Jesse Reklaw

Jesse Reklaw (born 1971) is an American cartoonist and painter, author of the syndicated dream-based comic strip Slow Wave.

Biography Reklaw was born in Berkeley, California and grew up in Sacramento, studied at UC Santa Cruz, and completed a master's degree in computer science at Yale University. In 1995, while pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, he began self-publishing comics in his dream-themed series Concave Up. At the same time, he developed the weekly strip Slow Wave; when he began to have some success in syndicating it, he dropped out of Yale to work as a cartoonist. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his cat, Littles, who appears in many of his strips and zines.

Slow Wave Slow Wave is "a collective dream diary authored by people from around the world." Readers email their dreams to Reklaw, who illustrates them in a classic four panel cartoon which credits the dreamer as co-author. Reklaw pares down each dream he selects to a few sentences. Reklaw has said he likes dreams because they have "their own logic and a natural dada-like humor." Examples of Slow Wave stories include one in which "a man is pursued by an all-knowing ham"; one in which "the Royal Hole in the Earth Society discusses an award for the best hole filled with water"; and "one about a man who rode a unicorn to distant mountaintops in search of the world's only bathroom". Reklaw is currently writing an autobiographical graphic novel called Couchtag, an excerpt of which, 13 Cats, was published in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Comics 2006.

In 1992, Reklaw was in a band called Pissant with fellow cartoonist Adrian Tomine.

Awards In 2004, Reklaw won an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his regular publication of Slow Wave in the East Bay Express, and he received awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in 2001, 2003, and 2004 for Slow Wave, including "Best cartoon" and "Format buster."

Reklaw has been nominated five times for an Ignatz Award: Outstanding Online Comic in 2003 (Slow Wave), and Outstanding Minicomic in 2001 (Mime Compliant #5), 2003 (Lo-Horse, with David Lasky), and 2005 (Couch Tag #2). In 2008, he won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Minicomic for (Bluefuzz The Hero).

Works Books

Keeping Score, Fantagraphics Underground, 2019 Lovf: An Illustrated Vision Quest of a Man Losing His Mind, Fantagraphics Books Inc., 2016 Couch Tag, Fantagraphics Books Inc., 2013 Ten Thousand Things to Do, Microcosm Publishing, 2010 The Night of Your Life, Dark Horse Books, 2008 Applicant, Microcosm Publishing, 2006 (previously self-published) Dreamtoons, Shambhala Press, 2000

Comic book series Couch Tag #1-3, 2004–2006, self-published minicomics Concave Up #1-6, self-published