The Ultimate Guide to The Ultimate Guide
 The Ultimate Guide To Modern Caricature in the hand of the book's creator, Manny Avetisyan. | |
| Author | Tom Faraci |
|---|---|
| Subject | The Ultimate Guide to Modern Caricature, Manny Avetisyan |
| Genre | Interview, Article |
Publication date | Fall 2019 |
| Media type | Digital, |
| Pages | 25-26 in EF Issue 2019.4 |
| Followed by | Caricature: Providing a New Lease on Life |
| Website | caricature |
| The above info is about this article, not the book itself. | |
This article is a Q & A with Manny Avetisyan, creator and editor of The Ultimate Guide to Modern Caricature. The interview was conducted by Tom Faraci and can be found on pages 25-26 of Exaggerated Features issue 2019.4.
Article Transcript
Q: By the time we’re all gathered at this year’s con, it will have been a year since you published Likeness is Just the Beginning. Why did it take us this long to do a feature on it?
A: Haha. Good question. I guess if God himself had to rest after creating everything, I certainly needed a recharge after six months of working day and night with no rest.
Q: In all seriousness, in the time that’s passed since its release, how has the response been?
A: I couldn’t be more grateful to have the love and support of the international caricature community. The ISCA release was a huge success, mainly in that I was excited to get the book into the hands of my fellow artists and Kickstarter supporters. The Kickstarter was fully backed in such a short time I was honestly taken by surprise, but it encouraged me to try and pack the book with as much love as possible. Beyond that, I’ll always be the hardest on myself for any shortcomings, mistakes and misspellings purposely, or not purposely, left in the book.
Q: What sparked the idea for the book?
A: Love for caricature, man! Caricature has come so far since I got my start during my first year of college in 2000, I felt there was a need to document and celebrate the huge diversity of styles and techniques we see from live caricature artists in our time.
Q: It must have been quite an undertaking getting this book together and published in under a year! What did you learn along the way and do you have any advice for people who might consider doing something similar?
A: Ah man, yeah it was really a challenge, and honestly wasn’t my intention from the outset. The Kickstarter actually had an expected release date of February, a year from the campaign’s launch. It wasn’t until I got all of the references from all the subjects and the artists started returning beautiful work so quickly that I realized an ISCA release would be possible, if all the artists were on board with the strict timelines. Once I got the thumbs up (literally, in Messenger) from all the artists involved to go for a 5-month push, it was on. Of course, I learned a ton from the experience. For one, I learned kittens are easier to herd than artists, artists with the fewest drawings to do will take the longest to do them, exhaustion and sleep deprivation will lead to some interesting states of consciousness, and I learned to spellcheck everything to make sure all the misspellings are left intact. ;)
Q: How did you go about recruiting artists for the book? I know you more or less pulled a few out of retirement. How did those conversations go?
A: Initially I created a FB chat group which included all the artists I believed would bring about the final product I saw in my head — A book full of some of the best artists in their unique style of caricature. This was a hard decision, of course, but I tried to be objective, even leaving out good friends of mine who are fantastic caricature artists, but whom I felt their live caricature style was already covered in the book by other artists. I then gave my sales pitch for the book to the artists in the group and asked who would like to be on board. Realizing mostly everyone loved the idea was exciting and pushed me to move forward full steam. I did have to bribe a few with beer, but I got the stylistically diverse dream team I hoped for, including, yes, some of my heroes who aren’t actively doing live caricature anymore. I’m honored any of the artists would even consider being a part of my project, and will forever be grateful to the 40 brilliant artists who gave their time, efforts and energy to making The Ultimate Guide to Modern Live Caricature a reality.
Q: Between expanding your own caricature business, traveling the world, joining the ISCA board, and the birth of your child, where did you even find the time to work on the book?
A: Oh man, don’t remind Natalia! She’s the real champ in the story. While I was immersed in giving birth to the book, she was immersed in, well, giving birth to Leo! The early months were rough, as I was so busy with the book Natalia had to bear the majority of the burden of being a new parent. I would, of course, use my foot to rock Leo for hours while working on the book, but that wasn’t anything compared to Natalia being supermom, feeding, cleaning, staying up nights, and teaching Leo kung fu.(Yes, he knows kung fu.)
Q: Focusing specifically on the field of live caricature must have presented some obstacles ... how did you ensure artists maintained that style?
A: A good question. It is intended to be a book about LIVE caricature, like you stated. But how do you go about making a book with 40 artists from around the world, and asking them to draw a “live” style caricature? Photo references were of course going to be used, but I personally hate drawing from just photographs, as do many artists reading this. So in addition to asking the beautiful subjects to submit their photos, I also asked for a lengthy video, in good lighting, that would mimic a live caricature setting, mainly, sitting in front of the camera and awkwardly telling the viewers about themselves. This led to some fun videos! But it also allowed the artists to get a better feel of the subjects’ likeness in motion, as well as their personalities and mannerisms, which many artists brilliantly included in their drawings!
Q: What do you hope people take away from the book?
A: Inspiration! The book is everything I wish I had as an early caricature artist. Live caricature is a tough world to navigate, especially artistically. I’m hoping that the book will be both a stylistic guide for what’s possible and a source of inspiration for artists new and old who want to push their art to the next level.
Q: Any future plans for the book? Foreign editions or an ebook version? Ooh, maybe an audiobook where you describe each drawing!
A: Certainly. The book is currently listed on Amazon. You can go to the link in my Instagram profile, @AvetiArts. I will have a few copies for sale at ISCAcon this year as well. There are also a number of art shops interested in carrying the book, and some reps I intend to contact regarding distribution in the future with a possible second edition with fewer misspellings and an improved text layout. We’ll see. Audiobook? If you want to narrate the book and describe every drawing, you got a deal!
Q: How’s Leo doing? (And tell Natalia I say hi!)
A: Leo is everything and more. He makes me proud everyday, just by his being, and has been the only one able to curb some of my crazy ideas about big projects, because who wants to conquer the world when there’s this rad little dude you can hang out with? Oh, and did I mention his mom is a superhero? Yeah, she’s pretty badass.
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