Michael Cho is excited about the future of comics. “When I was growing up there were people making indie comics which were very literate and there were people making Batman or sci-fi dinosaur or raygun comics and those two camps would fight it out; these days it’s not like that” he says. “There are people who read and draw inspiration from both camps. It’s inspiring to see that the branches of comics didn’t die but rather merged and intermingled.”
Cho will be at Wordfest presenting his debut full-length graphic novel Shoplifter the culmination of a lifelong passion for the comics medium. The first of five loosely interlinking books Shoplifter follows Corrina Park an aspiring novelist trapped in a job at an advertising agency and unable to write anything but copy.
“In my 20s I felt a lot like she did” says Cho. “When I got out of college I was waiting for my life to start. I was completely standing still waiting for something to break. I remember that feeling and I always thought ‘I want to write a story about that period’ particularly the feeling of self-doubt about what you want to do and whether you are good enough to do it.”
That doubt was completely unfounded. Cho now bears alongside his blossoming comics career an impressive illustration portfolio from cover illustrations like White Noise by Don Delillo (Penguin Classics) and a number of House of Anansi’s annual “A-list” reprintings of Canadian classics to his own book of drawings titled Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes.
He finds inspiration in literature as much as the visual arts citing Shakespeare Hemingway Orwell and Jeanette Winterson as his favourite writers. He also feels a close connection with French novelist and poet Jean Genet: “He wrote beautiful images into his stories; his choice of prose styling and the breadth of his emotional scope was overpowering.”
This love of words reflects itself in his writing process. “There are a lot of comics creators who are very organic in their process in that when they write their scripts they draw at the same time…. I’m not one of those guys” he says. “I put on my writing hat and do all the writing; then when I draw it I put on my drawing hat. When I write I don’t think about what the artist wants.”
Yet the art emerges vivid and expressive. Shoplifter is rendered in a clear two-toned colour palette alternating black white and rose to carve out the inhabitants of Corrina’s world and the busy city she lives in. The city itself is as much a character as its residents. “Cities have as much diversity of expression as people” says Cho. “I’m shaped by the city I live in.”
When asked about the place of comics within the constantly shifting strata of literary and visual arts Cho is optimistic: “I think the visual literacy is going up. I don’t find there is a stigma anymore with people working in comics.
“In school when I was younger reading comics was frowned upon. Nowadays schools use them to reach reluctant readers or to engage an audience of youth who are more visually attuned due to the Internet and the combination of words and images.”
Wordfest presents Michael Cho at White Noise Talks: Technocreep on October 16 at Theatre Junction Grand; Master Class with Michael Cho on October 18 at Loft 112 followed by a guided alley tour with the City of Calgary’s Rollin Stanley; and Drawing Them In on October 19 at Theatre Junction Grand.
