Few things are more charming to me than a Grant Snider comic. He approaches his work with a level of care and earnestness that we rarely see in the genre. His drawings are tender and playful, at once funny and a little gut-wrenching. Here, he shares his process in creating “City in Color.”
—Kristen Radtke
THE BELIEVER: How did this comic start?
GRANT SNIDER: First, a confession: I visited New York City for the first time just last year. Until then, it existed only in my imagination—mostly formed by old New Yorker magazine covers and Wu-Tang Clan albums. This comic is a collection of sketches from my second trip to New York. Before a stay at the Spruceton Inn Artist Residency in the Catskills, I spent a weekend at my twin brother’s apartment in Brooklyn. We went on a Saturday morning run to Desert Island Comics in Williamsburg that kept running well into the afternoon. The route took us about six miles through various Brooklyn neighborhoods. It’s incredible how the people, architecture, and colors changed from block to block. I also included some impressions of Manhattan—people-watching at the Whitney, glimpsing the skyline from the airplane, the inescapable construction of new high-rises. Slowly, the city of my imagination is being replaced by the city I’ve put down in my sketchbook.
BLVR: What’s your process like?
GS: It starts with the sketchbook. I try to write and draw small snapshots of my day. A weird tree I saw, the way the street looked at sunset, interesting signage. Other times I’ll go on a deliberate drawing excursion. Later, I may assemble them into a small story, told in a one or two page comic. Other times, I’ll draw an entire sequence, and slowly refine my initial rough drawing into the finished piece. It’s nice when an idea comes fully formed, but my process is usually much messier than that.
BLVR: Was any aspect of making this work particularly challenging?
GS: I struggle with editing. Anything can be material for a comic. This is incredible and terrifying. What should be left in? What should be taken out? Without the confines of the panel, the page, and increasingly, the Instagram image format, I’d create rambling, unreadable work. It’s also a challenge to make the personal more universal. I find that adding structure—through repetition, rhyme, and color—makes my ordinary, individual experience interesting to others.
BLVR: What drives you to create new work?
GS: A self-imposed deadline of one new piece per week. Sometimes I’m frustrated with the end result. Other times it turns out better than I imagined....
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