KAPLAN: Like the books in the series that preceded it, All Is Nat Lost is laugh-out-loud funny. What’s your joke writing process like? Have you ever cracked yourself up from drawing a panel or writing a punchline?
SCRIVAN: I crack myself up constantly. I have no idea where these ideas come from, and they are a surprise and a delight when they show up on the page.
The books usually inform the jokes, and they develop organically during the writing process. Many jokes don’t make it into the book and I’ve learned, after six books, that the story is more important than the joke, no matter how much I like it.
For the comic, I sit down with my sketchbook and brainstorm ideas. I’ll come up with 25 or so, and pick out 7. Sometimes, they need to marinate for a while, and other times I will notice two seemingly unrelated thoughts sitting next to each other in my sketchbook and that forms the joke.
I also spend a lot of time imagining what my dog would say if he could talk, and that ends up both in my comic and in the opening page of every chapter of every book in a panel comic featuring the characters Cat and Treat.
I love writing comics in coffee shops and diners, and do a lot of book writing while I’m walking in the woods, speaking into the notes section of my phone using dictation.
I had a great poetry professor in college who told us that taking a walk, going for a bike ride, or getting in a car or train always helps get ideas moving. If I’m really stuck, I’ll just start doodling. I used to think I was wasting time when I was procrastidoodling, procrastibaking, or procrastigardening, but they are all part of my creative process.
KAPLAN: As a cartoonist, you’ve worked in various graphic narrative formats, including graphic novels, daily funnies and magazine comics (please let me know if I’ve missed any). What’s it like to create comics in so many different formats? Does one inform the other? Does any format come more naturally to you than the others?
SCRIVAN: I also design greeting cards. All of the comics, regardless of format, originate from the same place…from deep in my subconscious, deep in my heart, or both.
Nat Enough was my first long-form sequential comic, and a writer friend pointed out that I was creating an entire narrative in a single panel with my daily comic, and that really helped me embrace this new format.
No matter the medium, all of the comics go through many iterations, and many drafts. So many pages never see the light of day, but that is part of the process, and each piece of writing, and each drawing, informs the next, whether it is published or not.
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