I wrote and drew a graphic novel titled
the road to god knows...,
which was published in 2009 after about four years of development.
The story dealt with a young teenager's struggle to cope with her
mom's schizophrenia. It's pretty autobiographical; to tell the story,
I drew on a lot of my own experiences with my own mom's
schizophrenia. It's fictional for all kinds of reasons, but the main
one was that I wanted some distance from the story.
That said, the graphic novel was self-published and, art-wise, it's
rough.
I think there was a lot of heart to it, but my visual art was pretty
weak. Figure-drawing problems, perspective problems, composition
problems, value problems...you name a problem and
road had
it. In spades. I came to art very late and learning to draw is not
the easiest thing in the world to do. Comics require a great deal of
knowledge to do well. Those problems I mentioned? Well, you need
everything to work together extremely well to create a comic. If that
harmony
isn't there...well, you get a pretty rough comic. And that
certainly was an issue with
road.
But we learn by doing and I'm still proud, to this day, that I
managed to do it. Rough spots and all.
So
I published it and it did as well as could be expected, especially
given my art skills at the time. And though it still sold a bit every
year, I stopped thinking about it. I moved on with my life, continued
to make art and comics, continued to get stronger, but putting that
rough first graphic novel behind me.
Flash
forward to April 2015 and I received an email out of the blue from a
writer/director named Megan Durnford. She's working on a documentary
film about the impact of parental mental illness and wanted to talk
with me about
road. To
make a long story short, the film (titled
I Am Still Your
Child)
was
made (amazing!) and I was a part of it (shocking!). And it was made
with empathy and sensitivity and deals with an issue that really
isn't discussed much in public at all. I was (and am) very pleased to be included in the film.
The
making of the documentary led to an interesting situation. Megan
wanted to use artwork from
the road to god knows...
in the documentary. And...that was not good. I hadn't looked at the
art in a number of years and, when I revisited it, I was dismayed
(maybe horrified would be a better word). The art was rough. Really,
really rough. And it put me in a bind; I didn't want to have
road
represent where I am
now.
That may sound weird; I think it did with the folks involved in the
film, but because the graphic novel was such a personal project for
me and because my art had certainly improved quite a bit from back
then, the idea of seeing
that
art in a documentary left me cold.
So
we worked out an interesting solution. I would revisit
road
and redraw selected pages and panels from the graphic novel that
Megan wanted to include in the film. As it turns out, that was one
helluva big job.
Some
of the work was emotional; I was revisiting themes that in some ways
I didn't want to revisit. For example, I was revisiting the death of
my mom; the graphic novel is pretty autobiographical and while my mom
died long before it was ever published, her presence is a big part of
of the story for me.
Some
of the work was practical; in order to keep the pages similar, I had to stay
pretty close to how I did things almost a decade ago, even though I would not necessarily write or draw the
same way now. That wasn't
easy; how I approach composition is different now. My thoughts on how
a comic book page is put together is different now. How I write is
different now. And on and on. Plus there was that pesky fact that the
original art was pretty rough. I could use it as a guideline, really
a very loose thumbnail, but that's it. I would have to draw most of
it from scratch, as if it was a brand new story.
The
actual redrawn art presented another problem. By redrawing the art, I
could accidentally give the impression that the new art is what the
graphic novel actually looks like. I felt a little sick when that
dawned on me, so the solution was to avoid it completely by making
the graphic novel out of print. I realize that there still a few
copies “out there,” but it's fortunately not so easy to
find and hopefully anyone who sees the documentary (along with the
caveat about the art in the film credits) will understand. It's one
of those weird situations that is almost counter-intuitive; in a way,
the documentary will bring more attention to
the road to
god knows... then it ever had
before. But to redraw the entire graphic novel (to “fix it”
if you will) would be a monumental undertaking. Even with the redraws
I did for the documentary, I only wound up touching something like
10% of the book. To redraw the rest would require...well, certainly a
very keen and excited publisher. For me to do that other 90%? Nope.
Tempting, but nope. I would rather move forward then go backward.
Given
all that, the redraws represent an interesting and fairly poignant
“what if.” What if I hadn't published the graphic novel
when I did? What if the entire graphic novel looked the way the
redraws do? Would it have found a broader audience? Would it have
found a publisher? What if?
Ultimately,
who knows? We learning by doing. I did the best work I could on
the
road to god knows... back in
2005-2009. That the work wasn't
the
best is unfortunate, but that's life. If I hadn't done it, would I
have given up on art by now? Who knows? Do I regret doing it? No, but
I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wish the art in the original
version was stronger. It was hard to revisit on that point alone.
You
may note, by the by, that I don't say that I've gotten
better.
Better, in art and in life, is
a judgment call that's difficult to make. Who's to say? What is
better? But I know that I have gotten
stronger.
And that's enough.
It
is pretty amazing to find that
road
still touches people, enough to be included in a documentary almost
eight years after it was published. Enough that the book is still
talked about today. I occasionally get emails, like the one I
received from Megan back in the spring of 2015. And, despite my
misgivings, I'm happy the book keeps touching people, even in its
rough form.
And
road, despite its
flaws, taught me one thing. I love to draw. I wish I had found that
out earlier, but I know it now. And that's not nothing.
The Redraws
What
follows are a series of images from the original published version of
the road to god knows...
and the re-draw versions. These are presented side by side, without
further comment from me.
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