Fun! This book just came out from Annick Press: To This Day by Shane Koyczan. I was thrilled to be asked to illustrate one of the stanzas.
News
Tangles en francais from Steinkis Editions
Very excited that Tangles will be published this month in France by Steinkis Editions! It will also be distributed in Quebec by Flammarion.
Steinkis changed the cover design and I like it a lot.
I’ve been neglecting this website to work on my next book, but here are a few odds and ends
Just in case anyone still comes here ever, I thought I’d say, Hey, I’m still around but spending as much time as possible working on my next book. (Sometimes I post on Facebook or Twitter.)
The most recent comics I’ve done are three kitten-themed postcards for Morgan Brayton’s amazing kitten rescue fundraising campaign. My first foray into the land of cat comics.
In early April I was one of the featured writers at the University of North Dakota Writers Festival — the 45th year and one of the only free writers festivals left. Got to meet the fabulous Robert Pinsky and spend time with some of the most engaged and engaging writers festival participants I’ve ever met. Videos from the conference have just been posted.
I got interviewed for this great series of articles on Jewish women cartoonists.
Tangles continues to get reviews in Germany, where it was published last spring, and I will soon have details to share about the upcoming French publication.
Oh, here is a Japanese translation of two pages of Tangles done by a local Japanese community association, Tonari Gumi:
I have a comic all about menstruation in this book: MESS: The Hospital Anthology, and some more illustrations and comics in forthcoming publications.
Meanwhile I’m getting ready to teach two classes in the UBC Creative Writing Department in 2014/15.
I hope this is less like a boring holiday letter, and more like an inoffensive update. 😉
If you are patient, you might see a new book from me within three years.
Love,
Sarah
Student comics from the class I taught last term
I am so impressed with what my students did last fall! Most of them were creating comics for the very first time.
Check it out! http://comicsbycrwr408-570.blogspot.ca/
From Diary to Graphic Narrative
In 2011 I made a zine called From Diary to Graphic Narrative, which is about just that. I’ve just posted the pages on Tumblr: diarytonarrative.tumblr.com
Bio/Graphic exhibit includes original art from Tangles
Really looking forward to this exhibit of autobiographical cartoonists. The curators chose some of the original pages from Tangles as well as earlier sketches for the pages. The show opens October 9 and the big reception and talk is on the 20. I hope to see you there!
My comic for Canada Writes: naked man, bathtub, flowers
So much fun! The nice people at CBC’s Canada Writes asked me to create a comic for their latest challenge. I would draw a three-panel narrative without words, and contestants would submit a caption for each of the panels. It was a challenge for me, too: create a three-panel comic that is open enough for people to create their own story, yet with panels that are connected enough to suggest a narrative. Canada Writes will be posting an interview next week about the process of creating the three panels — it involves lots of back and forth and lots of drafts — but in the meantime, please participate in the contest. It’s open until June 7.
Book cover: Drawing from Life
My first try at a book cover: Drawing from Life: Memory and Subjectivity in Comic Art. Not only was it fun to work on the concept and execution, but I am really looking forward to reading the book. Coming in the fall from Mississippi University Press. (The colour was added by the publisher; original was black and white — pencil and technical pen.)
Tangles in German: Das große Durcheinander
I just got my author copy of the German edition of Tangles in the mail today, and here’s a mediocre iPhone picture! Unlike the Canadian, American and UK editions, this one is hardcover. Surprisingly thrilling to feel it in my hands. And the paper is heavier, too. And — most of the lovely hardcover books I’ve seen from Canadian or American publishers are done in China or another Asian country to save costs. But this was done in Germany. Pretty cool. Also my publisher, Beltz, made a mini-version, called a “leseprobe,” for promo. It is super cute. (And I try not to call it a “lezzy probe.”) It has just two chapters from the book in it. I am really happy to be publishing with Beltz. My editor, Petra Dorn, has been amazing, and the promotions team work crazy hard. And, there have already been some great reviews of the book…
Here are some links along with brief translated excerpts:
Die Welt
My publisher says: “A portrait of Alzheimer that is touching and makes you feel sad: of the slow disappearance of an impressive personality – and about the reactions of the people around her.”
Sudkurier
Google translate says: “The book is a love letter that stirs one to tears.”
Taz
My publisher says: “The journalist says that your book is very moving, and that it tells of the great love for your mother. With excellence you manage to transfer overwhelming feelings, little misunderstandings and hurts in the family into pictures and words.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung (review not online)
My publisher: “They call the book very impressive and like it very much that it is kind of a diary which catches all the daily things that Alzheimer brings into families.”
Nido (review not online)
My publisher: “They call the book ‘sad, sensitive – and encouraging.’”
And here is an excerpt from my current favourite Google translation of a review:
“Six years takes the big mess up mother can finally run no longer, in a home comes and there died… The reading is therefore not really a fun thing, but this story has something very comforting for all involved. It tells of deep feelings of love and togetherness. And that’s just beautiful.” — “Farewell to Rates” (I know that can’t be a correct translation!) by Ulricke Schimming on the Lettera blog
It was interesting to work on the German translation of Tangles. I had to let go of some of my control issues and trust the translator, since I don’t read German. Most of Tangles is lettered with a font I created from my handwriting — which, incidentally, I don’t think I would do again. Hand lettering from now on! Anyway, I redid the font to include German characters, and relettered some of the handwritten parts, but the designer actually redid some of the handwriting herself or replaced it with a different font, which was a bit painful for me but I realized it was a necessary letting go. Or it felt like it to me, anyway. The Beltz team was really careful and respectful and the book looks awesome. One slightly odd thing — they included a glossary at the end, for terms like “reiki,” “chorizo” and “mezcal.” Do Germans not know these words? And, a little bit disturbing, they included the word “Chanukah” in the glossary. If anyone has insights into this, I’d love to hear them.
Guinea pig portraits
My friend has two hairless guinea pigs, also known as skinny pigs. I had never heard of such a thing before she got them, and even now that I have met them a number of times, I still am not sure that I approve of their creation. It seems like a weird use of human ingenuity. It does allow allergic people like my friend to have a pet to cuddle. But they are… well, some people find them cute. That’s all I will say for now. This is a photo of them that shows their cute fuzzy noses and does not show their disturbing naked spines or bulging testicles:
Anyway, my friend loves them and so I said I would draw their portraits. I started with sketches from photos:
Then I put aside the drawings while I thought about how to make them into portraits. I don’t know when I decided that one needed an Elizabethan collar and the other needed one of Henry VIII’s most famous outfits. But once I made the decision I couldn’t think of anything else to do. You see how deep and serious my internal world is. So I found these guys:
And I did these drawings…
Then I decided they needed a coat of arms… The motto is “Kale is in our hearts.” The symbols on the shield are a sunrise/sunset because guinea pigs are crepuscular animals, a cave for hiding, a wheel for exercise and a grape because it is another roundish symbol and these particular pigs like grapes.
And then I coloured them with Derwent Inktense pencils. Colouring is a new thing for me so I am not completely happy with the results. But here they are:
Now if only I could bring this sort of focus to my graphic novel in progress, that would be awesome.