How I Became a Graphic Novelist
July 17, 2017 | 1:00 PM
How I Became a Graphic Novelist
By Tillie WaldenThe following is a guest post from graphic novelist Tillie Walden, creator of Spinning.
I read comics on and off as a kid, but it wasn’t until I was sixteen that I really discovered them. I liked manga, specifically manga by Osamu Tezuka and Yoshihiro Togashi, and I had grown up reading all the famous graphic memoirs like Blankets by Craig Thompson, Stitches by David Small, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Because I had always shown an interest in them and also happened to be an artsy kid, my dad signed me up for a two-day workshop with Scott McCloud around the time I had turned sixteen.
We lived in Texas and the workshop was in California. But in my dad’s mind, that barrier didn’t matter. We flew out together, and I showed up way too early at the class, full of nerves and anticipation. I was the youngest in the class. Everyone else there seemed impossibly old, though that’s probably just because anyone who wasn’t in high school seemed old to me at that time.
The class went by so quickly. The first day was full of long conversations about comics and little exercises. The fact that Scott McCloud (a complete celebrity in my mind) was just a few feet away from me, chatting and eating a doughnut, never ceased to be incredible. After the first day we were left with an assignment: draw your life story in 16 panels. The time after that first class is a blur in my memory. I remember running to an art store with my dad in a panic to get pens when the ones I had brought dried out. I remember the evening air and the store closing and running fast through the aisles to find my size 02 micron that I so desperately needed. I almost didn’t finish the comic in time; I was drawing right up until the start of the second day of class.
What I see now when I think about that class is that it was the first instance where I felt a real passion for comics. I had never felt so strongly about something until that moment. The fire I felt inside me screaming that I needed to find a pen so I could keep drawing was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I cared about finishing that project, and I cared about doing a good job. As a teenager I often felt numb and distant from everything around me, so to feel so awake and connected was a revelation. I left that class and became a cartoonist. We got back to Texas, and I started drawing, and I haven’t stopped since.
I feel so lucky to have had that experience as a teenager. And since I started in comics, there has been a real renaissance of comics for teens. I remember in my class with Scott McCloud he recommended we all pick up Drama by Raina Telgemeier, and that recommendation still holds up. In fact, I recommend all her books. Anything with her name on it is worth buying. Some of my other favorite comics for teens are This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol, and Through the Woods by Emily Carroll.
Spinning by Tillie Walden hits shelves in a bookstore near your om September 12th!