The Artist_s Magazine 2016-03__

March 2016 45

IT USED TO BE THAT THE GR APHIC NOVEL

and comic section of a library required stealthy

browsing for those readers unwilling to be

typecast as outsiders, or that’s the stereotype—

lots of seeing the world through thick lenses

and unl attering haircuts. h ankfully society’s

opinion, alongside the publishing world’s and

literary circles’, has evolved to understand that

graphic novels aren’t only for one, unfortunate

kind of high school clique; in fact, every reader

is made better for adding them to the queue.

Author and artist Jef Lemire is thrilled

with this new perspective and for good reason.

His Essex County (Top Shelf Productions,

2007. won Canada Reads best Canadian novel

of the decade. “h is was the i rst graphic novel

to ever make it into the competition,” says

Lemire. “It was a real thrill for me and my

family, seeing the medium recognized as a

literary form on such a big stage.”

Still, it’s not unusual for graphic novels

to start small,

fostered in the

online community

most dedicated to

the genre, until

they’re big enough

to warrant publica-

tion. “American Born

Chinese started of

as a Xeroxed comic,”

says Gene Luen

Yang. (You might

recognize Yang from

his writing for the

popular series Avatar: h e Last Airbender). “I

would i nish a chapter, take it to my local

Kinko’s to run of copies and sell them at

local conventions and through local book-

stores.” h at statement is a hard one to process

knowing what the novel would turn into: the

i rst of its kind to win the American Library

ABOVE:Friendsofthe

protagonist react to

his new perm in Gene

Luen Yang’sAmerican

Born Chinese.

LEFT:Historical fig-

ures Ada Lovelace

and Charles Babbage

transformed into pulp-

comic superheroes in

Padua’s first comic for

Lovelace and Babbage.

Gene Luen Yang

pencils on vellum

so he can see

the mirror image

of his drawings—

an easy way, he

explains, to catch

mistakes. He

scans the draw-

ings into the

computer, using

Photoshop to color

his pencil draw-

ings a nonphoto

blue, and prints

them out on typing

paper before ink-

ing them. Next, he

scans them back

in, with the inks

added, and letters

the dialogue with

Photoshop, using

a font based on his

own handwriting.

©Gene Luen Yang