My feature at MUSE
So, last night, I was the featured artist at MUSE in Portland, at Slainte. I've decided to post the notes I obsessively took so I could make sense at my talk... I wound up not needing to really reference my original notes at all, so what you're seeing here is the polished, original thought process, and what I spoke last night was a lot more fluid and passionate, in my opinion. But for those of you who missed it, here's what I said.
February 24, 2010
So, a lot of people know me as someone who organizes events around town, as the former Communications Director of the League, as a graphic designer… But something that is a little more under the radar is that I’ve been drawing comics since I was 9 years old.
The way I “got into” comics was through my Elementary School best friend, Patrick. He’s also a huge queer now, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. He made me watch the X-Men cartoon series, and pretty soon after I was the only girl wandering into the comic store. The guys there treated me like I was a miniature goddess, really—they gave me discounts, offered new series for me to read…
Now, I’ve always been drawing. It’s one of my earliest memories, sitting at a Sesame Street table (Cookie Monster was my favorite chair), drawing a picture of Goofy from Disney. I think I was also wearing make-up. The only difference between toddler-Katie and adult-Katie is the make-up, really.
The first comic I ever drew was a 4-book series when I was ten years old. I made Patrick into Spider-man and made myself into a Gargoyle. Together, we saved the world from villains whose concepts I stole from the X-men comics. I used toys I had at the time as references, and even lit them from behind to figure out how to shade them. I wish I could say I have these still—but in a fit of childish rage at how bad they were, I tore them up when I was 11.
Throughout middle and high school, I read more comics than I drew them, and I taught and attended comic classes. I worked at the ******** Cartoon Camp for 3 summers in a row. I was the Comics Instructor. It was basically a formula class, taught to ages 6 to 14.
The thing about ********, who was a retired artist from DC’s 1960s Golden years, was that he didn’t really think I had what it took to draw comics. Every time I showed him my own art, he shrugged it off and asked if I thought I could make it. I’m really shocked that I didn’t really develop a complex, you know, being 15, 16 years old… He would tell me my art wasn’t strong enough for the comics scene, and then give me a raise for being so dedicated to teaching at the camp.
My freshmen year of college was at Boston University, which, in case you didn’t know, has a College of the Fine Arts. This program is really, really traditional, so I was already out of place as the comics and illustration kid.
It was in a NON-art class, Women in Politics, that I had the crazy idea to start what I now lovingly refer to as The Sex Education Comic Book. Boston’s Planned Parenthood chapter came into the class to discuss their advocacy work, and discussed the battle over the “Barrier Rule,” which is a line that dictates how close protesters can be to the front entrance of an abortion provider. This got the entire class really fired up, of course… It was a Women in Politics class.
After the Planned Parenthood advocate left, the class sat around talking about how we could all get more involved… My natural inclination was to propose we create illustrated pamphlets of Planned Parenthood’s advocacy work. I was really psyched up about it! I was surrounded by Pre-law, pre-Med, Poly-sci undergrad women… I thought, Holy shit, I’ve got some of the smartest women in the room, they could write for these pamphlets, I’ll draw it—it would be the best project ever!
But I was also the only freshman in the class, and the only artist, so that idea was quickly deemed ridiculous.
It wasn’t until the next year, after I transferred to MECA, that I was really able to fuse comics and art and education and advocacy…
I took an Art and Community Service class, and it was life-altering for me. We registered voters and educated folks about their polling places for the 2004 Election as our main project for the class… And once the devastation of the 2004 election results wore off, we all had to propose what our next project would be.
This is when I rekindled and reconfigured my idea for the Sex Education Comic Book. I put together an illustrated proposal, naturally, and then created a Call for Submissions…
I don’t really think, in retrospect, I realized how totally on fire this project would be. I wound up being the project manager for this insane beast, with over 30 contributors of varying ages and talents, across the country, from Maine to Florida to California. Some of them I still haven’t met.
The issue with the original incarnation of the Sex Education Comic Book is that I had this idea that it could be geared towards everyone. That if the stories were strong enough, it wouldn’t matter who was being marketed to.
The world does NOT work that way. You can’t expect your work to be universally appealing. And thus was the issue that slowly murdered the Sex Education Comic Book as it was… There was no way a high school boy would be able to go from reading about how to safely check for testicular cancer to a woman’s first experience of getting her period. In an ideal world, those stories are in the same book. But it’s still a bit of a stretch.
So, after 3 years, I put the Sex Education Comic Book on pause, and switched gears to write my thesis on Carolyn Gage’s “The Obligatory Scene.” I saw the play performed at SPACE Gallery, and really thought it would make a great graphic novel. At the time, I appreciated the themes of female sexuality, and really wanted to take those themes to a level that acting just can’t. I wanted to illustrate female sexuality.
Throughout writing and drawing for this thesis, I kept smashing into the same wall that I only cruised by when I was in high school and teaching comics at the ******** Cartoon Camp… Everyone seemed to be into me as the “comics kid” except for a few professors. They deemed me “unfit” to make it in the comics world. One professor in particular didn’t think my art, my inking, or my stories were strong enough to make it.
I think I really internalized that critique… Upon graduating, I didn’t finish the Obligatory Scene comic, and I didn’t push for the completion of the Sex Education Comic Book. Part of this was because I started working full-time at the League, but I think I was discouraged.
Then, the fall of 2007, I was diagnosed with HPV. This was a huge shock to me. I’d never been physical with a dude, which was how I thought one caught things such as HPV. I didn’t really know how to deal with my feelings—except to draw about it.
I stayed up for several nights in a row, in front of “Smallville,” till 4 o’clock in the morning, writing and drawing and writing. The result of this time with myself and my drawing pens is what you see on the screen now.
I won’t call this a revelation or epiphany, because that feels super cheesy. But drawing this comic helped me through what I was feeling, and combined my love for comic art and my love for education.
It also helped me realize that short, personal, educational stories is a really succinct, beautiful way to get through to people. I’ve always, always believed comics are a universal way to reach out to people… Drawings put people at ease, and the simplicity of cartooning allows people to connect with the story and the characters in ways that words alone just can’t.
Which is something I’ve been applying for the past year or so to any comics I write or draw…
The comic you see now is titled “Transcension,” and is a collaboration between Johnny Blazes and myself. Johnny wrote the text, I drew it, and we submitted it to a call for work for the second edition of “Gender Outlaws” by Kate Bornstein and Bear Bergman. We’ve been accepted, and will be published in the fall of this year.
So, I went from being an illustrated Gargoyle X-man to being an illustrated queer… Which I think is incredibly appropriate. And it’s only been in the past year, but I’ve finally discovered that the barriers ******** and my MECA professors put up for me were constrictions of their own. They saw me as a queer woman interested in breaking into this male-dominated comic scene, as trying to participate in Marvel, and DC, and become a part of the boys’ club. And they didn’t think I could cut it.
The past year has taught me—I don’t want to cut it. Not in the ways that they expected me to. What I bring to comics is a sex-positive, educational, queer lens… I see my work as a way to give voice to those stickier, more taboo topics, and I really feel like they’re a gateway to conversations that otherwise have no easy access point…
So, I guess what I mean is, my queerness is my muse. My community is my muse. My comics are better and stronger and deeper because I’m speaking from my truth, from our truth… And I want to say thank you. Thank you for being my muse.
.jpg)
.jpg)
