By Bryn Gelbart

Last time I was on Deep Hell I wrote about contract labor and the gig economy. That was through the lens of a handful of video games. Today, I’m talking to a real person about freelancing, writing and the difference between ambition and drive. That’s a big step up, if you ask me (and you should, I did the interview).

Fred Noland is a 50-year old Black artist living in the Bay Area. He has been in comics and illustrations for something like 30 years now and he’s not stopping anytime soon. I know this because his upcoming graphic novel Major Taylor, an illustrated biography of cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor, is slated for a 2023 release through Drawn & Quarterly. Taylor was a world champion by 1899 and is heralded as the first Black athlete to reach superstar status. This context is important.

Fred’s illustration work has been featured in the San Francisco Weekly and he has drawn comics for the New Yorker. His 2019 comic Working Stiff details the exhaustive list of jobs he’s worked in a world that doesn’t count making art as a worthwhile contribution to society. From Taco Bell all the way to Deep Hell, here’s what came out of the time I sat down to talk with Fred Noland:

 

BG: Because Deep Hell is primarily a place for Video Games, I want to ask do you play games? Are you a gamer?

FN: I only play games when I’m dating

BG: Ohhh. Good answer.

FN: No, I don’t play video games

BG: You do a lot of illustrations for news. I just wanted to know when you’re doing that, what is it like to come up with something to sell and improve the story?

FN: What I’m trying to do with editorial illustration is similar to what I’m doing with comics. I’m trying to draw the reader in. I’m trying to do something that’s a shorthand for illustration so you can get a sense of what you’re in for. Because sometimes the article isn’t all that interesting I want people to see what’s going on here and say “i like this illustration, it’s a little funny but also intriguing”. That’s the mission I’m on when I’m doing a spot illustration.

BG: In terms of the upcoming Major Taylor book, I know there are other biographies out there. Aside from being in the comic format, how are you trying to distinguish that stuff narratively from what’s out there?

FN: I’ve done comics for years and I’ve done self published series and things for the New Yorker and a good variety of different visual storytelling venues. This book is going to be 275 pages.

BG: Jesus.

FN: It’s going to be a long sustained narrative. Looking at the run I’m looking at ways to distinguish it, like you said, from other things out there. Not just for the sake of being different but for the sake of serving the story a little better. It’s this historical biography but it also has racing in it. It starts with Major Taylor when he was nine and it will end when he was around 50 when he died. He died relatively young. To that end I’m using different framing devices. So whenever I have him in a frame I tend to not close off the frame. I usually have it open at the side or at the top. It’s symbolic. A ham-fisted symbol, but it’s symbolic of how he came from this very constrained world, but he did not allow himself to be held back. Owing to his upbringing and being a hired playmate for a white friend. He knew coming from that, he was no different from those people and that freed him in a lot of ways to pursue what he did.

FN: Most of the work I’ve done is very character and plot oriented. This has that, for sure, but it also has a lot of action sequences. I have figured out a way of breaking out the action sequences from the basic story sequences and that’s another framing device when instead of using alleys, I actually just run the illustrations together or I have them only divided by a line. I want the action to read so much faster than the narrative does.

BG: I was just going to ask how you get it to read at a different pace.

FN: There’s a lot of different ways you can do it. I’m a big fan of more European style storytelling both in cinema and in comics. I love the way they take their time and aren’t too concerned with using more ADHD pacing, where you get punched in the face every page with something. I like when it goes at a more leisurely natural pace and I’m trying to emulate that in this work.

BG: Speaking of cinema, I’m not a huge nonfiction reader, but I watch a lot of movies. Most biopics are kind of stale and stylistically all feel the same.

FN: Yeah.

BG: I think the reason that happens is these stories have to be about these people and they lose a sense of authorship from the people creating them. I was wondering how for this project you are putting your own stamp and sense of authorship into the Major Taylor book?

FN: There’s a few different ways. The way I’m putting myself into it without trying to bend the narrative. Without trying to be too pedantic with the narrative, without trying to make points and be true to the actual story is obviously being Black. Being Black is the way I fit into that. I grew up in a very religious family. Marshall Taylor was very religious. I grew up half in and half out. My home life and church life were ensconced in Blackness but my school was 75% white kids. So I’m taking those experiences and using them as a lens to see the world in a way I think Marshall Taylor would’ve seen it. Because of some of the reading and research I’ve been doing around Black history myself, I keep coming back to Toni Morrison. A lot of her efforts are about trying to overcome the white gaze. And when I’m doing this book I’m really trying to be mindful of being true to the subject and not worry about how that’s going to come across to the readership, which in all likelihood is going to be 90% white.

BG: Now you have me looking at all the biographies I have pulled up and checking to see if they are made by white people. Most of them are so far.

FN: (Laughs). So it’s really important that one Black dude came in here and said something about Major Taylor.

BG: In terms of putting yourself in the work, I know you write a lot of autobiographical stuff. I was talking to Skeleton about this and they were like, cartoonists don’t do that at your age. They either stop or they die.

FN: I haven’t had the courtesy of outgrowing it, I guess. It’s funny. The memoir thing is a more naval gaze-y younger thing to do. It’s changed as I’ve got older because obviously the things that make “good copy” would not be a proper way for a 50 year old father to behave in the real world. So it’s shifted a lot. Thankfully, my world view has changed a lot since being a father and I’m not doing those wingnut 20-something things to do. It’s funny how the autobio and memoir usually drops off. Usually people either fail out of comics or they get a clue.

BG: It’s like games journalism. Very few people over fucking 40 are doing it because it’s just not sustainable.

FN: I got lucky and also I’m very stubborn. The opportunities I’ve had in the last two or three years I clearly didn’t have the previous 30. But I happen to be around and keep doing it.

BG: What do you credit that to?

FN: It’s something I’ve tried to stop doing. There was a period 10 or 12 years ago where I fell off substantially and I’d only do a handful of comics pieces a year. I spent that time doing more illustration work. When I got back into comics again that really changed the comics. There were a few years where I was like I need to manage my life and figure out my career. I really deprioritized comics a lot. I came back to them with a real commitment maybe 8 or 9 years ago. I don’t feel complete when I’m not doing it. It’s something that’s going to be there anyway and I can either ignore the impulse to make the work or burn. I don’t have a lot of choice, it just comes out one way or another.

BG: There is something about doing a thing for a long time when it’s kind of in you. I had this moment of depression where I was like ‘my life would sure be easy without ambition’, do you ever feel that?

FN: I don’t think of myself to be a very ambitious person to be honest. I have a lot of drive but that feels different from ambition. I’ve never had this grand plan to dominate. Being a successful artist is just making work I’m happy with.

BG: Yeah, I guess maybe drive is what I’m talking about. I feel the same way.

FN: It would be so much simpler if I were to work a day job and work 40 hours a week. Have a bank account that doesn’t fluctuate. It goes in one direction. It just goes up. It would be nice but it’s not me.

BG: You would want something else.

FN: Yeah, I’d want something to fill that hole and it wouldn’t be anything good.

BG: Have you ever had a job that fulfilled you enough to make you want to stop making art?

FN: No… (laughs) Not even close.

BG: But that is a big thing I want to get into. Jobs. The podcast [Serious Moonlighting for anyone interested] you did is about artists who work day jobs. And that’s a big thing. Especially with the people we are writing this for. I feel most people who will end up reading this work day jobs and are artists.

 

FN: Yeah.

BG: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

FN: I worked for a marketing company that marketed newly patented items. So they worked as an interface between inventors, who are real dreamers and optimists, so theoretically between the inventor and an investor, who would be interested in their invention. This was a startup in San Francisco. I worked as a graphic designer for them. What I didn’t realize until a few months before I quit is that it was just a scam. They basically were taking these people’s money. I would see the creative brief and see how much people paid and we were supposed to make mock-ups if they only had a schematic for an item we’d do a mock-up and place it into an ad. We would see how much they paid and how much time they expected us to spend on it. And it was like I’m supposed to spend 8 hours on something some guy paid $15,000 to this company to market. And I know the salesperson is gonna spend about 3 hours on it and that’s gonna be it. That’s not the reason it was the worst job I ever had, but it certainly helped. The reason it was the worst job I ever had is because it was this wild west, absolutely crooked corrupt dysfunctional office. The Vice President would get into a fist fight with somebody in the office.

BG: Oh my god

FN: I was in the art department and the person I worked under, the art director, I’m not sure what the deal was, but I believe he may have been on steroids. He would have these terrible temper tantrums and he was extremely yoked. And I remember I’d go in and try everything I could to get along. Ya know? I’ll lay low. I’ll try to just satisfy whatever confusing thing he’s trying to get me to do as the art director. Then after a few months, I was like I’m not gonna do this. What I’m gonna do is when he screams at me, I’m going to scream back. We are just gonna do that. This is how it goes. Sometimes he’d call me into his office — and we were in this 13th floor office on Spear St. that cost I don’t know how many thousands of dollars a month — and we are just in there swearing at each other. Just going at it. And I’d come out and you’d see the office just gophering. These people peeking over their cubicles and ducking back down.

FN: There was one day I had just the worst fight with him. And I was like the next time I have an argument with this guy, I’m gonna have to kill him. (laughs a lot). This is the natural conclusion. I have to do away with him. Just after that job I realized this is how workplace shootings happen. You go in and you need this job to make your living. If someone makes that impossible or jeopardizes that, it feels really existential. If you can’t get outside of the fury of that moment. Which thankfully I did. So I walked out of the office and had that thought and I called my wife at the time. And I said “I have to quit this job because something very bad is gonna happen if I don’t and I need you to have my back on this.” And she was quiet for a second and then “yes, quit. I don’t need you in prison or dead. Just quit.” After that I became very evangelical about quitting. When I’d talk to people and they would be like “my job sucks” I’d say “you know what you should do, if it really sucks, you should quit” because you will survive. Trust me. But what you shouldn’t do is put up with a job that makes your life miserable. Life is far too short for that.

BG: Yeah, I learned that very early on. My first and only salaried position I’ve ever held, it was right out of college and I eventually got let go because I signed a shitty contract, ya know? I went into things trying to meet goals that weren’t going to happen in the current structure. I was a writer in the marketing department of a tech company that didn’t have anyone to edit me professionally. So I’m not going to be able to produce enough content because the person who is supposed to do edits has a million other duties.

FN: Yeah, you are set up to fail.

BG: It’s fucked up. That story is an extreme, for sure.

FN: (laughs). It’s funny too because I look back on that and it’s like how the hell did I not just walk out nine months ago? I worked that job for a year and a half because I have sticktoitiveness. That’s ridiculous, just leave!

BG: I think it speaks to, and maybe you can touch on this too, how much a workplace can feel like a bubble and behavior gets normalized so quickly.

FN: Oh for sure, it becomes the culture. That job was a learning experience for me again thankfully, I got to learn from it instead of becoming an article. Becoming like uhh

BG: A think piece

FN: A cautionary tale. I ended up in different offices where after that I could see here is the backbiting that happens here, here is the undermining that happens here. Here is the place that wants to foster phony family and friendships. And that is not a real thing in a job. It’s great to be friendly in a job but your job’s not your family and your job’s not your friends. After that I became a freelancer. For various reasons, this is 2005, this is just kind of the trend that I’m sure you’ve seen jobs have taken in the last 15 or so years. There is so much less full time for professionals like us.

BG: I’m relatively young so that’s just been my entire professional life.

FN: I got to see it as it unfolded. Thankfully I could see this is where it’s going so I need to be prepared for this. So I would land in offices and after that experience I was basically impervious to office cultures because I just wouldn’t join. That’s not great for your career. If you’re not gonna play patty cake with them, it’s not great for your career, but it’s so much better for your health and that’s what matters.

BG: I think that’s it [that wasn’t it]. Ok, a closer. What is a comic, or comics, that you’ve read recently that you would recommend?

FN: Well I’ve read some old comics that are new to me. One is Hair Shirt by Pat McEown. He’s a Canadian cartoonist who I’ve followed since he was working for Dark Horse Presents like 25 years ago. Just an amazing guy. Now he pulls kind of from the European tradition.

FN: The other comic I’m reading is March, the Senator Lewis biography in two parts. It’s really good. It’s great because it’s a bunch of talking. It’s hard to make that compelling but they succeed admirably. I’m like a quarter of the way in and very much enjoying that. I’m also reading Lipstick Traces, a book by an old friend of mine named Trevor Alixopulos. He’s an underground cartoonist from Santa Rosa and lives in LA now. He’s a relatively new parent so his work has slowed down a lot, but it’s a collection of work he’s done as a new parent and near the end of his pre-parent life. His wife, Vanessa Davis, is also a cartoonist. She has an old book called Spaniel Rage that I finished a few months ago.

BG: That reminds me of something I wanted to ask you. Is there an urge, now that you’re a parent, to make all your work about being a parent?

FN: (laughs) yes

BG: I’m not saying I see it in your work but I see it everywhere, especially in games.

FN: With good reason, it really hijacks your brain. Your life stops being about you when you have a kid, unless you’re a really shitty parent. It’s funny as he gets older and becomes more his own person, you see more opportunities to know him and try to get across his essence. But you don’t want to be this guy who writes boring twee stuff because you think it’s cute and most of the world doesn’t give a shit. This is your baby, I don’t care about this. But it also changes your worldview. And that’s interesting to see how it changed me as a person. I didn’t become a parent until I was 41 and there are very few times in life where you have a hard before and after period. And becoming a parent was a very hard break between the two. Your heart just changes.

 

You can find Fred’s work on his website and @frednoland on Instagram.

Bryn Gelbart (he/him) is a writer and critic. He knows you won’t pronounce his name right in your head and he forgives you. You can find him earnest posting @FeelTheBryn