Starsky the Rainbow Trout

I wrote this at Cleveland College of Art & Design in Middlesbrough (1987-8) when I was studying for my Foundation Certificate. I made this book dummy as part of my response to a textiles module. The brief was to buy a whole fish from a fishmonger’s, which would serve as inspiration for the duration of the project. We had to draw and ‘get to know’ the fish – we kept them in the college fridge in between classes. The studio was ripe by the end of the module.

Starsky was executed in pencil crayons and inkpen (very 1980s – everyone wanted to be Raymond Briggs back then). I was a strict vegetarian at the time, and, although I eat fish now, I’ve never really fancied trout.

As a published picture book author, I would say to my young student-self:

• Not bad for a first try at making a story book, but:
• Avoid rhyming text for a first book; it makes translation of co-editions tricky, but if you must:
• Try using a thesaurus to avoid lazy rhyming stanzas.
• Learn some grammar and how to spell ‘fly’ and ‘embedded’.
• Fish don’t ‘shout’ – they scream silently (in the same way an uprooted flower does). They don’t laugh either. Mainly, they glug.
• Think about page turns – who was lurking on the bank? Make the reader want to turn the page to find out. Same goes for the very last line – it would be more dramatic if it had a page to itself at the end.
• Don’t simply illustrate the words, drop some words and let the pictures do the talking, too.
• Try for a more imaginative title – publishers aren’t keen on ‘Sammy the Squirrel’-type titles. How about Massacre in the River Tees* instead?

I got an good mark for that module, and the tutor tried to persuade me to apply for Textile Design at degree level, instead of Graphic Design. I don’t think textiles would have been my thing. Too stinky.

*joking, of course

Curing the cringe factor

There are times when you create something that is so crushingly cringeful that you cannot bear to look at it for years afterwards. You even destroy work in an Orwellian-style rewriting-of-history attempt to erase all traces of crapitude. I’m almost over it with these teenage paintings of mine that my mum secretly kept. It’s interesting (to me at least) to look back on work I did as a teenager who wanted to ‘be an artist one day’. Just about enough time has lapsed for me to be able to look at them with fondness and to know that all cringes pass in time.

Teenage art eh? Hormones all-asunder, sweeping emotions, yearning and unrequited love. I’m surprised I didn’t use my own blood to render this dancing image:

The birthday card above was based on The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. We listened to the radio adaptation in art class and had to draw as we listened to the story. I drew the characters Fritha and Philip, with the snow goose in the background. I don’t recall who the card was for but I didn’t send it.

I did the ‘peace girls’ image after visiting Eastern-bloc Czechoslovakia on a youth-orchestra exchange in 1984. Mine was an emotional rather than political response – I think I was too young to really appreciate the politics back then. I only wish I still had the painting I did of a woman being sacrificed over the letter S (the top of the S was a hand holding a dagger dripping with blood). Teenage hormones…

I worry that the work I’m producing at the moment – in my hormonal peri-menopausal state – will one day beckon the dreaded cringe all over again. But this time the work isn’t safely squirrelled away in a bottom drawer for later. However, cringe is under-rated; perhaps the discomfort is a sign of authenticity, of work wrought from such a genuinely human and vulnerable place that it elicits angst at the very thought of sharing it. I think Billy Bragg said that he knew when a lyric was probably good because it made him feel uncomfortable to express it.

Once it’s out there it’s out there. So, my advice to myself and others is this: You don’t know what it will feel like until you dip your toe in the water – put it out there expecting a few hours of vulnerability backlash*, then forget about it. But if you do find yourself curling up in existential agony for weeks afterwards, it’s probably not worth the stress. A leathery hide is advantageous when sharing deeply personal work because you might not receive the required response, which could potentially smart more than the original wound. It’s a gamble. But equally it’s a gamble not to share it, because you never know where it might lead and what good it might do others. Like any new thing, it can get easier the more you practise. This not only applies to deeply personal work – but also to any creative work: some people have terrible trouble letting their work out into the big bad world where everyone is a critic and where silence speaks louder than words.

So, I’ve shared these pictures that used to make me feel so very embarrassed for myself. I’m practising.

ps; I must get round to reading The Wounded Storyteller, by Arthur Frank. It’s meant to be good.

* I first saw this phrase used by Jody Day of Gateway Women – apt words to describe that after-click panic when sharing something personal on social networking sites.

Laydeez do Comics Bristol

I’m not partial to defining my activity by gender. Although technically I’m a ‘female’ illustrator, proofreader, comics creator and writer; I don’t feel I should need the adjective to help describe my involvement in those jobs. However, when the gender scales have historically been weighted on one side in any given arena (comics in this case), perhaps, for a while, you can heap it on with spades on the other to help redress the balance.

I first went to a comics convention in Bristol in the mid-00s because Jeffery Brown was speaking – I’d read all of his books. I’d also read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and thought wow, a woman the same age as me writing autobiographical comics – maybe that means I can too! So I tripped along to the comics con all fluffy-tailed and excited…

But I felt so out of place. I felt old for a start (I was 36ish) – and starkly female. The overarching feeling was that I didn’t belong there. It’s hard to pinpoint why – the proliferation of young men, the daleks and stormtroopers – I’m not sure. Nothing wrong with young men, daleks and stormtroopers, (I was a Doctor Who and Star Wars fan as a child), but it wasn’t what I was searching for at the time. It was probably something tribal – about recognising oneself in others to foster a sense of belonging. Despite my own lack of costume, I felt like an interloper from another planet.

Although I enjoyed Jeffrey Brown’s talk (I even asked him a question) I still left feeling somewhat disheartened thinking that even if I did get round to writing my graphic novel, who would want to read a comic with themes of fertility and miscarriage? That dalek wouldn’t be interested, would he? I was yet to discover Graphic Medicine where there are plenty of comics dealing with stuff going wrong with bodies. And I was also largely unaware of  the female creators from the 60s/70s who were certainly not shy of drawing the personal and intimate details of their lives. As it happens, the first two people to buy my first comic, Spooky Womb, were men (though still no daleks).

Laydeez do Comics 

So, imagine my joy when I stumbled over Laydeez do Comics! I think I googled ‘female graphic novelists’ sometime in 2009, found LDC and thought I really must go to that thing one day. It was a graphic novels forum run by women (Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman) but open to all. They had guest speakers, including men, talking about their comics work – with a ‘focus on the autobiographical, domestic and everyday’.

I finally went along to Laydeez in late 2010 when Posy Simmonds was speaking. It was rammed, I didn’t know a soul and I was horrified to discover that there was an introductory ice-breaker question (‘the question’) to answer in front of all the other attendees. Blind terror aside, I managed to splutter out something comprehensible enough for Nicola Streeten (co-founder of LDC and author of Billy, Me and You), to ask if I fancied coming along to speak about my work the following year. No, I thought, you have to be kidding. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t pursue it but Nicola did, thankfully. I once heard Grayson Perry say in an interview that his motto is ‘take the path of most resistance’ and this chimed with me at the time. I’d decided I wasn’t having children after some troublesome years, and that I must get out there, meet new people and do new stuff. This opportunity was all three.

I spoke at LDC for the first time in May 2011 along with Mary Talbot (Dotter of her Father’s Eyes) and Jo Tyler. Laydeez often places emerging practitioners alongside the more experienced. I showed the beginnings of my graphic memoir and some children’s illustration work to a supportive audience. It was like a big fuzzy comics cuddle, and I felt a glow of promise and excitement – a renewed interest in carrying on with my memoir. Both Mary and Bryan Talbot were encouraging about my work, too! It was also at that meeting that I found out about Myriad Editions’ First Fictions First Graphic Novel Competition, which I subsequently spent the summer working on, entered and reached the shortlist. So I have a lot to thank Laydeez do Comics for. A Brick Lane curry to fill the gap left by a nervous stomach rounded off the evening perfectly. And, I’ve met some ace people at meetings since.

Laydeez do Comics Bristol (and San Francisco, Leeds, Chicago…)

I wished there was something like LDC in Bristol and sat around waiting for someone else to provide this for me to attend. They didn’t, so I thought I’d better get something together myself. Nicola and Sarah were keen and we held the first Bristol event at Cafe Kino in August 2012. It was packed out – and I was happy to be spreading the Laydeez joy to Bristol. There is a healthy comics community in Bristol (Bearpit Zines, BLAM included) so I felt that there would be some interest. Speakers at the first event were Katie Green, Smoo Comics (Simon Moreton), Nicola Streeten, Sarah Lightman, Sicker Than Thou (Andrew Godfrey, Emma Mould) and yours truly. See some photos from that event and Nick Soucek’s blog:

Audience answering ‘the question’

Nicola Streeten

Emma Mould, Andrew Godfrey – and in the background Louise Crosby, who runs Leeds LDC

Andrew and Emma

Simon Moreton (Smoo)

Katie Green

Liz Greenfield, Nicola, Isobel Williams. I think the girl with pink doggy top in background is UK paralympian Sophie Kamlish!

Co-founder of LDC and Laydee of the cakes

Laydeez do Comics Bristol 2

LDC London now meet at Foyles Bookshop, so I wondered whether our branch of Foyles here in Bristol would be keen to extend that relationship – I knew they had an event space. They were very keen, enthusiastic and helpful! The next Bristol meeting is on Monday April 8th upstairs at Foyles Bookshop, Cabot Circus, Bristol, 6-7.45pm.

Click here for details – with guests Hannah Berry, Joff Winterhart and LOAf magazine‘s Rosie Faragher. It’s free but you must book a ticket here. Hope to see you there for some effervescent comics discussion, and cake c/o Sarah Lightman!

Facebook event page.

Miscarriage comics – talking about it

Last week, The Miscarriage Association began a campaign – It’s time to talk about miscarriage. Of course, not everyone wants to talk about it and that’s fine – either they find it too difficult or prefer to keep that part of their lives private. However, the taboos surrounding miscarriage mean that many women who do want to be open about it feel that they can’t. Perhaps they are afraid of upsetting others or making people feel uncomfortable. This further compounds their isolation and grief.

I’ve been making comics on the subject for a couple of years now, based on my own experiences of repeated unexplained early miscarriage. I also wrote a post about the language and euphemisms used to refer to miscarriage. As well as a natural urge to express myself through creativity, my hope has been to express something that others can’t, and to help break taboos. Comics can do this because pictures replace the need for words which are hard to say – or it seems that the symbiosis of words and pictures can speak louder than words alone and the impact is more immediate. And perhaps this could help in breaking the silence surrounding miscarriage. Here is most of the work I’ve done on the subject so far:

The Facts of Life page

Spooky Womb Cover

p12 Spooky Womb

p13 Spooky Womb

It Wasn’t Meant to be

A Collection of Lines 1

CoL2

The Facts of Life page

Or does it have a positive affect? I’m not sure. The response to sharing this work has been varied: From supportive other creatives doing similar to befuddled relatives telling me I just need to ‘get counselling’. The funniest response was at Comica Comiket last autumn when a guy did a double-take at my comic Spooky Womb: he pointed at it, looked at me, pulled a ‘scary’ face, then ran away! I guess he wasn’t ready to come face to face with anthropomorphic female reproductive parts at a comics fair. Poor chap!

It has been very connecting in that women I barely know have spoken to me about their own experiences of miscarriage and not having children. Not that I’m offering myself as a comics creator-counsellor by any means – not equipped! But I appreciated these connections.

However, I often worry about offending people who’d probably rather not know or upsetting others who’ve had similar experiences. Of course this reflects some of the reasons women in general don’t/ can’t talk about it. In fact, I’ve read articles about comics mentioning that comics should be all about cheering people up and the lighter side of life. But a couple of years ago I was excited to find that there’s a whole website about the intersection of comics and medicine/ illness (Graphic Medicine) where it’s accepted that comics can play an important role in empathy, understanding and education. Hello! I thought.

I’ve started writing warning messages on posts recently. But perhaps that’s me pandering to the taboo – just another way to steer it off the radar. Though I feel it’s mainly out of respect. I’ve discussed these issues with Mita Mahato and Katie Green recently (comics creators also sharing emotive work). On conclusion, I’m inclined to think that people have a choice as to whether or not they look, and this recent campaign by The Miscarriage Association has given me cause to believe that perhaps it’s OK. After all – not all my social networking updates are about this subject – there’s a peppering of other interests too – music, wildlife, politics, goats shouting like humans etc.

Here’s an interesting post by artist Lily Mae Martin, about sharing intimate, honest and often difficult details of her life as a mother. I met Lily when she spoke about her work at Laydeez do Comics.

Spooky Womb comic

My first printed comic, Spooky Womb (A true-ish uterine tale), is back from the printer. I’m just hand colouring the covers. I’ll be taking it to Comica Comiket on November 10th which takes place at The Bishopsgate Institute, London. After that, I’ll make it available online.

The grey covers have hand coloured elements – painted whites of eyes and rosy cheeks (Karisma pencil ‘Scarlet Lake’). The cover paper came from a local recycled paper wholesaler, only a ten-minute walk from my house. The comic is printed on 100% recycled stock.

I knew I wouldn’t be quite so busy with paid freelance work in October, so I gave myself last month to write, draw and get a comic printed – with a Halloween deadline (I made it but the printer didn’t!) And I had to get the whole ‘anthropomorphising a uterus’ thing out of my system. It’s been quite a learning curve but one I wanted to get on, so I could take part in comics fairs etc.

Spooky Womb is a short autobiographical 10-page spin-off from my work in progress, The Facts of Life. The story isn’t all that spooky in reality. ‘Spooky’ in this context refers to the nature of our bodies, which can behave in unexpected, mysterious and hidden ways that we can’t necessarily control, especially hormonally.

It was a good exercise in sorting out how to draw myself for the graphic memoir – something I’ve been struggling over. Still not sure I’ve cracked it, especially continuity-wise, but it’s getting closer to what I want. A friend once said that I draw ‘lollipop heads’ i.e. out of proportion (too big) with the rest of the body. It was an observation rather than a criticism but it’s something I’m trying to avoid. Some illustrators do this on purpose to achieve a ‘cute’ style. For me, it’s probably a habit formed from years in children’s illustration where head-to-body ratio is smaller (children’s heads being larger in pro to the rest of their bodies than adults’ heads are).

Anyway, I’m pretty pleased with the comic but plenty learnt for next time! After Comiket, I’ll be getting down to The Facts of Life again, so to speak.

Words can be tricky, in panels

Before I got stuck into writing my graphic memoir, I did a few one-off pages exploring ideas from the story to help get me started. I’m interested in euphemisms and phrases regarding miscarriage and their possible impact.

The word ‘miscarriage’ is already a euphemism or sorts – a lay-term for the medical ‘spontaneous abortion’. I find the word ‘miscarriage’ fairly acceptable although it does have a ‘whoops’ quality to it, as if one had carried something carelessly and dropped it!

Words probably affect people in different ways depending on their personality, life experience and background. For someone who has high expectations of themselves, or who has been trying to conceive for a long time, the term ‘failed pregnancy’ might seem calculating or too reminiscent of exam results!

click to view larger

The term ‘lost a baby’ (verb) causes problems because it could seem blaming, although the idea of ‘loss’ (noun) as something one feels after a miscarriage is more fitting. Any suggestion of blame is best avoided when talking about miscarriage – it’s all too easy for a woman to search for reasons among things she has supposedly done wrong. It’s rarely the case (or so I was told) that it’s the woman’s fault.

I hope to do more work around this based on further inadvisable things to say to a woman who has had a miscarriage:

• not meant to be (or any mention of fate)
• just a cluster of cells
• it was only early
• maybe you subconsciously caused your miscarriage

Perhaps I’m just being pedantic or oversensitive here, but some seemingly benign words can sting if used in certain contexts; therefore they need to be chosen carefully. I found this quote on the internet:

“The language we use to communicate with one another is like a knife. In the hands of a careful and skilled surgeon, a knife can work to do great good. But in the hands of a careless or ignorant person, a knife can cause great harm. Exactly as it is with our words.”
Source Unknown