Fanbase Press Interviews Cecil Castellucci on Launching a Kickstarter Campaign for the Groundbreaking Performance Art Installation, ‘I Am the Comic Book’

The following is an interview with award-winning author and comic book writer Cecil Castellucci regarding the launch of her Kickstarter campaign for the sequential art / performance art project, I Am the Comic Book. In this interview, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief Barbra Dillon chats with Castellucci about the genesis behind this groundbreaking endeavor, the all-star lineup of artists involved with the project, and more!

Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: You recently launched an incredibly groundbreaking Kickstarter campaign for a new sequential art project. For those who may be unfamiliar, what can you tell us about the project’s premise?

Cecil Castellucci: I Am the Comic Book is a performance promenade comics surrealist story game comics conceptual art piece! It’s going to be instigated by me and has a slew of incredible artists who are signed on to collaborate with me. Mads Skovbakke, Mari Naomi, Diana Tamblyn, Scott Koblish, Pia Guerra, Nate Powell, Victoria Ying, Chris Wisnia, Sanya Anwar, Jose Pimienta, Nicole Goux, Hope Larson, Dan Santat, Sina Grace, Faith Erin Hicks, Jenny Soep, Allison Conway, Dean Haspiel, Thit Bitsch, Leuyen Pham, Alison Sampson, Rachael Smith, Thien Pham, Steenz! and Lisa Brown.

Basically, I am going to be in collaboration and artistic conversation with those artists in an exquisite corpse game where I give a prompt and they do a three-panel sequence that I will make into a temporary tattoo and wear it on my arm. After the tattoo fades, I move on to the next chapter (Issue? Episode? Page?). So, in essence, I am the book, walking in the world, as the character Maxi walks in their world.

I am interested in hybrid forms and mashing comics together. I’ve been doing that with my comic book operas and some hybrid books I’ve written – Odd Duck with Nate Powell, Odd Duck with Sara Varon – and so I wanted to play with the idea of what is a comic book? How can we play with the form? Also, it’s a great chance to play with friends!

Fanbase Press Interviews Cecil Castellucci on Launching a Kickstarter Campaign for the Groundbreaking Performance Art Installation, ‘I Am the Comic Book’ FanbasePress.com 4/29/2024