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Anthony Bourdain loved comics. His writing partner, novelist Joel Rose, believes that comics were responsible for the start of their 35-year friendship. In the early ‘80s, Rose was running a literary magazine in New York City—a homegrown operation that he recalls publishing on a dot-matrix printer, packing issues up for sale “in plastic bags like dope” —when he received a comic submission. “The art sucked, but the writing was good,” he says bluntly. Rose, who sent feedback for all work received, wrote a note critiquing the comic. To his surprise, the author showed up on his doorstep.
“Tall guy, all in chef’s whites, had just gotten high,” Rose remembers. “We hit it off right from the start.” Rose and his wife, author and publisher Karen Rinaldi, were ground zero for Bourdain’s journey to writing. “In his 40s, he thought he would be behind the stove for the rest of his life,” Rose says. “[Restaurant work] is exciting and vital but wearing.” When he started telling the stories that would become Kitchen Confidential, Rose and Rinaldi were the ones who recognized the potential in the narrative and pushed him forward in setting his life down in print.
The professional partnership led to their graphic novels Get Jiro and Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi, skewering the “foodie” mentality. Their last collaboration, the comic Hungry Ghosts, was a departure, though, and came as a surprise to Rose. “I thought we were doing a third Get Jiro,” he says. However, Bourdain’s suggestion that they switch it up and pursue this new angle of storytelling, influenced by Japanese ghost stories, quickly won Rose over. “When I started to do the research, it really became fun. I was seduced by it,” he says. “We’re old friends and worked together well.”
Their comfortability with each other meant a smooth and confident process. Over the course of several months, the concept quickly evolved, ultimately producing a series of four comics that was recently released in one omnibus volume (it also includes related recipes of Bourdain’s). “We sat down, hashed it out, I did the research, narrowed it down to 20 stories and then eight,” Rose says. “I think it’s beautiful. I’m really proud of it. I spoke to Tony about two days before he passed away, he was really proud, too. It was everything we hoped.”
He was just a regular guy with nicks and scars in his armor. He was wild in his energy.
The irony that their final project is a collection of ghost stories with a dark parable center isn’t lost on Rose. He mourns the loss of his friend and collaborator. The selected tales revolve around familiar themes of food and vengeance, but there’s more to them as well. “He wanted to tell moral tales, couched in horror,” he says. The stories of Hungry Ghosts are clearly lessons told through the macabre: there are hidarugami, spirits of those who starve to death and bedevil the living in revenge; tsukimono, who physically possess their victims—in this story, as a result of gluttony; and the truly horrifying bakemono, shapeshifting spirits that possess human hosts, presented here as something between Audrey II and the creature from Alien. “He was doing a catalog of sins that were on his mind,” Rose says. He sighs. “It’s been hard, because this was something we shared.”
Rose has partnered with many other writers, but his work with Bourdain was special—partly due to the duration and strength of their friendship, but partly because of what they offered each other professionally. “I’ve written with a lot of different people. Between us, there was no ego,” he says. “We just had fun with the volley. It was liberating for both of us, without personal risk. I miss our time together […] He was wild in his energy.” Hungry Ghosts reflects that energy in food, gore, sex—all the earthiness that hallmarked Bourdain’s work and persona. “He was just a regular guy with nicks and scars in his armor,” Rose says. But of course, Bourdain was, for many people, far more than just a regular guy. The weight of that took its toll. “Last year, at Comic Con, he was tired. Physically tired,” he says. “It was difficult for him to face that fatigue. He was such a generous spirit. He had time for everyone.”
Bourdain’s death left a hole for many. For Rose, it’s one he is not yet ready to fill. He is finishing work on a book of his own, and once he’s “let the smoke clear,” he will be able to take the next step and consider what’s next. One possibility is a final volume that would include the stories not included in the first four comics. Bourdain’s prolific creativity meant that some additional material had to be cut— and Rose has that material stored away. “I had a lot left over after we put the book together,” he says. “It’s all set up in my files.” He doesn’t know what, if anything, it will become, but there will be a joy that’s missing. “I wouldn’t look forward to [writing] it the same way,” he says. “It would be an emptier exercise.”
Certainly, their fans would relish the opportunity for one last connection with Bourdain’s creativity and force-of-nature presence, one final glimpse into his mind. Whether or not Rose can embrace working with a ghost remains to be seen. For now, Hungry Ghosts exists as a final testament to a decades-long creative collaboration, partnership and friendship.