A short interview with Michael D. Fraley

When did you first become interested in art?

When I was six years old, my mother and my grandfather's wife took me to a sculptor's studio. He was working on the sort of bust that would find its home in a bank or a library. I was absolutely astounded, especially when he handed me a piece of the clay he was working with. I knew that there was something that he had . . . something that would turn a shapeless piece of clay into something beautiful. From that time on, I was hooked. Clay was messier and took up more space, so I turned to drawing on paper. I also loved comics and children's books, and so learning how to tell stories with my pictures came naturally.

Do you think that there is a connection between your comic art work and your graphic design?

Oh, sure. No doubt about it. An advertisement or a piece of design work period tells its own story. It serves the client's purpose, and the client has his or her own story or point of view to communicate. You don't think about it, but comic-strips have to lead your eye from one part of the picture to another, in a logical, orderly fashion. Much of this is done with a good sense for layout and composition, skills which are a must when you're designing an ad that people will give only a few seconds of their time to at best, and which has to be instantly understandable.

Which do you like better, design or drawing?

I like them both for different reasons . . . and for the same reasons. Graphic design requires a rather different set of mental muscles than pure illustration or cartooning. I don't have the best eyes in the world, and so my depth perception probably isn't as good as it ought to be. In some ways that makes design a little easier. In graphic design and page layout, I'm dealing with the creative arrangement of space and colour and visual textures. This tends to be rather two-dimensional, sort of like putting together a puzzle, and is great in its own way. Illustration and cartooning pushes the artist into thinking in three dimensions, so you're not just managing space, but you're trying to create the illusion of life. That's a little different.

Where does your writing come into play in all of this?

I find myself being both a teacher and a storyteller. If Illustration is creating the illusion of life, and design is the management of colour and space, then writing is the management of concepts and characters. Each area feeds the other. It's wonderful how that works.

 

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