In his graphic novel debut Alterations, animator Ray Xu draws from his own childhood memories growing up in 1990s Toronto to chronicle one comic book-loving Chinese Canadian middle schooler’s tumultuous adolescence. At school, Kevin Lee resents feeling invisible—until he becomes infamous as “Egg Boy” after bringing a cultural egg dish to school for lunch. When his grandmother advises him to “take ownership” of the situation, Kevin decides to be brave, just like the characters in his favorite comics. In a conversation with PW, Xu recalls juggling long hours of working with his family life, shares memories of his late mother, and reflects on what he learned while developing his debut.
As a story artist, you’ve worked on films such as Captain Underpants, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Nimona, as well as commercials and personal projects. What led you to create a graphic novel?
Alterations initially started as an idea for an animated series. To me, it was the most natural thing to do because I had been storyboarding for over 15 years. I thought, “I’ll create this proposal and maybe one day I’ll try and pitch it and see if there’s anybody who would be interested in it.” Warner Bros., formerly Cartoon Network, was actually in the middle of developing it, but with the Discovery merge, it’s currently lost in development purgatory. During that time, my agent, Albert Lee, was like, “Hey, you should pitch it as a graphic novel.”
From there, I met with Tracey Keevan, who became my editor. I really resonated with her; she gave me some great advice on how to approach creating my debut graphic novel and helped me along during the manuscript writing process.
Can you describe what your publishing experience has been like as a debut author?
I’ve had the privilege of meeting people who have had this desire to be an author since they were born. They said they had a story to tell with so much conviction. I feel like I fell into publishing in a roundabout way.
I was always drawing as a kid. I always wanted to be an artist; I wanted to go into animation. As a story artist, I get to shape and mold stories every day. I’ve collaborated with amazing crews, and I’ve learned a lot from other artists. I guess it never occurred to me that I should try my hand at my own story because I’ve always been a facilitator of other peoples’ work.
If you asked me four years ago if I wanted to make a graphic novel, I would’ve said no. But yesterday, a local indie bookshop tagged me on Instagram saying that they had Alterations on sale. I quickly grabbed my family, we headed over to the bookshop, I walked in, and I saw it on the shelf. I took a picture of it with my two kids and my wife. It was just so surreal.
Why a semi-autobiographical story instead of a straight graphic novel memoir?
In 2016, my mom passed away and, in that moment, I started to think about my childhood a lot. I started drawing these little vignettes of my childhood and what it was like growing up—living with my mom and sister and grandma and uncle, what my mom packed for lunch, going grocery shopping for her, Saturday morning Chinese school. Years later, I had enough material to create Alterations.
Doing these tribute illustrations was a cathartic way of working out my feelings around losing my mom. While writing Alterations, it felt like the floodgates opened. I could recall conversations I had with my sister, instances when my mother had been getting sicker. It all formed into a story that I felt was maybe important enough that someone would take a chance on it. But even as I was writing it, I was always like, “Do I really want to come out and tell this story?” It’s about such a vulnerable time in my life, and about vulnerable times in my mother’s life as well.
My uncle told me and my sister the story of how my mother escaped the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution looking for a better life. She never told us stuff like this. We always thought she was very one-dimensional: she worked all day and lived her life in service of others. But when we heard this story, we were so taken aback by it, and by all the generational trauma that was baked into it. As she got sicker, she started opening up and actually enjoying life and the fruits of her labor. In a sense, it felt like too old, too little, too late. That was a catalyst for me—attempting to tell a story that wasn’t my own but that I was a part of.
Was this the reason you set Alterations in the 1990s, rather than adapting these memories and making Kevin a present-day tween?
I didn’t think twice about when it was going to be taking place. I just focused on the story, which happened to fall in that time period. Toronto in 1994 had a huge cultural boom, and as I was developing this book, I noticed how 1990s culture was resurfacing. So much of that nuance was baked into the original premise—so much of the story and the setting were very much informed by all those little vignettes I was already doing. Illustrating the fashion and the buildings and car designs, the music and the cultural influences, it was like being transported back in time. It just seemed very natural.
It probably was meant to be set in the ’90s too, because to make things like Kevin’s mom escaping the Cultural Revolution work, it wouldn’t have fit properly if Alterations took place now.
Were there any major challenges in developing a graphic novel that you haven’t encountered while working in animation?
A huge challenge for me was writing the manuscript and starting with a manuscript first. It was Tracy who said, “You should start with the manuscript because it’ll help you put all your ideas on the page. They’ll act as a guide so you can work things out before you get into the thumbnailing.” Working in storyboarding, I’ve probably read hundreds of pages of scripts. I’m so used to just drawing from words, but now I was writing out what I intended to draw. I spent almost a year on just the manuscript. It was great to jot ideas down on the page and start plotting it out. I began to see everything a bit more clearly, whereas sometimes I can get lost in the drawings and thumbnails with no way of actually knowing how to put it all together.
How did you balance your homelife and animation career with working on Alterations?
Artist by day, writer by morning and night. And then later, when it came to start storyboarding Alterations: story artist by day, drawing by morning and night. Managing my own expectations was another challenge. I kept thinking, “Am I really going to write this, and then draw this, and then color this?” I think being a story artist helped immensely because I’m [used to being] given a task: here’s a scene, figure it out, we’ll see you in a week or two. So that methodology really helped. You put a graphic novel script in front of me and tell me, “There’s your guideline. Draw,” and I’m like, “Dude, I can totally do that.” When it came to start drawing Alterations, it was a lot easier to do than I thought. I don’t think I could have done it without my experience in story.
But when it came to the lettering? Lettering is an art. I opened up InDesign and I was like, “I can figure this out.” Halfway through attempting to letter it myself, however, I reached out to Rob Leigh [Alterations letterer], and I was like, “You gotta help me, man.”
It was a huge moment of, “Ray, you have limitations as a human, and you have responsibilities as a father and as a husband.” I’m really hard on myself sometimes. But I feel like I should be proud of myself for what I accomplished. This was a momentous thing that I was able to pull off. In the last year or so, I learned a lot of self-compassion. Now I tell myself, “You should treat yourself a little nicer.”
All in all, I will always look back on this experience like: yes, it was challenging and arduous at times. There were many late nights. But I’d do it again. I wouldn’t change it.
Alterations by Ray Xu. Union Square Kids, $24.99 Jan. 30 ISBN 978-1-4549-4584-0; $14.99 paper ISBN 978-1-4549-4585-7
