Editor's note: Painter and cartoonist Tom Neely's first graphic novel, The Blot, follows a nameless everyman who, while dealing with the fallout from a doomed relationship, is stalked by a mysterious black splotch. As the story unfolds, this shape-shifting blot appears as a harmless cloud of ink, a faceless demon, and an inescapable nemesis that tests the character in a new way with each metamorphosis. On the eve of the book launch party, Dylan Williams, the man behind the Sparkplug Comic Books, interviewed Tom Neely for DART. Thanks, Dylan! -- PR

Dylan Williams: The first question that comes to mind is: What is it about the comic book medium that attracts you?

Tom Neely: I've always loved comics. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Somewhere along the way that shifted and I started painting. Then, in art school, I was able to find a way to combine the two. I began doing paintings and comics that worked together and shared the same characters and themes. But when it came to this story, The Blot, it just had to be a comic book. The story has to live in ink, otherwise the metaphor of the ink blot as life/death power/destruction love/hate doesn't work.

DW: How does your work as a painter relate to The Blot?

TN: Since I began doing comics and fine art that use the same characters and scenarios, the painting became sort of the stream-of-conscious writing phase for the comics. Painting is where I get all my ideas out, without worrying about the bigger story. But it works the other way, too. Sometimes I think a part of a comic will make a good painting, and then the comics inform my painting art.

DW: Can you tell me a little about your process in creating The Blot?

TN: It started with making a painting and then dropping ink onto it, Jackson Pollock-style, as an experiment to break myself away from the preciousness of the illustration. I wanted to bring an element of random chance and abstraction into my art by allowing the ink to obliterate part of a painting. Pretty soon, the abstract blots of ink began to take on a life and meaning of their own. The story of The Blot grew out of the idea that the characters in the paintings were plagued by this mass of ink. Then, some difficult things happened in my life and I tied it all together with some autobiographical elements and that became The Blot.

DW: What role do you feel visual and thematic metaphor plays in The Blot?

TN: I always loved Magritte's statement, "My paintings have no reducible meaning. They are meaning." But to be less elusive, I like to work with metaphor and symbols, and they have a very personal meaning to me, but at the same time I want them to be ambiguous enough that viewers can supply their own meaning.

On Friday, July 20, Secret Headquarters, in the Silver Lake district, will host an evening with Tom Neely from 8:00 to 10:00 pm. A selection of original art works as well as three limited edition giclee prints based on Neely's paintings will be available.