None of the comics I drew in the 1990s were autobiographical. When people wrote me letters (real letters - to a P.O. Box!) many of them assumed that my comics were completely autobiographical. One reader asked "How much of these stories come from your own life?...I guess you must be an 11 year old-grandma-newlywed on maternity leave!" I take that autobio-assumption for what it is: a compliment, but I think it also says something about comics and the way we read them with such trust. When you read a comic, you are complicit in making it happen - it feels true.
I've only written a couple of completely autobiographical stories, and I find the responsibility confining. In my non-comics time, I am a librarian. That means that I have tsk tsked my way through anti-plagiarism presentations, discretely explained the difference between fiction and non-fiction to all kinds of people, untangled mangled citations, and identified valid information more often than most people. I am obsessed with proof and documentation, and even more obsessed with the limits of documentation to represent reality.
This has been on my mind while working on my new series Non Partum at Mutha Magazine and reading this discussion at The Comics Journal. I am honored to have my comics up with some of my favorite cartoonists and nuanced, funny, diverse, intelligent writing on motherhood. Non Partum is turning out to be the most autobiofictionographical work I've ever done. I am being very truthful and precise about many things, but I am also mushing some people together, inventing others completely, pretending some things have happened, and not mentioning others that did. One thing I love about the lies is that they might be what makes the story feel true to you.
I've only written a couple of completely autobiographical stories, and I find the responsibility confining. In my non-comics time, I am a librarian. That means that I have tsk tsked my way through anti-plagiarism presentations, discretely explained the difference between fiction and non-fiction to all kinds of people, untangled mangled citations, and identified valid information more often than most people. I am obsessed with proof and documentation, and even more obsessed with the limits of documentation to represent reality.
This has been on my mind while working on my new series Non Partum at Mutha Magazine and reading this discussion at The Comics Journal. I am honored to have my comics up with some of my favorite cartoonists and nuanced, funny, diverse, intelligent writing on motherhood. Non Partum is turning out to be the most autobiofictionographical work I've ever done. I am being very truthful and precise about many things, but I am also mushing some people together, inventing others completely, pretending some things have happened, and not mentioning others that did. One thing I love about the lies is that they might be what makes the story feel true to you.
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