Graphic novels: A collaboration

BY PETER MCGUIRE AND JULIAN GROWCOTT

Illustrator Julian Growcott and I were delighted to hear that a submission from our graphic novel, The Art of Twelve, would be included in this issue of WordWorks (see pages 12, 13). When a brief companion article to run with the excerpted pages was also suggested, it seemed useful and fitting to offer a couple of our experiential side notes rather than highlight the substance of the book itself. Discussion of the working nature of collaboration is relevant to the theme and flow of the current issue, especially when based on experience.

As collaborators, Julian and I come from different disciplines and different generations, and we live and work in different cities. Still this book found its shape for both of us. While a large measure of the work was done individually with pen and ink, brush and paper, collaboration in our case would not have been possible without the resources of a digital environment. JPEGs, Word documents, PDFs, video conferencing, text messaging, and CloudShare all played a part.

We started more or less from scratch, aware only that we would be creating some kind of graphic story as such. We did not shy away from any time-honoured visual books as a benchmark for our nascent pictorial narrative. We understood that we were basically involved in a medium of interplay: show and tell. And so we wanted to do that as equally as possible. We learned along the way that many valuable discoveries are made simply in the course of doing. One of these discoveries was the open and flexible nature of our collaboration. Another was our potential and growing enthusiasm for this kind of shared art.

There is nothing inherently formulaic or predictable in the meeting of words and images. Yet, it remains familiar and approachable in an almost Venn diagram sense. We enjoy and appreciate such collaboration for the generous and immediate possibilities. The illustrator’s graphic compounding influence can be an invitation to getting the writer’s words back in (if differently, perhaps) and thereby affording more to the reader. The prospect and results of the dynamic juxtaposition of text and sequential artwork is, above all else, a kind of interplay. Like running barefoot along the contours of familiar and unexpected terrain. Always aware and leaving space for the other. Never having it all just the one way.T

here’s a first time for many things, or so it seems. The delight and consolation come when the show-and-tell is not felt as rough surfaces, blunt objects, and hard knocks at speed. And how is anything really far away when you can speak of it and can picture it? There are always other ways of telling stories on the literary journey. This is where narrative and readership find their ebb and flow—where they let the world and us back in. To make meaning together.

In genuine collaboration, Julian and I have explored a range of modern communicative means to generate, exchange and assemble our narrative and pictorial ideas in a subjective and inventive language. We look forward to exploring the possibilities for continuing this kind of creative work.

Peter McGuire holds a master’s degree in literary postmodernism and a certificate in woodwork. After many years of study and teaching both in Canada and abroad, he now lives in Victoria.

Julian Growcott studied at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. He works as a graphic designer and professional musician. He lives in Nanaimo.