I recently had the fine pleasure of interviewing the amazing artist Gris Grimly. In case you're not familiar with him, he is the sinister mastermind behind Mad Creator Productions, his own multimedia company. He has done a diverse arrangement of quirky and ghoulish paintings and has illustrated several books, including children's stories, Edgar Allan Poe collections and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Although his books appear to be made for children, when you delve deeper, you see that they blur the lines between cute and creepy enough that they appeal to ghouls of all ages. Gris Grimly also designs artwork and music videos for bands, (Creature Feature, Cenobites, Hola Ghost, Blitzkid, The Horrifics, Wednesday 13, Ghoultown, Mad Sin, to name a few). If that weren't enough, he's also a filmmaker, whose cinematic style mirrors the glorious creepiness portrayed in his art. One of his classics is , Cannibal Flesh Riot a tale of two grave-robbing ghouls who deal in the serious business of grave defiling, necrophilia and cannibalism while having a deeply philosophical discussion about food condiments. Gris Grimly likes to serve his comedy very, very black. He is currently collaborating with Guillermo Del Toro to bring his animated Pinocchio story to the big screen. I think it's safe to say it won't have much in common with Disney version. Without further adieu, here is an interview with Gris Grimly.
Do you have a secret weapon you use to inspire you to create? Libations? Music? Muse?Being is inspiration enough. I usually fall asleep anxious to wake up the next morning to work again.
I've read that you have a bloodcurdling fear of children and I can believe it since I've seen you at events when children were in your presence and you were sweating blood. Yet curiously enough, a lot of your art and books seem to be intentionally tailored to attract children because of their whimsically, creepy nature. Care to comment on this?
It's not so much that I have a bloodcurdling fear of children as I don't know what to do with them. This awkwardness usually comes off as brutal. I treat them and talk to them the same way I talk to adults. So when I sarcastically say, "Just hold your breath and die already" to a little 4 year old, it doesn't always come off as funny as I see it in my head.
A few years ago, you had the stunningly awesome honor of giving the eulogy at at a funeral reenactment for Edgar Allan Poe as part of bicentennial event honoring him. How did that come about?
The Poe house in Baltimore has been a big supporter of my Poe books. So when they asked me to be a part of it, I agreed. Which I have to say, they are endangered of getting shut down by the city of Baltimore who is trying to cut costs. If you would like to help, there is a petition you can sign.http://www.thepetitionsite.
In your short movie Cannibal Flesh Riot, two white trash ghouls rob graves and devour the corpses while having an in-depth discussion on the finer points of food condiments. If you had to be trapped in a sealed cave for all eternity with only a few condiments, what would they be? (bonus points if one of them is Marmite).
Hot sauce!
By the way, you seem to have a fetish for grave robbing (even if only vicariously). If you were given a free pass to dig up any soul in the history of mankind, who would it be? Digging up a corpse isn't too exciting unless you're a ghoul. They all look the same when they are nothing but bones and dust. So I guess I would like to see the more interesting bodies of the elephant man or someone like that. But I think their bodies are all on display anyway.
You have been working on a big Pinocchio project for several years so it's safe to say you've done a little digging into this boy's background and have some insight. So what's your take on Pinocchio? Misunderstood lad with EMO tendencies? Juvenile deliquent?
Juvenile delinquent of course.
www.madcreator.com
