Joshua Cotter had this to say when the topic of an introduction for the interview we conducted together came up: “I suppose I would mention that the comics industry, like most industries in the world, is in tatters, and artists are struggling to find a sustainable way to continue creating. My personal solution is withholding my labor.” But I assure you, he is still compulsively logging in weekly hours in his Missouri studio. Currently, 2/9th of his epic, Nod Away, is already in print, and Joshua continues to soldier forth into the wilderness, undeterred by a lack of publisher as he crafts and shapes the next installment of the story. We crossed paths in 2022 when Joshua provided a process piece for the independent anthology- Told To Tell #2 that I was the editor on. It was a real treat to have access to 5 complete pages from his automatic writing journal for Volume 2 of Nod Away included as part of that submission. One definable quality of his work which I respect is the inability to summarize it.

MATTHEW:  The plan for Nod Away is seven volumes.   Please take us back to the beginning.   

JOSHUA:   “The impetus behind Nod Away was an article I read about being able to transfer human consciousness and then store it digitally.   I started writing in that direction.

My process is organic.  It would be difficult to lay out the steps, but going through those old sketchbooks and rereading old notes the ideas there are kind of like puzzle pieces.  I take the piece and see if it fits with another piece.  Over time I start getting a larger image coming into focus.  Maybe the puzzle is not complete, but I have an idea of what I can do with it.   I decided it would have seven different points of view.  Each protagonist would view the story from their own vantage point, and together that would create a whole. 

In 2010 my wife and I had an apartment in Chicago.  We had a person living below us whose apartment caught fire, and it burned ours as well.   I’m a person that really needs routine and familiarity to function.  We moved back to Missouri where my wife, my father, and I built a house together. 

2012 is when I really sat down and finally started getting back into it.  I had to start from the beginning and do rewriting to make that first volume.     

I worked on volume one from 2012 to 2015.   I was partway through the book when I started looking around for a publisher.  I considered AdHouse, but I knew Chris Pitzer had been talking for years about shuttering Adhouse, and Nod Away was looking to be long.  When people see that it will be seven volumes and nearly 2000 pages, it just reads as insanity on paper.  

I’ve never given birth, so I don’t know what postpartum depression feels like, but I do deal with regular old depression.  It hits really hard after I finish a book.  I got this idea in my head that if I just keep making the book then I won’t have to worry about it.   Not sure I can say that that actually worked out.”

MATTHEW: How does Nod Away differ from your earlier projects?

JOSHUA:  “My personal projects are pure individual expression and art.   Nod Away is me trying to meet an audience halfway.  With projects like Driven by Lemons and Infinite Cuck, I don’t have to take an audience into consideration.  It’s me working through my own challenges.  With Nod Away I tried to find a balance between art and product; something I can put myself into, but also something people can enjoy.”

MATTHEW:  Fantagraphics published the first 2 volumes of Nod Away. What’s the plan for Volume 3?

JOSHUA:  “My main purpose in going with a publisher is that I need someone to take care of distribution and promotion.  I’d rather focus on the art side of things.  I have left Fantagraphics.  

It’s such a difficult thing to talk about because people want a reason behind it.  How do I say this? I don’t feel that publishing today is something I understand.  I considered publishing it myself, but after looking into publishing, printing, and distribution costs – it’s not realistic for me.  I was considering releasing pieces of it as I went along.” 

MATTHEW:  I am trying to imagine how periodic releases for volume 3 would look.

JOSHUA: ”I don’t write that way.

If I were to release it in a periodic manner,  there would be no beginning or ending to what the people were reading.   My books aren’t written as chapters.  They’re written whole.  

The 360 pages of Nod Away Volume 2  were all penciled before I started inking it. That’s just how I work. 

So how can I realistically serialize that? “

MATTHEW:  No idea.  How do you sum up a novel in one sentence?

JOSHUA:  “I get people at shows asking me for the quick sell. I  can’t summarize Nod Away quickly, and I don’t want to.  It’s not the kind of stuff I’m interested in doing.   Why am I gonna spend the rest of my life making two thousand pages of comics that I can easily summarize for someone else? 

I don’t like spoon-feeding people and I don’t like work where the core concept is laid out in an essay manner. I don’t want to be told what’s going on, I like to figure it out for myself.  Maybe it stems from people wanting comfort in the known.  Right now there is so much unknown.   I write about many different facets of the human experience.  My books aren’t something that people looking for comfort would read.   My work can’t be easily summarized.

These are very difficult times we’re living in and people are looking more for escapism.  My work isn’t escapism.  Between my work not being escapist and the book not being easily placed into a genre,  I think that a place like Fantagraphics is gonna have trouble selling me because that’s how you have to sell it.  You have to sell to the audience.  You have to sell to the demographic.  How do I successfully promote a book that I just don’t know what its place is?”

MATTHEW: What is the way forward then for Volume 3?

JOSHUA:  “My focus is just making the comics.  When I finish what I consider to be volume three, then I will poke my head out like the groundhog and see what the conditions are.  I’ll see how much winter’s left.   I don’t know if I’m gonna be living in this country in a few months.  There are so many unknown variables right now.  All I can do is just keep making the comics, and keep making my work.   Eventually I will find an outlet”.

Copies of Nod Away Volume 1 and 2 can still be found on the Fantagraphics webshop, comic shops, book stores on the planet, and also from Joshua Cotter at  joshuawcotter.com