Mattie Lubchansky and The Simplicity of It All

an interview about promo, touring, and cute shoes

Hello friends!

Today we’re talking with my client and friend Mattie Lubchansky, who has been heralded as a “genius” by Kristen Arnett and also myself. Mattie’s second graphic novel SIMPLICITY comes out today from Pantheon and it’s amazing. It’s a horny, complex, enlightening, and beautiful book and you should get it right away. I threw Mattie some softball questions because promoting a book is hard and I knew her answers would be smart no matter what. For her first graphic novel Boys Weekend, Mattie toured extensively, way after the initial promotional cycle, and that is not the norm. That said to me that her work is always worth talking about, not just on pub day. Don’t miss Mattie tonight July 29th in Queens, NY with Tuck Woodstock, and elsewhere in the coming weeks!

KM: Your second book comes out today! Congratulations! How has the second experience measured up to the first so far?

ML: AHHH! I'm feeling as normal as humanly possible about it, which is to say completely out of my mind. I'll probably make my agent (whoever that is) deal with it.¹ It's a funny thing because nothing is capital-N New, and yet I still feel completely unprepared emotionally. It's like I'm throwing ten birthday parties in a row. This time around though I think I'm a little more prepared to just enjoy myself once the whole thing starts moving.

KM: As you head into another book tour, what will you absolutely remember to pack this time?

ML: Comfortable, cute shoes! Every time I leave NYC I end up walking on the side of a highway somewhere due to my own stubborn refusal to rent a car or call a taxi, and I can't be walking to the event in heels in August.

KM: What are the best parts and worst parts about book tour or promoting a book?

ML: This sounds corny but it really is so meaningful to see people connecting with the work. Making books, and especially making comics, is really isolating, lonely, work—so seeing the book in peoples' hands honestly is still a very emotional experience for me! I never know what to say when people tell me they read or liked Boys Weekend because I'm still so genuinely touched. My least favorite thing is the relentless self-promotion (current promo obviously exempt). The way social media works now is so hostile to links and even the word "book" or "order" or "ticket" or whatever, it's such a struggle to get the word out, even to people that want to follow my work!

KM: The absolute horrors of the world persist, but I find your political cartoons to be cathartic for me, in a way. Even just seeing your characters express that horror helps a little. Do you find your online work and/or book work to be an outlet for yourself, too? Was there anything particularly cathartic or helpful about writing Simplicity?

ML: I find the short online comics to be cathartic, if only because it's a way for me to stand up in front of a medium-large crowd and say "here's what's bothering me this week!" And making Simplicity was absolutely cathartic—so much of it is about how and why we should be fighting, and what it means to be in community with other people, which made me think really hard about that stuff, and clarify my own thoughts as the characters struggled with it. And more specifically, not to spoil anything, but the last chapter in particular was sort of rapturous to draw. I spent probably two months making sound effects to myself in my house for 10 hours a day.

That’s the thing about writing and promoting books, y’all. The more things change, the more they stay the same. You don’t “figure it out” and reach a point where it’s just smooth sailing forever. Each book is a different beast, requires different skills and will provoke different feelings in you and your readers. I think all us writers are yearning, hoping we’ll get to this place where the writing is easy, the success is clear, and the process is streamlined. That doesn’t happen, though. All you can do it take each book as it comes. Go read Mattie’s work. You won’t be disappointed.

OXOXOXOXO,

Kate

1. lol