The graphic novelist’s The Girl Who Flew Away (Iron Circus, Mar.) follows a young pregnant woman whose married lover sends her off to Florida.
How did you get started as a comics artist?
Growing up, I didn’t read comics because it seemed like it was all superheroes or Bart Simpson. I was a kid who liked darker things. But I discovered manga in middle school, like a lot of people my age, and then webcomics in high school. You can make stories about anything.
Getting into series like Lackadaisy, I realized comics is the ideal medium. You don’t have to rely on a whole production team. If you do webcomics, you don’t even need to rely on an editor. You can just tell the story that’s in your heart.
What got you interested in telling this story in particular?
It came out of a dream—and I latched onto it. The premise of the dream was simple: a woman in Florida is pregnant. Dreams are vague about circumstance, so there were things I had to make up. I feel like dreams communicate to you in a certain weird way. They tell you what you need to know.
Greer, the main character, is also inspired by a dream. What was your approach to the dream sequences?
The “real” sections of the book have a very rigid structure in how the pages are laid out, and in the dream sequences I wanted to break that structure. There are things popping out of panels, different shapes, different layouts. One thing I had a lot of fun with is that the house in the dream is always changing; it doesn’t have a consistent design. The bedroom has three different iterations.
What kind of research did you do to create the 1970s Florida setting?
The broader strokes were already in my head. I’m from Florida and I know what it’s like, though I’m not from Key West specifically. Each locale has different vibes, but I’m very aware of the whole attitude and presence—like when it comes to snowbirds, people from the north who retire there. The town I grew up in was a big retirement town. A lot of old ladies.
What I did more research on were the experiences of people who were mixed-race, and especially people who had to pass in the past. Passing by Nella Larsen was a great resource.
What did you enjoy drawing the most?
Greer herself. Also, her relationship with her friend Pablo—they’re always teetering on that line between a platonic relationship and romance, but there’s something rewarding about writing and drawing friendship. The characters are lonely people, and they met each other through random circumstances that are really not great, but they’re brought closer.
