Local Ann Arbor cartoonist 
Bruce 
Worden 
describes 
his 
comics as “a blend of humor and 
music.” In his series “Woodstalk,” 
Worden tells the tale of the long 
forgotten 
zombie 
apocalypse 
that plagues the similarly named 
popular music festival in the 
1960s. Rock Society Magazine said 
of Worden’s comic: “Good music-
based comics are something of 
a rarity, but Woodstalk is one of 
those which is just surreal and 
irreverent enough to break that 
mold.”
In an email interview with The 
Daily, Worden explains how music 
plays a role in his work, his love of 
a certain lasagna-loving, Monday-
hating feline and what our grocery 
lists say about us.
The Michigan Daily: How did 
you get into making comics? 
Who made you want to be a 
cartoonist?
Bruce Worden: I fell in love 
with “Garfield” in elementary 
school and “Far Side” in middle 

school. I’m not a graphic novelist 
by nature, I’m much more of a 
comic strip kid. But I like to think 
that helps keep my writing tight 
and punchy if I’m doing a longer 
story.
TMD: How does music play a 
role in your work?
BW: Musicians are like real-life 
superheroes to me, so they’re often 
the first spark of my stories. Music 
is also where my geekiness resides. 
It’s a well I’m comfortable drawing 
from, and hopefully, I can make 
cartoons interesting enough for 
others if I make them interesting 
enough for me.
TMD: What are you into 
right now? What is going on in 
the comics scene right now that 
is really cool?
BW: I mostly like coming-of-age 
stories, things like “Scott Pilgrim” 
(O’Malley) or “This One Summer” 
(Tamaki/Tamaki). So along those 
lines, I feel like young women 
cartoonists are creating the best 
stuff out there right now, beautiful 
and full of feeling. All of Jess Fink’s 
work, Taneka Stotts, Kate Leth, 
Benji Nate. Kate Beaton can do 
no wrong in my mind. That said, 

I’ve been devouring John Allison’s 
“Bad Machinery” books lately. I 
didn’t think anything could make 
me wish I was in middle school 
again, but there you go!
TMD: I stumbled across 
this awesome project you are 
working on called Shoppers 
Unknown. Can you tell me a 
little more about that? What 
was your inspiration?
BW: I’ve been collecting other 
people’s lost/dropped shopping 
lists for years, never quite knowing 
what I was going to do with them. 
The more I looked through them, 
though, the more I realized I was 
mostly interested in what they 
hinted about the people who wrote 
them. I started imagining who 
they were, and eventually decided 
it would be fun to draw my ideas 
of them. Like, if the list implies a 
person, then the drawing of the 
person implies a whole backstory. 
I love it.
I took the end of 2017 off from 
Shoppers Unknown to focus on my 
book “Woodstalk” (Kickstarter 
starting Feb. 5) but I’m about to 
start back in on it! I’ve got SO 
many shopping lists yet to do!

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, January 18, 2018 — 3B

BECKY PORTMAN
Senior Arts Editor

Courtesy of the Artist

“Cartooning for me is a 
language that is not solely 
visual — the words and the 
images don’t stand alone … 
they come together to form 
something else.”
It is early evening as I sit 
in the studio of artist Phoebe 
Gloeckner, 
an 
associate 
professor in the Stamps School 
of Art & Design. Though 
best known for her semi-
autobiographical 
graphic 
novel “Diary of a Teenage 
Girl,” Gloeckner has worked 
as 
a 
medical 
illustrator, 
published 
two 
full-length 

graphic 
novels 
and 
seen 
countless comics printed in 
journals and magazines. She 
is fascinating and passionate, 
and The Michigan Daily had 
the pleasure to chat with 
Gloeckner and gain insight 
into the world of comics and 
cartooning.
Gloeckner’s attic studio is 
large and eclectic; the ceilings 
are high and something is 
occupying every nook and 
cranny of the space. In the 
center of the room the floor 
is made up of a sandy-dirt 
mixture. Each wall is uniquely 
decorated — no section is left 
bare. One wall is hidden by 
books while another boasts 

shelves 
lined 
with 
cloth 
dolls. There’s a storage room 
containing every art supply 
imaginable, and a tall ladder in 
the sandy center leads to a loft 
occupied by what appears to be 
miniature film sets.
I sit on a low chair, facing 
Phoebe’s desk and the stool 
on which she is perched. 
We’re 
discussing 
whether 
or not autobiography works 
better as a graphic novel 
than a traditional novel. It’s a 
contested subject.
On 
one 
hand, 
Phoebe 
argues that stories involving 
heavier, real topics work well 
as graphic novels because “the 
more specific something is, 

the more relatable it becomes. 
I think in a sense it’s easier to 
do that with comics because 
instead 
of 
describing 
the 
wallpaper, 
you’re 
drawing 
the wallpaper, it’s there.” The 
concept that graphic novels 
allow readers to visualize their 
characters exactly the way the 
author sees them, however, is a 
double-edged sword.
When asked if presenting 
readers 
with 
one 
specific 
image made them focus more 
on the content and less on 
the 
imagination, 
Phoebe 
responded with questions of 
her own.
“When you read ‘Maus,’ 
do you just accept the person 
looks like a mouse? Or someone 
is cartoony with simplified 
features? This too gives you 
room to interpret what they 
look like in real life.”
Ultimately, the conclusion 
was that there is no conclusion. 
After 
all, 
cartooning 
isn’t 
always black and white. As 
Gloeckner pointed out later in 
the evening, when showing the 
comics in consideration for the 
2018 edition of “Best American 
Comics,” 
an 
anthology 
for 
which she is the year’s guest 
editor, the style of a comic is 
specific to each cartoonist. 
Some are vibrantly colored 
and look hand-painted; others 
are 
grey-scale 
and 
closely 
resemble doodles. The variety 
of both subject and style in the 
comics was astonishing. This 
variety is perhaps why she is so 
drawn to the form.
Gloeckner’s fascination with 
comics was born when she 
was living in San Francisco 
and sneak-reading the “head 
comics” her hippie mother and 
stepfather had (unsuccessfully) 
hidden from the impressionable 
eyes of 12-year old Phoebe. 
And 
impressionable 
these 
comics were. The nature of 
underground “head comics” 
— wild and inappropriate — 
taught Gloeckner that comics 
“don’t have to be limited to 
superheroes or cute dogs.” It 
was this early education which 
taught Gloeckner she could “do 
comics and they can be about 

anything (she) wants.”
The 
notion 
that 
comics 
can be about more than just 
“superheroes and dogs” is not 
a new concept. Gloeckner cited 
several contemporaries who 
used this form to tell heavy, 
often autobiographical stories 
— Art Spieglman’s “Maus,” 
Justin Green’s “Binky Brown 
Meets the Holy Virgin Mary” 
and Robert Crumb’s stories 
with his wife, Aline Kominsky-
Crumb. 
The 
category 
of 
comics which reveal universal 
truths about humans through 
personal histories is a heavily 

(and artfully) decorated one.
Reflecting 
on 
her 
own 
semi-autobiographical works, 
Gloeckner recalls why she 
was inspired to write “Diary 
of a Teenage Girl” in the first 
place: “I didn’t see that voice 
reflected in other books or 
other films and that voice 
wasn’t just mine. It could be any 
girl, or any person, perhaps.” It 
could be any person, and it was; 
Marielle Heller saw herself in 
Gloeckner’s work and adapted 
the piece first into a play and 
later a film. Though Heller’s 
motivation to make the film 
differed 
from 
Gloeckner’s 
inspiration to write the book, 
the sentiment was the same for 
both.
Nowadays, 
Gloeckner 
is 
working on another unique 
form of storytelling — one 
which may not be qualified 
as a comic at all. Her current 

project uses cloth dolls and 
elaborate, miniature film sets 
to represent the violent scenes 
of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.
Initally sent to Juarez to 
write 
stories 
for 
Amnesty 
International, 
Gloeckner 
found herself drawn back time 
and time again. It was on one 
of those trips she read a police 
blotter about the brutal rape 
and murder of a 15-year-old girl 
in Juarez. At the same time, 
Gloeckner 
was 
supporting 
herself by working as a medical 
illustrator on a project titled 
“The Joys of Sex Toys.” Both 
the murder and her work as a 
medical illustrator involved, 
coincidentally, butt plugs.
“It got all my wires crossed 
and I had difficulty drawing 
either thing,” recalls Gloeckner. 
Compelled to further explore 
the violent story but unsure 
how, 
Gloeckner 
came 
up 
with a unique alternative to 
cartooning.
“I’ll use dolls. I’ll kill them 
and then the next day I’ll wipe 
the blood off, and they’ll be 
alive again,” she said.
New challenges accompanied 
this undertaking. “I had to 
learn to use power tools and 
make things, and I didn’t know 
how to do any of those things 
before.” 
She 
experimented 
with stop-motion and learned 
to 
understand 
and 
speak 
Spanish.
Though still in the process 
of finishing the story, her piece 
has already affected change. 
When it is done, a valuable, 
necessary story will get the 
attention it deserves.
Regardless of the project — 
illustrating sex toys, teaching 
digital painting, creating a 
graphic 
novel, 
researching 
a foreign community — a 
genuine passion is ever-present 
in Gloeckner’s work. It’s clear 
that she is still fascinated by 
what hooked her in the first 
place: That there are stories 
to be told and pictures to 
be created, and they can be 
whatever. It doesn’t have to 
be superheroes and dogs — 
but it could be. With Phoebe 
Gloeckner, art can be anything.

Phoebe Gloeckner talks 
the language of cartoons 

Courtesy of the Artist

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

Courtesy of the Artist

Ann Arbor comic artist Bruce Worden
LOCAL
SPOTLIGHT:

EMILY BICE
Daily Arts Writer

Stamps professor writes comics for a more diverse audience

Ultimately, the 
conclusion was 
that there is no 
conclusion. After 
all, cartooning 
isn’t always black 
and white

Courtesy of the Artist

