There comes a time when you’re first learning to read when you can brag about having read a book with no pictures in it. Little did I know that I would gravitate back towards books and pictures when I discovered graphic novels. Graphic novels are more than just superhero comics. They can be everything from illustrated versions of classic stories to personal memoirs complete with visual aids. Teacher turned and cartoonist Brian J. Kelley put his art and storytelling skills to use when he created his memoir and diary comics titled Big Chooch. Below is my review of the first installment of this series along with an interview with Kelley about his work.
Big Chooch plot summary
Big Chooch is a series of individual comic strips that chronicle Kelley’s life from his childhood to living in the era of the coronavirus. His comics have that classic memoir comic feel, setting a scene, relaying a thought or idea, and then trailing off, leaving the author to fill in the blanks with their own thoughts on that idea before moving onto the next page and the next story or idea.
The book is organized by date as indicated in the corner of each page along with the author’s signature. Kelley reminisces about his grandparents and heritage. He recalls the inception of his penchant for drawing. He writes about those seemingly mundane moments that stick with you, like learning how to tie hair into a ponytail, the sound of an owl hooting outside, and buying ice during a snowstorm. The book ends on an actual photo of Kelley’s great-grandparents, summing up the family theme that permeates its pages.
The art
Kelley’s black-and-white illustrations are simple but clear. His human characters are round and minimalist with simplistic features that still capture the characters’ emotions and trademark characteristics. He poses them in such realistic ways to help the reader feel the memory as well as hear it.
He plays with a number of techniques to organize his images and help them to correspond with his text including tight boxes that focus our eyes on the subject of the image, inserts that serve as asides to the story, and free-floating illustrations that help to expand the setting into a bigger world beyond the page, one that lives in the author’s memories and the untold details of the story.
Kelley also uses several different types of handwriting to display his text, from flowery script for the reminiscent, family-themed post, to neat print for the more straightforward stories to boxy capital letters to convey the aggressiveness of a situation or character. Using his own handwriting gives it a more personal feel without making it seem homemade or amateur. Every element on the page is neatly displayed and easy to follow.
The content
Each story in Big Chooch has its own tone and message that it’s trying to convey. The humor isn’t forced, the sympathy isn’t intentional, and the anger isn’t over-the-top. The content is relatively gentle. There aren’t any real moments of shock or rimshot punchlines. Like the title promises, it’s a memoir and diary of a life that the author wants to share. It gets the reader thinking about the stories they’d tell and the moments they’d share.
My favorite installments include “The Sun” about the sun’s therapeutic and medicinal properties, “Vocabulary Lessons with Aunt Connie” about the number of ways you can interpret the term “greaseball,” and “Josaphine,” about the author’s brief interactions with his great-grandmother as she descended into the darkest corners of dementia. These stories range from a few frames to a few pages, but each one says everything it needs to say within the space they are given.
My recommendation
If you’re a fan of memoir comics, Big Chooch is a great one to add to your collection. If you’ve never read a memoir comic, Big Chooch is a great place to start. It’s short, simple, and is well-rounded in its tone and incorporation of both text and images. I’ll definitely keep my eye out for future installments, and I feel like Kelley is just getting started on the life stories that he has to share.
An interview with Brian J. Kelley
Author links (links will open in a new tab)
Genres: Diary, Memoir
Big Chooch book summary
Diary comics blending with memoir comics of my adolescence in the late 70s, early 80s, growing up in a very large Italian family.
Book excerpt
“When I look at the old photos, they are filled with family. Walk into any house on a holiday and the bodies of cousins, aunts, and uncles would be draped atop the furniture, sprawled across the floors. We dipped hunks of bread in simmering pots of gravy, meatballs, sausage, and baciole. We ate so well the men often loosened their belts or unfastened their pants at the table. My mom once said to me, “We thought this was how everyone lived.”
Talking Shop
What do you want readers to take away from your book?
Who are the people and the places in our lives still resonating within us? We all have stories to share. We all have something to say. We all have at least some common ground among us and I hope my telling my stories helps someone recall some of their own. I include ways to contact me on the inside cover, including a PO Box because I would really love to hear from readers and have them share an anecdote of a person or place or time I’m their life that crept back out into the light of day as they read my stories.
Name a fact or detail about your story that readers will never know is there.
I cringe at how I draw hands and fingers. I am working on improving it.
What’s the best review/compliment that you’ve received about your book?
I mailed 30 copies to family and friends. A cousin texted me that it made her cry to think about the old days. I take a lot of satisfaction in that—not in making someone cry—but in doing something to help us remember one another…where we come from…who we come from. I don’t want to lose that. And I think it takes a conscious effort to hold onto the lifelines from our past and present.
What famous books can you compare to your own?
My style and approach have been influenced by the diary comics of Summer Pierre and John Porcellino. By that, I mean more than how the ink hits the page. I also mean that I draw upon the genuine, authentic, everyday feelings that emerge from their work.
I was recently in a workshop where Matt Madden mentored a small group of us (comic artists) and he referenced my work as “atmospheric comics” which I had never considered or thought of before that moment, but it has stuck with me, and it helps me make sense of just what it is I am creating.
What is a fun or strange source of inspiration that ended up in your book?
On our day trip to Assisi, we met the most remarkable man to show us around. He was a modern-day St. Francis of Assisi, at least he seemed to be living his life that way. He spoke quite a bit about peace and acceptance as well as the connections we forge with animals.
The final image of that comic is of my wife, Karla, holding her phone up for Giuseppi. He asked us about the animals in our lives. Karla is showing him photos of our pets. How he attentively listened to her talk about our pets still sticks with me. It was like he was so personally pleased to hear of more animals receiving human care and love. It is hard to recapture in words.
How long did it take to write your book from the day you got the idea to write it to the day you published it?
I have been working on vignettes of my adolescence for the past ten years, but this specific comic took about fifteen months. I wrote and drew a lot more than what made it to this publication.
How long have you considered yourself a writer? Did you have any formal training, or is it something you learned as you went?
In 2011 I went through an intensive summer workshop for teachers. It was with our regional affiliate of the National Writing Project at West Chester University: the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project. It was that experience that encouraged me to not only think of myself as a writer but also to call myself a writer–which can feel odd.
Imposter syndrome kicks in. Me? A writer? However, it’s a fair challenge. In order to think of oneself or call oneself a writer, one has to write…and publishing or making money from it has little to nothing to do with one being a writer, by the way. A writer writes. So, I suppose I have considered myself a writer for the past decade because of the daily encouragement I received in that workshop which is when writing as a daily habit developed in my routine.
If you don’t make a living exclusively writing, what is your day job? How, in any way, does it relate to your life as a writer?
I have been a middle school teacher since 1995. Usually, a teacher spends their life helping other people with their writing, and rarely works on their own growth as a writer. So, the relationship between my writing and my teaching is that by doing it myself I grow more and more interested in teaching the writer…as opposed to hammering kids on the minutiae of the writing.
I find I approach it all much differently now than when I started teaching over twenty-five years ago. For one, by actively being a writer, I recognize just how important encouragement is in order to grow as a writer. And I mean so much more than a quickly penned “Good Job!” in the margin.
Encouragement is conversation. And conversation includes social talk and time to get to know one another, to allow trust to grow. When people know you and take the time to speak with and listen to you, they learn what you are trying to do as a writer, and they want what’s best for you.
When we reach those conditions, what the writer wants or needs is rarely ever grammar tips or correction. It’s encouragement. So, encouragement is way way up there for me. It just might be the number one most relevant condition for a developing writer.
What were your expectations for writing and publishing your first book? Have they changed now that you’ve written your book?
I am not an especially skilled handyman around the house and my limitations as a cook are also real, but I have always liked to create with pencil, ink, and paint. For a decade, directing middle school plays allowed me to create as did coaching sports at various competitive levels.
When I was engaged in those endeavors, I did not write much at all, let alone draw. Focusing on writing and comics gives me an outlet for my creative well of energy which has always seemed to have been there for as long as I can recall.
Do you have a writing ritual, odd habits, or superstitions?
I like writing near a sunny, open window or completely outdoors in the sunlight.
Are any of your characters inspired by real life people?
All of the people appearing in my comics are real people or a blending of several people into one. Memoir isn’t journalism.
Ultimately, a memoirist isn’t reporting. A memoirist shares an experience, brings it back to life (hopefully) through blending of so much more than what one saw or heard.
For me, some of the most enjoyable memoirs have been those where the voice is so real that you can feel the writer thinking and hesitating, spilling and then measuring, right there on the page. It feels so authentic that the highs and lows are very much in the air as you read.
How well do you handle criticism, either while writing, editing, or reviews? Do you ever use that criticism to change your story?
Not well, quite honestly. What are we supposed to with criticism we never asked for? We are just supposed to take the blows? No thanks. I am not creating to take your best shot at knocking me down.
Elizabeth Wein spoke at an SCBWI conference in New York City where she implored everyone in the room (writers, illustrators, editors, agents, et al.) to promote and practice grace when writing or expressively ourselves publicly about another person’s work. It was the ultimate reason why I deleted my Goodreads account. It was too tempting to write what I did not like as much as what I did like. And that’s not the writer I wanted to be.
Wein’s call for grace really resonated with me. I don’t find criticism useful as a writer or artist. I just read comedian Jim Gaffigan’s thought that he never gives advice to young comedians since advice is most often just an effort to make someone more like you. I think writing instruction and criticism often suffers from the same disease. Not interested in it.
What skills have you acquired or information have you learned from writing?
Talking socially or going for walks outdoors are as much a part of my writing process as is keeping a journal or jotting down lists of ideas.
Did you consult with any professionals or people who lived through a particular event to help you craft your story?
A fairly consistent group of family members of all ages has been gathering yearly on the anniversary of my great-great grandfather’s arrival from Italy in 1901. Whenever I attend those events to toast our ancestors, so many stories emerge through the afternoon.
I’m lucky in the respect that I have many family members who love the old stories and who love sharing all of the older stories. Incidentally, I hosted a podcast for a year centered on family history. It lasted 7 episodes. One reason I abandoned it is that most people I approached for an interview sighed that they wished they knew more about their family history, but the reality is such that they know very little and no one is left to ask.
So, I feel purpose in my comics vignettes. And it provides opportunities for me to reach out to family to ask about specific person–which, in turn, keeps memories alive.
What is your most stereotypical writer trait? Your least stereotypical?
I go through fits of messiness. Sometimes my writing desk is cluttered with stuff (and I need all of it) that I’m nudging little piles in all different directions so I can have a little clear space to actually write or draw.
Also, I don’t know if this is stereotypical or not but I write to think. My writing is all over the place no matter how much planning or outlining or listing that I do (as are comics as I develop them) that the act of revision is such a recursive windstorm for me…there is always something else to consider, to reframe, add, delete, move, etc. Little comes together cohesively until the very end.
“What If” Scenarios
A wealthy reader buys 100 copies of your book and tells you to hand them out to anyone you wish. Who do you give them to?
Public libraries and the little free libraries we see hanging up in neighborhoods, places where people sit and have a cup of coffee or two fingers of bourbon. Reading by oneself in a bar is an underrated occurrence.
I think, while my comics are not difficult to “read” that they encourage thinking and remembering. You don’t need to know me or precisely what is behind a comic because you may have your own similar experience that is called up for you to remember and think about.
You’re offered a contract to rewrite your book in another genre. Which genre do you choose and why?
A play. Live theater and comics can have so much in common especially in the sense that I find myself drawing and writing in the struggle to find a truth, a layer of emotion and honesty, in each story, in a similar way to how an actor works.
You know how they say the truth will set you free? Well, I also think that the pen sets you free in the same way that a mask sets people free to take all kinds of chances and risks.
You’re given $10,000 to spend on marketing for your book. How do you spend it?
I would offer it to a variety of distinct voices (Gilbert Godfried, Sam Elliot, Christopher Walken) to do live readings someplace where people are having drinks and being sociable—sort of like a flash mob but instead of dancing it’s just a spontaneous public reading—each reading would only take about 15 minutes so there’s a chance I could book them for a reasonable amount and get this done.
Your book becomes a best seller. What do you do next?
Assuming I will continue writing and drawing irrespective of how many copies I sell, I’d “retire” from my day job, find a warm place with some water and blue skies and be nicer and more generous to all people…and find a way to be there for people who could use some kindness or something I could offer, like lead a writing or comics workshop for seniors. But I need that saltwater, ocean breeze, and sunbeam life each day to work the anxiety out of my system. I just feel so much better by an ocean….
You have final say over who reads the audio book version of your story. Who do you choose?
Is Chazz Palminteri available?
Just for Fun
Your favorite childhood book or story.
The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Favorite time of/part of your day.
Early morning when the sun is coming up. Birds are chirping. Everything else is mostly still and peaceful.
Favorite place you’ve visited/place you want to visit.
Hawaii. We have been three times so far. Kauai, specifically. It is the paradise people say it is.
Your favorite podcast.
The Memory Palace.
Short vignettes about little known people or circumstances of history. Check out Episode 59: Harriet Quimby. One of my favorites.
A book that you recommend everyone reads.
The first book that comes to mind is Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow.
Your favorite genre to read.
History when it is told well is just so damn entertaining (think Erik Larson), but I love memoir especially. For the past few years I have found myself reading memoirs by artists from all walks of life, so often you glean elements of their process, support systems, and how or why they function as they do. I’m completely fascinated by that. Side note: a common element in all of their lives and experiences is encouragement. Somewhere along their journey, they each encountered a certain degree of encouragement that resonates with me as a reader.
When time travel is achieved, do you go forward or backward?
Forward. Always forward. Writing is the time machine that can move us forward or backward, and I keep pressing the “go back” button, so if given the opportunity it would be nice to press the other button for once.
Pin it!
I have loved comics ever since reading my mother’s Asterix and Obelix books. Next I fell in love with Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield. Though Big Chooch is not quite the same as the three styles aforementioned, I love a good memoir-style writing and find that comics add a new depth to an interesting story.
Great interview! We love his idea to have public readings. We’d totally stop and listen to one.
Sounds interesting