bio/publications

"Cilla finds every kind of storytelling convention totally interchangeable and mixes them with the elegance of a DJ or a producer creating new sounds from old." -Rob Clough, TCJ

"Cilla's sensibility isn't particularly nostalgic or archly postmodern. It's more like old comics, mathematical equations, ads, receipts, train tables, patterns and foreign-language characters are units to be assembled into a different aesthetic form (something he shares with his Paper Rad contemporaries, such as Brian Chippendale), for the apparent (and usually futile) purpose of staving off entropy." -Kristy Valenti, Comixology

"...Chris Cilla is probably one of the best cartoonists of his generation. A Cilla story is what we look forward to more then anything else: inky and dense, his work superficially reminds you of mid 90s alt-comics, but its heart is just as much in the past and future of comics." -Austin English, Domino Books

"The most distinguishing feature of Cilla's comics is the way he develops the plot, using an almost literary stream of consciousness, sometimes expressed through a dadaist free association of ideas, others with a polyphony of voices that generates flashbacks, flashforwards, cross-references, catchphrases and pure nonsense. The mood is light-hearted and hilarious, but the varied formal solutions build a multilayered narrative, recalling a book by William Burroughs or Thomas Pynchon...The final effect is unusual like observing everyday life with new eyes, without taking anything for granted. And perhaps this is the core of Cilla's comics, the marked opposition between ordinary contexts and anything but ordinary characters and situations. If you are a brain with hands and feet or an insect reading the newspaper on the toilet, you can understand what I mean." -Gabriele Di Fazio, Just Indie Comics

Chris C. Cilla is a cartoonist and screenprinter. His full length book The Heavy Hand was published by Sparkplug Comic Books in 2010. His work has been featured in anthologies such as Kramers Ergot, Barf Water, and Bog Witch. He has been publishing minicomics since 1987, notable titles include The Diplomat, Dripp, Hot Dog Holiday, Putz Rush, and Stun Nuts. Born in Tucson, Arizona, he has since lived in Portland, Oregon and Gwangju, South Korea. His work has been exhibited in galleries in Helsinki, Lucern, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Detroit. He was a member of Portland's Pony Club gallery and played bass guitar for The Pork Torta.

Publications