November Metro & a new book from VUP!
Look, the latest Metro is out, with my comic in it! And there’s also a great editorial by Simon Wilson about ‘the serendipity – the unplanned delight – that a good bookshop represents.’ He, like many of us, is worried about what ebooks and Amazon might do to that lovely relationship you have with your local bookseller. And, as usual, there are lots of excellent book reviews, and a particularly timely one (for me, anyway) on Caitlin Moran, with the great line: ‘Moran…Feels passionately that when it comes to pubic hair, a bush in the hand is worth two Brazilian birds.’ That Jolisa Gracewood is so clever.
Talking of books, I just saw a picture of an advance copy of the book my comic is going to be in:
SFW
(Click on this to make it bigger)
I thought I’d post one of my Metro comics so that if you were browsing at work, you didn’t have the potential embarrassment of having a picture of a Brazilian on your screen. You have to scroll down for that. Also, I thought I’d show you something else I was working on:
Do you know what that spells? You could look it up here.
Right, off to revise my novel for the 327th time. I’d better unplug my modem and hide it somewhere to curb my OCD internet habits. Did you know that Zadie Smith thanked Mac Freedom, a piece of web-limiting software, in the acknowledgements of her book? NW. It’s a great book. You should read that too.
Hair Down There
Caitlin Moran is really funny. Jonathan found her even funnier than I did, and he sat reading it next to me on the sofa, causing mini earthquakes with his laughter. I made him leave the room so I could concentrate on my Junot Diáz book, ‘This is how you lose her.’ That was also excellent – one of those books which made me want to give up writing because what was the point, really, with virtuosos like that around. But back to Moran, I’m now intrigued by her biography, which she slipped in between her feminist manifesto, and I’m also super impressed that she managed to land a job at Melody Maker at age 16. I would’ve liked to work there. Of course I was in Palmerston North at 16, a world away from the British music press. Moran is only two years younger than me, so ‘How to be a woman’ is a feminist text for my generation. Or perhaps the next one, the women who think that feminism is a dirty word, who didn’t take Women’s Studies at University, whose first pair of grown-up shoes weren’t 10-hole doc martens boots, who have boyfriends who watch lots of porn on the internet and expect women to be clean-shaven. But then maybe the excellent TV series Girls is more for them.
Anyway, have you read it? What did you think? Now I want to read Germaine Greer’s ‘The Female Eunuch’, which Moran raves about. I don’t know why I haven’t already. Maybe because it was a book for my mother’s generation, and each wave of women needs a book of one’s own.
Clueless, part 14
This is part of a serial about the birth of my first son – you can read the last post in the September archives, or start from the beginning in the April archives. I do quite a few installments in June too, in case you want to start in the middle.
I thought this was going to be my last installment – but the story is setting its own pace! Tune in for the grand finale… or the penultimate grand finale… really, I haven’t a clue.
Gardening
Pottering around in the garden is a good school holiday activity, as is drawing comics with the kids. Actually I think that gardening is a good companion activity to writing, because I always come up with lots of ideas for comics and new realisations about characters as I weed and dig. My mother’s friend Fiona Farrell tells her that when she’s not writing, she’s gardening. So I may not be growing what I plan on growing, but still I’m growing something. See, look what’s just happened? I’ve slipped into a gardening metaphor. They are unavoidable. When I was working as a corporate designer the image of a pair of hands holding a tiny seedling used to drive me crazy. Isn’t there another way to communicate ‘growth’?
If you want more on gardening, you should pop over to Kimberly Rothwell’s blog. Also my friend Helen always makes me green with envy with her gardening endeavours.
Ducks
It’s still school holidays, and I am drawing little comics to save my sanity and to give me a sense of achievement for the day. Now we’re off to the library where they are very accommodating of our loud voices and eccentric tastes in books. Have you read the ‘Make Way for Ducklings‘ book? I love it (such beautiful illustrations, McCloskey is a master) and I’ve read it about 500 times to my kids.
Zombies
I’ve been drawing zombies. Funnily enough, just as I finished colouring this picture, I got a notification from Garbrielle Bell’s site, and she’s been drawing zombies too. This is part of a larger project – you’ll have to wait and see what it comes from. Every time I draw something like this, I have a brief fantasy moment where I see my career as a zombie/vampire/fairy/space alien cartoonist stretching out before me. That would be fun, right?
Since I’ve almost finished my novel, I’ve been thinking about what my next big project might be. I think it should definitely be a graphic novel. But what kind of graphic novel? My kids would love it if I wrote one for them, using all the stories I tell them over breakfast. I get immense satisfaction in delving through my own life for material. I’ve wanted to write one about Katherine Mansfield for a while now. And then there’s the new novel idea and the numerous short stories that I’m going to write when I have time… but maybe some of them should be graphic novels instead? I don’t know.
The other thing which I’ve been doing lately is listening to podcasts. It’s my favourite thing to do whilst colouring cartoons. I just listened to This American Life, which has a fascinating New Zealand segment to it. I also listened to the latest New Yorker Fiction podcast (oh yes, I remember the anguish of losing my pet lamb to the meatworks!) and to a John Cale interview on All Songs Considered. I have a thing for American podcasts. I really should find some UK ones to bond with. Can you suggest any?
Gentrification
I’ve added colour to brighten your Monday morning! It’s great that Mt Albert is picking up, and there are now a number of cafes around to choose from. Also there’s Lim’s, which is a little bit like going to a market in Beijing, without the crowd density. I go there to buy random cheap vegetables (fennel bulbs! Japanese eggplants!) and I am overwhelmed by the choice of tofu, not knowing which out of the ten types of quivering white rectangles to choose. Of course I don’t want Mt Albert to be truly gentrified – then I’d be forced to despise it. It’s better when it’s teetering, able to incorporate shops opened up by art school grads, artisan bakeries and cultural diversity.
Although I love Cosset, I’m too scared to take my kids there in case I break all of their delicate china and furniture. Last week I decided that Sidewalk was my new favourite cafe, but today I got into an argument there, so my brief dalliance is over. I ordered ‘chips and salsa’ for Gus, expecting hot chips, and corn chips came out. I suggested to the chef that the word ‘corn’ or ‘nacho’ might be useful, but she looked at me like I was a complete idiot for expecting hot chips to come with salsa. Maybe I am – but hell, they serve chocolate porridge. Anyway, she was happy to trade the nachos for a doughnut and Gus was in food heaven, asking me if I could see love hearts coming out of his eyes. So I really should get over myself and go back for another flat white.
Last time I was there, I drew some pictures, and it was quite fun. I love sketching, but I don’t much like the curiosity that comes with doing it in public. People just can’t help looking over your shoulder, and then I worry about my motives, wondering if I’m drawing out of some kind of exhibitionist impulse. Everybody’s always impressed when you can draw, but I think that it’s not such a rare gift – it’s just that our education system privileges reading, writing and arithmetic, and everyone’s forgotten that once they drew princesses, daisies and giant trucks. Drawing is a learned skill – you learn how to gauge the angles and proportions of things, you learn what to put in and what to leave out. You guy should all get out and draw, and then I wouldn’t feel like such a dork when I did the same.
Snapshot
It’s the school holidays now, and the kids are at home with me, which doesn’t leave me much time to draw comics. But I have been pecking away at this one, one panel at a time, and now I present you with a snapshot of what my kids are in to right now.
The Hindenburg footage is classic. Thankfully Gus has stopped playing that lately. But the music, the commentary… it’s so epic!
Clueless, part 13
This is part of a serial about being diabetic and pregnant with my first child, and having to leave New York City to return to New Zealand. You can read the last installment here, or start at part one in the April archives.
And in other news, remember how I tried to sell out and go ‘cute’ last week, before reverting to my former messiness? Well, the tireless and thoughtful Mike Peterson riffed off it in his blog:
LET ME BE FRANK 