Mattie Lubchansky has written and illustrated several graphic novels, including Riveting in 2023 Boys weekendbut her latest Simpleviolations compared to her early work. Although it retains Lubchansky’s signature wit and amazing artistry, the book also incorporates timely territory, its focus on commune slash groups, and the unquestionable dangers of loyalty.
Fashion Talk about stuffing with Lubchansky Simple With ideas, her long obsession with cults, threats to art and arousing various dystopias. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
Fashion: How is the composition process different from the composition process of your two graphic novels? Boys weekend and Antifa Super Salesperson Recipe?
Mattie Lubchansky: Well, people smarter than me are talking about this, but you always hear, “You have to learn how to write every book you write”, which is certainly true for me. All three of my books are completely different. this Antifa Books are a bigger product of the short-term political work I have done. Boys weekend Not automated, but in the universe of what happened to me, I transformed me into a novel story by changing all the details and setting them in the future and adding irony. With this book, I kind of started with the characters – especially the main characters – and then built everything around me. I’ve done research on this book, I’ve never done it, and I’ve got more and more ideas about it, and I’ve just started to pile up more and more things into this book. Boys weekend There is one idea, and that’s what trans people think is human, and I think Simple After a long time trying to stuff them all there, there are 40 ideas.
What made you interested in the themes of communes and cults?
I’ve been addicted to cults. I mean, there is one at the center of my last book. When I finished the book, I realized that the two books had similar premises. I think there is something in the air about the commune. There has been a lot of queer separatism over the past 40 to 50 years, and recently, a lot of action in particularly transgender movements, if you are gay in a big city, you might go find someone who starts the farm with friends. It’s just in the air. In my research, I am reading a lot about the 19th century Marxist socialist groups, and our time now obviously does not look similar in the world. But people’s lives are reordering in some way, and people feel they cannot control their destiny, their bodies, their communities. So there is such a weird attraction I’m going to a new society. Everyone will see how good it is. I think I’ve always been fascinated by the things that make a person throw everything away and join one of the groups.
