Alors, Et Toi? is a quarterly magazine of the arts, digitally published on the world wide web.
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A Tale of Mere Existence?
Interview by Arley Owens
LEV YILMAZ is a cartoonist who resides in San Francisco. Using the mundane details of day to day life as his inspiration, he creates entertaining, humorous, thought-provoking cartoons and videos. Narrating with a vapid delivery as he draws, Lev infuses humor into everything from spilling coffee and shopping for groceries to wondering if he should be single again and things he thinks about while trying to fall asleep.
At the time of this interview LEV had recently returned from France where he did several shows featuring his now famous caricature ‘Tales of Mere Existence’. Though he hadn't eaten at McDonald's in six years, the night before returning to America, since he happened to catch Pulp Fiction, he couldn't resist ordering a "Royal with Cheese" at a French Mickie Dee’s. So what did he think of it? “When it comes to McDonald’s, all you can say is same shit, different continent.”
A few days before ordering the disappointing burger, he slammed his hand in a car door at Lille, and had to go to the hospital for x-rays. Thankfully no bones, ligaments, or nerves were broken or damaged, but it did require stitches. True to form, Lev drew a cartoon depicting the experience.
AET: What got you interested in becoming a cartoonist?
LEV: Comics were sort of a big thing for me as a kid, an escape, a point of view that had a wise-assness to it. I really, really dug MAD. My friend's older brother gave me this big stack of 70's Mad, and I really got into it.
I did a report for school on the comic Peanuts. I went to the library and got an LA phone book, and called Charles Schultz. He picked up on the 3rd or so ring. To this day, I believe that he kept his number listed so fans would call him. I think he wanted the positive reinforcement.
Later on, I went to art school to be a pretentious art student. Afterwards, I began to gravitate to Comics, I think just as a method of expression. I’m still not all that heavy into the medium, I’m certainly not a cartoonist’s cartoonist. I think I use it as a means, not an end.
AET: So Charles Schultz actually took your phone call. That speaks highly of the man. You seem willing to make yourself accessible to your fans as well. How much of your success do you attribute to My Space and YouTube?
LEV: I wouldn’t really say success as quick as I would say exposure. I had been doing the series for a spell before I started posting on YouTube. Posting there though, is when it finally started to happen in my mind. You can do festivals and be on TV but people still don’t know where to find you. YouTube has been great for that.
AET: I was a big fan of Mad Magazine as a kid too, and some of your satire reflects the influence. Did you ever consider approaching them or any of the other Satire Mags for a spot on their staff, or did you always want to fly solo?
LEV: I’ve never approached them. I don’t really see how I would fit in there. I never necessarily wanted to go solo, but I always found that things worked out better for me when I did myself.
AET: How did you find Paris (besides being painful when your finger got slammed in the car door)?
LEV: I was there working and it was great. I much prefer to travel places when I have something to do, people to work with. You don't get a feel for a place and it’s people if the only ones you interact with are the tour guide, the hotel clerk, and the waiter. Everyone I worked with was great. I get pretty irritated when people believe the stereotype about the French being rude. I was also in Lille, in the very north of the country. Some of the nicest people I have ever met. I meet more assholes on a 15 minute bus ride in San Francisco than I met in 3 weeks in France.
AET: How is the finger by the way?
LEV: Healing up fine. It’s still swollen, but I hit it real hard. The stitches should be out soon. That was another thing: the affordability of the medical care. When they told me I should get an X-Ray and it would be 30 Euros, (About 40 bucks) I just started laughing.
AET: One of my favorite pieces of yours is “Some Things I Think About When I Try To Sleep”. Did you really know a guy named Pudgy Reese in high school, or was that fiction?
LEV: I’d rather not say. If there wasn’t a real Pudgy Reese, there was a guy who he was based on.
AET: Fair enough. How did “Tales Of Mere Existence” come about?
LEV: The films started first. The first one was called “Party” which I did as a bit of therapy after waking up on a Sunday with a hangover and I wanted to explain the previous evening to myself. It didn’t occur to me until later that it could be a series. I started the comics later to expand the whole thing. It constantly flips between which are more fun for me to make, the comics or the movies.
AET: I see you’re not a big fan of Sting. What musical artists do you like?
LEV: Way too many to mention. It's always changing. The mainstays that have followed me for a long time though are Iggy Pop,Bauhaus, Bowie, Kraftwerk, Leadbelly, Coltrane, pre-rehab Aerosmith. Stuff like that.
AET: What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?
LEV: People ask me that a lot and it’s a funny question. There is no magic bullet, no easy answers. It’s not a linear thing. There is no mapped out career path like getting a degree to be a veterinarian. You make it up as you go along. Accept that you do need to have a half-decent business mind, or you’ll get screwed. The main advice is this: If you want to be a cartoonist, and I mean this quite seriously, the best thing to do is draw cartoons and find a way for people to see them. If you’re good enough, things will start to work out.
AET: Thank you, Lev. Alors, et Toi? wishes you continued success!
Check out Lev at ingredientx.com.