The following is an interview with Mister & Mischief (a.k.a. Jeff and Andy Crocker) regarding the upcoming release of their new interactive zine, Infinite Right Answers. In this interview, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief Barbra Dillon chats with Mister & Mischief about the genesis behind the interactive zine, what they hope that readers may take away from its prompts, and more!
Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: You have made an incredible career out of building immersive experiences for audiences. With Infinite Right Answers, you are truly inviting creators to immerse themselves in the art of the creative process. What can you share with us about the genesis behind this engaging zine?
Jeff Crocker: It sort of started as a joke – we were riffing on the old adage, “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime…pretend you’re both fish – that’s showbiz!” and it made us laugh for a truly unreasonable amount of time.
Andy Crocker: I think Jeff started to get annoyed at how much I kept bringing it up.
JC: I mean, you did say it a lot. But it is good that you did. Through repetition we realized that it encapsulated how we think about creating work, but in our style – irreverent and absurd. So, we thought about how we might expand on that, and that expansion became Infinite Right Answers.
AC: For sure – we had a lot of tidbits that made us laugh and that we deeply believe in. We also felt really compelled to share some of our thoughts on creative ideation. We love teaching and we want to share our process and perspective. But it is super challenging to be, like, a thought leader when you are also parents and artists. We were feeling this pull – like we could either write a tome talking about the work or actually make the work – not both, bandwidth wise. And the making will always take priority for us. But then we realized that if we shared our process with the same spirit and texture that we make anything else – then we didn’t have to choose. That’s why it’s short, conversational, and a bit silly.
BD: Your work has spanned creative mediums, from theatre to theme parks and beyond. How would you describe your shared creative process in bringing this interactive zine to life on the page?
JC: There was a lot of baton passing between us. A lot of rallying ideas in both words and visuals. One of us didn’t take lead on any one aspect more than the other, though I picked up a lot of the layout, we both were responsible for large chunks of ideation, the writing, and the visual development.
AC: There’s quite a bit of me shouting ideas from the shower, Jeff making sketches in the middle of the night, and our daughter giving unsolicited feedback on the walk to school. But also we had a really great time pulling apart just how we do what we do, and attempting to put it into words. Because we’re married to each other, we have so much shorthand and shared vocabulary – it was a lot of fun to try to communicate our process in a way that (Fingers crossed.) people outside of our household could understand.
JC: But with brevity.
AC: I hear it is the soul of wit.
JC: I think Brene Brown said that?
AC: Probably. We’ll never know.
BD: What kinds of activities or other entries might readers find within the pages of Infinite Right Answers?
JC: We’ve crammed a lot in there. Both the thought process to designing for interactive experiences, as well as traditional theatrical concepts, but it also goes beyond activities because we’re trying to cross-polinate concepts to create beautiful hybrids.
AC: We try to lay out a creative principle, make it fun, and then say to the reader, “Now you try!” in teeny, tiny bite-sized ways.
BD: In light of the zine’s exploration of the art of storytelling, was there anything that surprised or challenged you about your own creative process on the project that you hadn’t initially anticipated?
JC: BOOK ARTS. We would be nowhere without our expert graphic designer and Book Arts mentor Regan Chagal. Regan looked through the whole thing, understood what we were doing, and after giving us some compliments, she started to break down the parts that were working and why, as well as the parts that we were struggling to convey the ideas, for which she almost always had a perfect solution from the world of Book Arts. That knowledge was invaluable and while we feel very confident that we can bring folks into a space and have them successfully create a fulfilling experience together– we were not experts on designing a readable zine.
AC: BOOK. ARTS. Book Arts!
BD: Are there any other projects – past or current – that you would like to highlight for our readers?
JC: We collaborated with the Los Angeles Public Library earlier this year on an experience called The Narrative Treatment Plant. It was part of a much larger event called Night at the Library and saw about 3,000 people come through. Our experience had folks going through the stacks, discovering ideas, and then helping turn those ideas into stories – in which we had a rotating team of writers writing live, projected on the wall all night. The pure joy we found in facilitating folks to harness their own creativity is definitely part of why we’re excited about the zine.
AC: And looking ahead, we’ve got a few cool projects coming down the pike – one that centers on being creative caretakers (Look for that in December!) and one that explores themes of how we value works of art. When I say it like that, they both sound very serious, but I assure you, they are very us, which is to say, playful and fun-forward.
BD: Lastly, what is the best way for readers to learn more about Infinite Right Answers and your other work?
JC: The best place to learn more about us and our work is our website, misterandmischief.fun. There, you’ll find a little bit about us, but we’ve got a fair share of write-ups about our various shows and experiences, plus some good photos.
AX: You can also find us on Instagram (@misterandmischief) where we post semi-regularly with some dormant periods between releases. Oh! And our newsletter! Sign up for our newsletter! We promise we sometimes send it out.
