoyed by just diving in, or at the very least letting the man himself tell you about it…
GI: First, just tell me about yourself and your influences! I don’t get enough chances
to talk about the crossroads of surrealism and Horror, or to use the word Lynchian
in conversation. This’ll be good for me.
HN: I'm a 28-year-old cartoonist and illustrator from San Francisco. I've always been
hugely inspired by horror and surreality/absurdism, an interest that was
cemented around age ten when I first discovered Tales From The Crypt and
Vault of Horror. The content in those books was eye opening! I had never seen
such grisly horror before, and definitely never seen it rendered with such exquisite
talent and style.
As I got older my tastes matured, and I discovered the incredible slew of indie
horror comics that had been birthed from the ashes of EC. Books like Gore Shriek,
Death Rattle, Slow Death Funnies, and Insect Fear introduced me to a whole
new segment of underground horror, which was all the more inspirational
because most of it was local to the Bay Area. It was around the same time, age
thirteen or so, that I became aware of surrealism and the avant garde.
Later my interests were molded and nurtured by films like Blue Velvet, Un Chien
Andalou and Tetsuo: The Iron Man, while also discovering the avant garde side
of comics such as Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron and Black Hole.
I still find new things to be inspired by all the time! It wasn't until college, for
instance, that I discovered Harold Pinter and Al Columbia, two influences that
would set the stage for my Softer Than Sunshine comics.
GI: There’s a dreamlike, subversive form of horror in your sequential work. Is your
destination generally clear when you set to work on a story, or do you prefer to
drive blind?
HN: It's different every time, but rarely do I have a full narrative right from the start. It
usually begins with a concept or an image, and then grows forward or
backward from there. Sometimes I start with just the opening page and let it
unfold in my head over the next few days.
I might have a final image in mind, and try to find how I can get there.
Other times I will have a concept--a series of windows, someone changing the
channels on a TV, faces looking out a window--and see how I can play that
concept out in a comic book format. I tend to visualize things in my head as
movies and then adapt it to panels and pages in the thumbnailing stage.
GI: You self-publish your own Horror comix anthology, Vacuum Decay. What led
you to take up those reins? Was there a hole in the market that you wanted to fill,
artists you wanted to provide a platform for, or something else?
HN: Honestly, there were no horror anthologies that I liked! I mentioned Gore Shriek
and Slow Death earlier, incredible books from the 70s-90s. I looked around and
saw that nothing like that existed anymore, so it was a void I wanted to fill.
I used to submit to anthologies all the time, and figured, "why waste my time
trying to get in on what other people are doing when I could just do it myself?"
Also my friend Karmichael Jones (@CurseGod on IG) was hanging out at the
comic bookstore I worked at all the time and we would talk about underground
comix and horror, and all the things we wanted to see in the indie comics scene.
Talking to another cartoonist with similar tastes and aesthetics as me was a big
inspiration to create a platform for us to express our bizarre and horrific visions.
Also, I gotta give credit to Cartoonist Kayfabe, who inspired me to embark down
the self-publishing path in the first place.
GI: How have you been coping with the 2020 shitstorm?
HN: Honestly? It's kind of the best thing that's ever happened to me! Not literally,
obviously--I've been unemployed for almost a year and am struggling just to pay
rent--but artistically it's been the most productive period of my life.
I was unemployed and stuck inside for the first three months of lockdown, which
is when I drew and published Vacuum Decay #1 and Softer Than Sunshine #2.
I've never had so much free time to focus on my art in all my life. I've released
three comics during lockdown, and am about to release a fourth. Honestly, if
you're a creative, and you haven't been productive during lockdown, then
you're doing something wrong.
GI: GREEN INFERNO is sub-titled, The World Celebrates Your Demise. How do you
feel your pieces relate to this sentiment?
HN: My series loosely connects to weave a narrative about ecological disaster the
likes of which human kind can't compete with. The world, in this case, does not
only celebrate your demise but benefits greatly from it. The demise of humanity
can lead to the birth of something new. Some new form of life this world has yet
to see.
See more of Harry Nordlinger at his website here.