Broken Frontier

Welcome to part two of our interview with Reinhard Kleist about his graphic novel about American icon Johnny Cash. Click here to read part one.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Your drawing style has an underlying kinetic tension which is perfect for Cash and his inner demons. However, the choices you make displaying certain events in Cash' life also lead to a kinetic reader experience where quieter moments are all together left out. Do you concur and if so why did you feel the need to set the pacing for the graphic novel this high?

REINHARD KLEIST: My idea of telling a story is more based on movies rather than on comics. I'm not a big comic expert! When I am thinking of a storyline or a scene, my first thoughts are like movie scenes and then I try to translate them in the form of comics by using things like camera movements or cuts and so on. That is why my books often have a more cinematic approach and don't play so much with the possibilities of comics like other comic artists do, like Art Spiegelman for example.

BF: The graphic novel itself presents a more outlaw view on Cash coupled with a mythical sensibility. The song interludes and the graphical nature of the storytelling seem to support this theory, putting aside the exact nature of autobiography. Was it a conscious decision on your part from the get go, to sidestep into mythology and forego exact historical retellings?

RK: Everything in the book is based on facts and things he told us in his biography, except for this little scene i was talking about. I think a book like this has the obligation to tell the things as closely as it can. But it also has the purpose to entertain and to tell a story behind the facts. The song interludes are there to show us his music in the form of comics because I wanted the book to be a reflection about his work.

BF: So now that you explored the darkness in your comics, what's next for you in comic terms?

RK: After I finished the travel book Havanna last year, I started working on the next big biography project for Carlsen, which will be about Fidel Castro. That will be a bit dark, too.

BF: And finally, what has this project taught you, philosophically speaking?

RK: First of all it has taught me that I am able to write a complex story like this on my own. And it seems that I can do this quite OK. Before I wrote books with authors or if I did write on my own, the books were not very succesfull.

On the other hand, Cash has shown me that art and life belong closely together. Your work is a great part of your life and if you manage to put a least a little bit of what you feel or you have discovered of life in it, your work will always be something special and give the reader something. It is a great pleasure for me when people tell me that they took something for themselves out of the book and it was not only facts or entertainment.

Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness is published by Abrams ComicArts and is a black and white trade paperback, counting 224 pages. It retails for $17.95 and is available at bookshops and comics stores internationally.

Follow the exploits of Reinhard Kleist at his website