On Patreon: “It’s nice to post things for people that really engage with the content, not just scroll through while being subjected to a bunch of ads,” Furie says. “I hate Instagram, but love being able to share my art, and this makes the most sense. It’s a way to share a window into my art/process without all of the negativity from casual observers looking to troll and intrusive ads. I have nine followers and they are all nice!”
Furie’s self-imposed exodus from social media stems not only in his experiences over the past decade but some recent reading too. I ask him about one Patreon post in which he says that social media hates our souls. It’s actually a quote. When asked for context and how quitting Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms affected his work, he offered this: “The last argument in Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now is titled ‘SOCIAL MEDIA HATES YOUR SOUL,’” Furie said. “I recommend it to anyone looking to free themselves from the compulsive pull towards the never-ending wheel of likes and shares and selfies. My art practice has been compulsive my whole life, so it has not changed. I’m in it for the long haul, for myself, to leave my mark before I die.”
I’m constantly grappling with my inner child, my inner teen angst, and my inner search for peace and love. It’s the Holy Trinity of my art practice.”
Whether it’s his gallery or commercial work or his 2013 children’s book, The Night Riders, Furie’s attraction to anthropomorphic characters is ever-present. Shows at Left Field Gallery in Los Osos, Thank You Gallery in Norfolk, Virginia, and other venues have placed his vibrant monsters on walls across the country. The still-living members of Boy’s Club—Andy, Brett, and Landwolf—still have occasional comic adventures, too. (Pepe was killed off by Furie in 2017.) Recent works is more psychedelic than ever, spiraling and crowded pages carrying his cascading beings. It seems that these types of figures—whether inside paintings, black comic boxes, or animation—are Furie’s primary avenue of expression.
His love of giving human features to otherwise wild or mythical creatures has been an attraction that predates sorting dolls and action figures at the thrift store too: “Kids have an innate connection to animals and an inspiring sense of wonder,” Furier said. “I’m constantly grappling with my inner child, my inner teen angst, and my inner search for peace and love. It’s the Holy Trinity of my art practice. Anthropomorphic animals and Muppet-like creatures have the advantage of transcending race and resonating with more people. Also, there is just something fun about making shit up—drawing fur and feathers and scales and teeth and eyeballs and blobs melting and spikes prickling and goo dripping. There is a joy to it. I’m a human but I feel a connection to all things wild and a yearning to be wild and anthropomorphizing is my way of expressing that.”
The childhood tether to his characters seemed most obvious with The Night Riders. In that gorgeous, wordless tale, a frog and rat go on a night-time adventure together, culminating in a group of nocturnal animals taking in a sunrise together. It’d been seven years since its release when we spoke, but I had to know if he’d considered returning to that format after everything that’s transpired. Coincidentally, he had just spoken to McSweeney’s, the publisher of The Night Riders, about doing just that. Though he was still in the planning stages, he offered this: “It’s actually inspired by author and tech philosopher Jaron Lanier, who I [previously] mentioned. He describes the early days of virtual reality with such awe and splendor, something like crystalline luminescent insectoid creatures crawling on clouds—a window into 3-D imagination and the dream world. I want to do a story of a little girl with a collection of masks that transport her from a grey world into a Wizard of Oz fantasy… Still figuring it out.”
“There is no real goal. I like to think that it keeps getting better as we get older…”
One 1996 quote from Lanier’s work seems to align with Furie’s general attitude toward humanity: “We should treat computers as fancy telephones, whose purpose is to connect people. Information is alienated experience. Information is not something that exists. Indeed, computers don’t really exist, exactly; they’re only subject to human interpretation. This is a strong primary humanism I am promoting. As long as we remember that we ourselves are the source of our value, our creativity, our sense of reality, then all of our work with computers will be worthwhile and beautiful.”
Alongside the early stages of that Lanier project, another effort sees him teaming up with peers Skinner and Will Sweeney on a book inspired by Facetasm by Charles Burns and Gary Panter, a collection of book of split faces drawn by the artists that can be reconfigured into more than seven thousand “possible mutations.” Furie’s teamed up with several artists over the years, including Albert Reyes, animator Joseph Bennett, and his wife, Aiyana Udesen. (On the Skinner and Sweeney project: “It’s fun to collaborate with friends and do new projects with people I admire,” he added. “It’s a great way to mix it up.”) Facetasm, released in 1997, was a continuation of monster books from decades before, a way for kids to take the wild imaginations of these artists and create their own beasts. Having three artists like these on this new project promises thousands more configurations and (considering the creators) truly wild results.
That idea of creating something new brought me to my last question for Furie, one I hesitated to ask but felt was key, as the artist moves forward after the major documentary about his experiences with Pepe the Frog. I wanted to know about the process of forging new faces that can potentially be taken from him. He’s creating so many new characters all of the time, but has that journey made him more protective of his creatures? Or perhaps he feels more distanced to them, as to protect himself? As with the other parts of our discussion, he met it with both self-awareness and empathy.
“I’m a collector by nature, and I’m happy we live in a world of abundance,” Furie replied. “Creating new characters is a way for me to collect ‘things’ without having to collect actual physical things. Drawing is a practice: There is no real goal. I like to think that it keeps getting better as we get older. I listen to music, and there seems to be a ‘peak’ to pop music. Artists hit their peak and then go downhill. Drawing, on the other hand, gets better and better with time. To answer the question, I’m not really interested in ‘protecting’ my characters. It would be pretty weird if I made another swastika. Odds are in my favor! I already got struck by lightning so I’m safe.”
Let’s hope so.*
This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose issue 57, which is sold out. Support what we do and get a new subscription to Hi-Fructose here. Thanks for reading us!
