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Abby Jame is the art director for Teenage Euthanasia on Adult Swim and the creator of The Fae, also on Adult Swim. She has drawn and/or written for the New Yorker, Sony, Cartoon Network and more. She has published several comics and is developing an animated series. In Heart Shaped Tears (Silver Sprocket), Jame draws inspiration from her teenage experience, exploring themes like optimistic nihilism through the lens of girlhood.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
It's Bart Simpson's Guide to Life x Confessions of an Heiress with Gary Larson as a bratty girl. It'll make your suicidal teenage daughter smile.
On your nightstand now:
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy. Also The Dirt by Tommy Lee, a book about the secrets of Mötley Crüe, but I haven't opened it yet.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. I loved the play because I love the girl characters. Cosette, the little girl in rags who sings about there being no floors to sweep in her "Castle on a Cloud." Eponine, obsessing over her crush with her song "On My Own." I love creating comedy, but most of the media that I consume is pretty dark. I find it more genuine and comforting.
Your top five authors:
Gillian Flynn, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Gibson, Elizabeth Wurtzel and Vladimir Nabokov. I need a variety of girlish angst and dark secrets, sturdy philosophy, sinister prose and the exciting world of cyberpunk futurism.
Book you've faked reading:
Dune. I actually did read Dune three times. But I pretended to like it to impress my boyfriend at the time. It impresses a lot of boys, but it's honestly kind of boring. Nothing really sexy happens in it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Mists of Avalon. (Sorry.) I love the way the Arthurian legend is told through the female perspective. I love fantasy and priestesses and princesses. And there is sex in it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The first one that comes to mind is Princess Lockup. It was sitting in the lobby of my apartment and had a tiara and gun on the cover. Obviously, I took it.
Book you hid from your parents:
The 120 Days of Sodom. Just kidding, I think I got in trouble for reading YM magazine.
Book that changed your life:
The Game of Thrones novels by George R.R. Martin definitely changed my life. I was so inspired by Daenerys Targaryen that I literally decided to go back to art school, and two years later I'm working on an Adult Swim series. That was my version of Westeros.
Favorite line from a book:
"Hell is other people." --from No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Five books you'll never part with:
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo by Chris McDonnell, The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar. I love the books so much more than the [TV] series. They're very dark.