Episode 611 – Eric Drooker

Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories Show 611:
Eric Drooker

“With my earlier books, I wanted to challenge myself to see how much of a story I could tell, how involved of a novel could I write without resorting to any words. I found that you could go pretty far.”

With his new graphic novel, NAKED CITY (Dark Horse Books), artist/activist Eric Drooker finishes the New York trilogy begun in Flood! and Blood Song. We talk about how Naked City started with the image of a beleaguered squeegee-man and wound up a love letter to New York and especially Tompkins Square Park, the challenges of using word/thought balloons and captions after making wordless comics for so long, and the importance of staying handmade in the digital era. We get into his upbringing in Stuy Town and the Lower East Side/Loisaida, why we were recording in an apartment above the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, how New York changed during his life, why he semi sorta escaped from the city, what it’s like being a quality-of-life criminal, and the time he made his start with stencil-graffiti only to get over-tagged by Basquiat. We also discuss his political awakening, the Tompkins Square Park riot and police militarization, his ambivalence about street art going into the gallery, the surveillance panopticon, the importance of on-the-ground activism (MOAR STREET POSTERS), and more. Give it a listen! And go read NAKED CITY!

“I liked to print money on my Epson printer, but after 6 months I noticed I was poorer than ever. Didn’t have any money in my pocket because I realized the goddamned cartridges are so expensive that I was actually losing money printing my own hundred-dollar bills.”

“This is a departure for me, using word balloons and captions and the full vocabulary of comics.”

“Pictures are my native tongue.”

“Social media is no substitute for printing up a poster and wheat pasting it or tacking it up on a bulletin board and saturation-bombing lower Manhattan.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

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About our Guest

Me & Eric outside the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space

Eric Drooker‘s drawings and posters are a familiar sight in the global street art movement, and his paintings appear frequently on covers of the New Yorker. Born and raised in New York City, he began to slap his images on the streets as a teenager. Since then, his reputation as a social critic has grown, and has led to countless editorial illustrations for the Nation, the New York Times, the Progressive, and more. Eric’s first book, Flood! A Novel in Pictures, won the American Book Award, and was followed by Blood Song. His graphic novels have been translated into French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. After designing the animation for the film Howl, he was hired by DreamWorks Animation. His art is in the permanent collections of many museums including the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Library of Congress.

Follow Eric on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Eric & me in Tompkins Square Park

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded in an apartment above the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of me & Eric me; not sure who the painting photo is by. It’s on my instagram.