Drawn Together: Unedited Interviews
Ivan Despi
Interviewed by Nicola M. Sebastian
At this very moment, where are you, what are you doing, and what song is stuck in your head?
Right now, I’ve just finished my self-portrait for this Rogue feature, and I have to get some rest for tonight because tomorrow we’ll start a three-week grind at the studio. We’ve just come back from a three-day Baguio trip and are now swamped with work! The sound of “Strobe” by the Friendly Fires is currently ringing in my head.
How did you learn how to draw?
I have been drawing since grade school, and since my primary influence was comic books, I grew up wanting to make my own comic book. I took up Advertising Management in La Salle (which was all sorts of wrong, because the course trains you to be an account executive, which is the other side of the fence).
After graduating, some college friends and I decided to start a comic book anthology series. After several months of working on it (we more or less finished our first issue), we realized we couldn’t publish it because we didn’t have the money. So we moved on and looked for real jobs.
Thanks to a good friend’s help, I was able to land a job in ABS-CBN as a motion designer. That’s where I started and went off to start my own studio, The Acid House. Since then, I haven’t done anything remotely related to comic books. Whenever I get the time, I work on personal pieces. If I get invited to join group exhibits, I also make time for that too.
Where you do you seek or draw inspiration from?
There’s this one website, mentalfloss.com, and it’s packed of all sorts of random trivia. That’s where I was able to read about Saint Death/Santa Muerte, the Hyena Men of Nigeria, and Bumfights TV show, which I reinterpreted for some of my personal works. For my overly-saturated works, I think the steady diet of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin should be held accountable. Artists I like the most would be Geoff Darrow, Paul Pope, Rafael Grampa, and Frank Quitely.
Tell us a little about Acid House. What is it all about and how did it get started?
Acid House is the studio that I put up back in 2005. The studio is involved in idea generation, direction, 2D and 3D animation, and compositing for video. There is a small group of artists that I work with in order to create show-openers, music videos, and TV commercials. You can go to our website, acidhousepost.com, if you want to see what’s been happening.
Your work has a bit of a dark, ominous quality to it. Your characters are freakshows, semi-fantastical creatures that seem to have crawled out of the underworld, or inhabit the shadowy fringes of society, and the overall feel of your images has that shadiness and warped sense of reality of society’s underbelly. What are you trying to achieve through your art?
As artists, we don’t always have to work on the prettiest subjects. I used to do that. I used to study perfect or “superhero” anatomy, and draw pogi superheroes and sexy ladies. But when I started work, it was a different experience. I wanted the flaws I see in all the people I would meet while commuting from Las Piñas to Q.C.
Also, another behavior related to this is my knack for going to second-hand shops and buying the rejected toys that no one else wants to buy. I started with this when I first went to the now-defunct Chunky Far Flung gallery in Cubao X. All the second-hand toys were nice, but I was really drawn to the ones at the bottom row. The ones which surely won’t get sold. I liked the fact that they are rejects, and I remember getting a lot of toys from that bottom row. Those toys are now displayed together at the studio.
You’re drawn to characters that exist on the fringes and in the dark alleys of “normal” society. The grotesque, the sinister, and the nightwalkers. I’m speaking specifically of your interpretation of Santa Muerte and the Hyena Men of Nigeria. Why your fascination with so dark and un-pretty a subject?
I do not know why I’m drawn to these things, but it really piques my interest. I like reading about subcultures, not the non-mainstream stuff, but the real subcultures that I know I myself can’t get into. I know I can’t get a hyena as a house pet anytime soon, and for sure I won’t be going to Mexico and join the Santa Muerte cults. So I just get a paper and I draw them.
Could you let us in on your creative process?
I always listen to only either Radiohead, Thom Yorke, and Explosions in the Sky when drawing. They get the blood going. Also, before I start, I make sure to clean up the drawing table. Every item should be within arm’s reach. And when I’ve started drawing I won’t take a bath until I finish it. Mawawala pulso.
You mentioned in a previous interview that you’re into comics. Ever thought about going into that genre?
Yes, of course. But as to when, I’m not yet sure. I owe it to comic books for how I draw now. The story/concept that was used in the anthology series is still standing. I’ve added bits and pieces to it through the years, and soon that thing will ripen. I hope to God that the big window opens soon.
If your life was a comic, or if you could create a comic that captured the essence of who you are and what you are about, what would it be like?
If this was to happen, I hope the comic to have been released in the 90’s so I can get one of those Extreme Studios’ titles like BloodStorm, StormRage, or RageBlood and have a Holofoil 8-page gatefold cover and also a free-limited edition holo-card. But then, when you open it, it’s an Arnold Arre-style story about the struggles of handling a studio, living in with your girlfriend, and taking care of two young dogs. It would mostly revolve around the conversations over coffee, or how the two pets act like real kids all the time.
