Jordan Crane: the new poet of the grit 'n' graphic genre

Interview, August, 2005 by Patrick Giles

When graphic artist and publisher Jordan Crane makes lines of ink, dreams take flight. "1 wasn't planning to write a kids' story," he says of The Clouds Above (Fantagraphic Books), a journey in pictures in which a grade-schooler and his kitty try to sneak into class but wind up taking a stairway to heaven instead. "But as a child I read a lot of fantasy books. I loved those weird worlds where people would go and have adventures." The 31-year-old Californian is spending the summer keeping several adventure-filled projects in the air. In addition to The Clouds Above Crane has designed a new literary comic anthology, MOME (Fantagraphic), while continuing to design and publish NON, a self-published collection of avant-garde comics. Nourished by the images and stories of that protean wave of art-comic masters (R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman) and working alongside the more grounded, poignant sagas of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), and with a little seasoning from Herge (The Adventures of Tintin) thrown in, Crane pulls off a balancing act in which the craft and wisdom of the cartooning adult validates the child's faith in imagination.

Patrick Giles is Interview's editorial associate.