 "Photo: photo courtesy of Paul Hornschemeier")
 "Photo: photo courtesy of Paul Hornschemeier")
Though Paul Hornschemeier skirts the comic mainstream, handling odd coloring jobs for Dark Horse and DC Comics, the 26-year-old's main artistic dues are paid via his own works, which fall under the oxymoronic banner of "Forlorn Funnies." Making his debut with his surreal "Sequential" series, Hornschemeier's latest story, the tragedy "Mother, Come Home," recently made it on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List."
Hornschemeier took time to talk with the Phoenix from his Chicago home about death, movies and St. Francis of Assisi.
Phoenix: Regarding your comics: It almost seems like "comic" is not the right term for them. There's often not anything too comic about the story.
Hornschemeier: It's [an] outdated term.
Phoenix: How do you feel the term "comic" reflects your art? Do you feel you are working in a form that needs some sort of reclassification to distinguish between books like "Spiderman" and books like Daniel Clowes' "Ghost World" or your own "Forlorn Funnies"?
Hornschemeier: I think comic book is fine because, like any name, its definition is dictated by its use. As the art form grows, the fact that the word comic is there will mean less and less. Clearly, there is a vast amount of stories being produced that are not comic at all. So that's the thing: You can give it a bunch of different terms, but why? I have met people who are pretentious enough to never want to call a movie a "movie," they only call it "film." We can all put on berets and smoke clove cigarettes later.
Phoenix: Speaking of movies, it seems underground comics like "American Splendor" and "Ghost World" are starting to get attention from Hollywood. Do you feel that is having any effect on the independent comic book scene?
Hornschemeier: I think, unfortunately, that's one of the ways things are validated in American culture. A movie was made of it! Therefore it must be something of consequence. I think it's having an effect, a positive effect, but I wish it didn't need that sort of thing to be validated.
Phoenix: "Mother, Come Home" deals with pretty heavy topics, with the main character Thomas losing his mother to cancer and then losing his father to a mental institution as a consequence. Where did the inspiration for that come?
Hornschemeier: It's kind of inspired by a couple of different situations. One was a professor of mine [and his wife]. They had gone on a safari, and she had a malaria vaccination which she had an extremely adverse reaction to, pushing her [near] death. Just seeing this guy, in the middle of class, break down, someone whose entire life was about logic and control - very clear-cut things - really exposing this raw emotional side. And simultaneously realizing that one of my parents is going to die first, that one of these people is going to have to go on without this person who's become an everyday piece of their life.
Phoenix: You come from a Catholic background yourself. How do you feel that has influenced your work?
Hornschemeier: I think it's something that has influenced me. I got a degree in philosophy, the philosophy of modern science. I think that a lot of my studies were influenced by Catholicism. At some point in my career, I want to do a large book on St. Francis.
Phoenix: I read in another interview that you thought St. Francis was insane.
Hornschemeier: Yes, well, I think there's a good argument for that. In my opinion, at the very least, he was experiencing schizophrenia. But he was a good man who lived a great life and inspired hundreds of thousands to do great work.
As far as my everyday work, it's more fiction. There are a lot of issues of faith and belonging and looking for the meaning of life. That's in my work all the time. I think my religious background had a pretty large bearing on that. I remember in third grade asking my parents questions on the meaning of life because I was just very bored and had no friends.
Phoenix: A future philosophy student?
Hornschemeier: Yeah, they knew I was doomed.
Hornschemeier will be signing copies of "Mother, Come Home" at Quimby's, located at 1854 W. North Ave., at 8 p.m. this Friday.
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