COMIC joy

GRANT SNIDER began drawing and writing before he knew what he was doing. His comics have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Kansas City Star, The Best American Comics 2013, and all across the internet. You can explore his work at http://www. incidentalcomics.com/. Here he is interviewed by KASHISH KALWANI about what inspires him and brings him such success.

- KASHISH KALWANI

Q: So, Grant, how are you doing?

Good, I just got my daily run in, went through some puddles, my socks are wet. Good feeling for the middle of the afternoon here.

Q: Nice. When I first saw your comics, I was curious about you they are not necessarily humorous, but they are so relevant, so thoughtful. When I see the thoughtfulness behind your work, your intentional seeing of the world, it makes me feel very relevant, like, "Yes, I see you, and I feel you." So could you tell us more about this style of comics?

Well, a lot of comics come from that first person perspective, basically because it's easy to draw a single character moving through the panel and encountering the world. Over time, that's how I started drawing them. It became like a conversation with myself in the form of my character avatar, walking around thinking deep thoughts or not too deep ones, coming up with various conflicts, usually internal, and hopefully resolving them by the last panel.

Ever since I started in single comics in 2009, I've had the goal to draw a single-page comic strip per week. And most weeks I have achieved that goal. I've done a few that are more than one page, some I don't quite get to the page, but it's been a nice recurring conversation with myself.

It's nice to hear you say that you can find some relatability in them because I don't want to just be a solo conversation, you know?

Q: Yes, absolutely. I know so many people from the Heartfulness community who follow your page on Instagram, and it's fun to pick it up and share the comic with one another.

That's much appreciated. It's the cool thing about the internet - if you like something you retweet it, or send it to somebody on Facebook, or Instagram message, and it's really powerful how social media can be a force for good if the artist's message is worth sharing.

Q: Truly, yes.