On June 12-13, 2023, we posted this interview with Bryn Ziegler (IG: @bryn.ziegler, brynzeigler.com), ahead of her book launch for DON’T LOOK INTO THE ABYSS at the Free Library of Philadelphia (Parkway Central).
The book is available at brynziegler.bigcartel.com and for sale at Partners and Son.
🗣️DLITA is a choose-your-own-path book. Why did you want to use that format?
👤I wanted a format where the reader had to engage with the book and feel investment and responsibility. I also wanted a structure that could be a proxy for social “norms” and restrictions. If you play through the book you may notice that you’re only ever offered binary choices, and that is very deliberate. You’ll have to play the book (or attend the launch event) to find out why!
🗣️Was creating a story with multiple paths different than what you expected?
👤I expected it to be more difficult than it actually was! Don’t Look Into The Abyss is both the longest book and the most ambitious comic I’ve made to date, and I was anticipating the macro potential of multiple paths to be intimidating. But the reality was much more micro. Once I had a handful of concrete endings, I was building a collection of 2-5 page scenes that each had their own arc, mood, and flow. I was able to add in some very self-contained (and self-indulgent) moments.
🗣️How did the idea for the story come about?
👤Don’t Look Into The Abyss is the result of a handful of smaller concepts in my artistic practice that crashed together at the right time. The easiest one to pinpoint is maps. When I started this project, I was doing illustrations connecting topographic maps to the queer body. And I made a book model where, just for fun, I added hidden panels and painted a jumbled map through the pages. I wrote the basic concept for Don’t Look Into The Abyss that night.
🗣️Did the book’s concept change as you worked on it?
👤It really didn’t! The story sort of flared into existence in one fell swoop and stayed pretty consistent. Even the title stayed the same! I experimented with a few illustration styles, and I think my goals for the project grew as I thought of new ways the format and printing could support the content, but I bet if I track down my original notes they’d say something like “choose-your-own-path book— mimics social constructs???”
🗣️Did you have to map all the possible paths before you could start the drawings?
👤I did have every pathway planned out prior to illustrating, for a very practical reason: I had to sort out all of the printing logistics before I started anything. Those details dictated how long the narrative could be, how much information each page could contain, and the style of illustration. I decided how many press sheets I’d need (3, each with 24 pages), what the final page dimensions would be (4.25” x 7.75”), and how many colors I’d use (also 3). Then I worked backwards, making a series of increasingly chaotic choice maps (some of which will soon be part of the Free Library Map Collection) before landing on a list of scenes, each with notes about what choices could lead into or out of it and an assigned number of pages. At that point I finally started illustrating!
🗣️Do you think of making books and making comics as separate practices?
👤For me, they’re tools of the same practice. I think my comic-making background has fundamentally shaped my approach to bookmaking: even when I’m not working with recognizable comic elements, I’m still thinking of sequence and page composition. In the same way, bookbinding has affected how I think of comics. When you’re printing, trimming, and sewing together each page, you become very intentional about color choice and format! The book isn’t just a container for a comic: it’s one cohesive object.
🗣️How was the process of working with the Borowsky Center? Any advice for artists who’d like to submit a proposal?
👤The Borowsky Center is a really special offset lithography facility and the current master printer, Erica Honson, has a great eye for experimental techniques (and can eyeball 1/64 inch from 3 yards away). I designed Don’t Look Into The Abyss expressly for that Heidelberg KORS press. As an MFA printmaking candidate at UArts I was in a unique position to push for an ambitious project and be more hands-on than is typical, and I received a lot of support from the school. I printed my own films, made my own plates, and Erica and I completed 20 print runs over 5 days, which is a hilariously huge number in retrospect. My advice for hopefuls is to design a project specifically for the look and feel of offset lithography and to consider that a Borowsky Center proposal is a great project for grants and other funding.
[Erica Honson adds:] “Remember that physical prints never look exactly like digital mocks, so be open to experimentation on press, and embrace printing as part of the creative art-making process. We use the press exclusively for the production of new limited edition works, not reproduction :)”
🗣️What’s the appeal of crafting books and comics by hand?
👤On some level I like being able to control every step of the process, from the density of the ink to the weight of the paper. My wife likes to joke that I’m an artist with the brain of a corporate project manager. From a more romantic perspective, I like being able to design a book as a complete object. Most importantly, I love the craft of it. I like folding paper! I like picking up new hand skills! I like the routines of printmaking: rolling out ink, talking to the press, and the satisfying challenge of working backwards: visualizing a concrete end goal and then sorting through every craft skill I’ve amassed to make it reality.