Happy 30th Birthday, Rebecca Clements

2012 in Review: Rebecca Clements

 Rebecca Clements

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?

It must be just coming back to comics. I hadn't worked on any for so long and then with all my fresh motivation, I came back to Melbourne, got an exciting, rad studio in the middle of the city and suddenly had the freedom to work on comics and illustration again. Just that has been the best.

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?

I don't think I've discovered any cartoonists. Sounds terrible but I just had no time for it this year, and enjoyed and needed mentally the distance from comics for awhile. Since I've been back, I've been just working on my own stuff constantly so no time for reading comics! Perhaps next year.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?

Game of Thrones season 2. Over and over.

Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
 
Working at all. But yes, compared to how I used to work last year, I have cut out a lot of crap. I got rid of a lot of excuses I used to find to not work, got rid of the crappy bits of my ego, and I work on projects I really like, that are manageable, and I keep working, and work some more, etc. Part of it is being FAR less social. But it's marvelous for productivity.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?
 
Hopefully working a lot more! Producing a couple of books would be nice. And improving and pushing myself more and more. And maybe going in some new career directions.

http://kinokofry.com/

Rebecca Clements Interview part two of four

Rebecca Clements interviewed by Chris Beach

Read part one over here.

 

What are some comics that have influenced you? Did any particular comics creators inspire you?

As I mentioned before, Patrick Alexander is a strong influence. I may never have got into comics without him, and I feel pretty damn lucky to have one of the greatest cartoonists of our generation there beside me. I know of very few cartoonists who can make me laugh like him, or take my breath away the way his thorough and masterful use of all the elements of comics art in his pages and stories does. If there's one surefire thing that keeps me in comics, it's always wanting to impress him. Or outdo him.

James Turner and Nick Wolfe's comics, among others, were early webcomic influences for me, and still are! James' fun sense of humour and charming characters, Nick's ceaseless headfirst rush into new ideas and ways of expressing his worlds and characters—there's a lot of really astounding talent out there. Over the years I've been influenced by far too many cartoonists to list them all, and often I'm not aware of an influence until years after its effect on me. I will mention Nedroid, KC Green, Rene Engstrom, Kate Beaton and David Troupes, then stop there before I go on forever.

Are there artists who work outside the field of comics who appeal to you? What is it about their work that you admire?

Absolutely, I'm also an illustrator and although not by trade, there's a game designer inside of me (as well as a director and an animator and many other things all hoping to get out from time to time). I'm very much inspired by the ideas and creations of all sorts of people in these fields.

The children's illustrators and writers I grew up with remain a huge force pushing and pulling me along. I never stop feeling the presence of the various stories and characters and artists whose worlds I spent much of my life in. There are too, too many to name: Roald Dahl, Babar, Daniel Pinkwater's The Big Orange Splot (to be very specific!), Dr Seuss and Diana Wynne Jones. I feel that I create richer things when I remember what excited me as a child. To remember those feelings and the specific things I responded to, but from an adult perspective that can come at it from different angles, is vital I think for creating charm. I'm always stomping around with a clumsy enthusiasm, trying to figure out how to hit the right notes. That's a mixed metaphor, but I think that's what I mean.

In my adult life I've discovered things like Moomin by Tove Jansson, James Marshall's George and Martha and the work of Shaun Tan, that are beacons I always make sure to keep in front of me—people and works that stun me with their masterful gift for creation in any medium. Discovering them is like finding the greatest treasure life has to offer.

To limit myself to one single last mention, who has been and always will be one of my biggest inspirations: Jim Henson and all of the hundreds of his fellow creators and creations that basically raised me. I'm not sure I'll see a repeat of a creator like him in my lifetime. Somehow I seem to find more respect and admiration for him every year of my life. He is the best. 

Do any other interests feed into your cartooning?

Of course. I think my interests in cartooning are just about the least of it. A person's life in general tends to be what really feeds their art (and people who are only immersed in comics often have little to say).

As I've said, my intense interest in video games coupled with my having grown up with computers makes it into my work. It's probably clear to anyone who knows me or reads my comics that I have an ever-increasing interest in things like sustainability. On top of that, I'm passionate about finding ways to improve our lives and ourselves in general, and about the wisdom that comes from exploration and experience, from new interactions and feelings, and from being able to make people happier. It's important to me to try to find ways to help all of us fit together better. I don't think I can stop that seeping into my comics. If it doesn't seep, it will pour anyway.

Since I've started doing a lot of diary comics, it's hard to have an interest that doesn't make its way into my cartooning. I especially like to make comics about things I find that excite me, often movies or books. I think once or twice I've even done comics around learning Japanese.

Life, both frustratingly and thankfully, is always getting in the way of comics for me.

When you were a guest and interviewed on 3CR you said "I don't read much in terms of print [comics] because I don't have much of a history with it". It seems like more and more artists who don't come from the usual background of reading a lot of mainstream comics are becoming comics creators. What do you make of this trend?

Great! It's just great when people from all kinds of backgrounds try a medium. The worst thing that can happen to any medium—music, television, whatever—is for the same kinds of people who all followed the same lines and jumped through the same hoops to be the only ones who have any impact. It happens in every industry, and that's when you begin to see nothing fresh and people forget to experiment and try new things—people become afraid to try new things. In areas where this happens, creators themselves seem to be a mix of arrogant, depressed, self-loathing, conservative types who forget why they got interested in their trade in the first place.

The things people genuinely love—that excites us and makes us feel alive, that unites us by bringing different demographics to a medium that should never be a single-demographic one—can only come out of an industry that is rich with different opinions, experiences, outlooks and styles. It's great when artists mix and share ideas. It's also great when artists have nothing to do with each other. That variety drives us all to create.

Which comics (on the web and in print) do you currently enjoy reading?

It's always changing because I don't really have that much time to read comics. I'll definitely read anything by the web cartoonists I mentioned earlier, so Gunshow and Hark! A Vagrant are among my staples. Pictures For Sad Children, So Far Apart, Hilarity Comics ... I'm very excited by anything people like Ben Hutchings and Pat Grant do (Pat's Blue is one of the most wonderful comics out there).

I'm not reading much in print right now! I'm finally reading Eddie Campbell's Bacchus, which I recently acquired. Just today I was reminded that I have a lot of Alan Moore to catch up on. I read my Moomin comics whenever I need to be reminded of what it's all about.

What prompted you to live in Japan for several years and what were your experiences like there?

To answer the second one first and succinctly: A-MA-ZING.

I'd always been interested in Japan (come on, I grew up with video games and anime) and I studied Japanese for a few years, so after university I went to teach in Japan for what was supposed to be a year but turned into many.

I think of those years in Japan as my truly formative adult years. That's where I learned the most about life. I had difficult and harsh experiences that taught me the best things about life. I met really fantastic people there, had so many unbelievably fun times and traveled a lot around the country. It was the best decision of my life. I can't even begin to imagine what I would have missed out on had I not gone. So much of who I am now came from those fantastic struggles and good times. So many more after returning to Australia too. And I look forward to all the new experiences to come all the places I go.

All images copyright 2012 Rebecca Clements. Interview copyright 2012 Chris Beach

Rebecca Clements Interview part one of four

The following interview was conducted in May 2011 via email


Rebecca Clements interviewed by Chris Beach

Rebecca Clements populates her Kinokofry webcomics with a continually expanding cast of cute, whimsical and enormously charming characters (the adorable Submameen, ferocious Xylosaur and tragic Cookie Thing are some recent welcome additions to the Kinokofry family). She employs humour, a fertile imagination and innovative graphic elements in her comics to share entertaining stories, to document aspects of her life through diary comics, and also as a vehicle for progressive social change (with a particular emphasis on sustainability). You can read Rebecca Clements' comics on her website Kinokofry.com

 Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?

I grew up in a pretty little port town in Western Australia called Albany. It's a nice place, but I left as soon as I was able and went to university on the opposite side of the country.

I feel like my childhood was pretty typical, but I suppose everyone has different ideas about what's typical. I was fortunate enough to have parents who have always been very supportive and gave me copious amounts of freedom. I played a lot of video games, read a lot of books, did a lot of silly things in school, changed what I wanted to do with my life every month, discovered things like Red Dwarf and Monty Python, had great and terrible times with kids at school, was fascinated with the world and always wanted to go out and explore on my own.

I suppose something I took for granted, and have come to realise lots of kids (especially in cities) didn't have so much of, is all the wandering about and exploring of places in the town and in nature; climbing hills, especially the sides without paths, exploring all the parts of the beaches no one went to, making cubbies and hanging out with older neighbourhood kids in patches of bushland drawing boobs and finding junk people had abandoned, being in all the places that just don't exist in cities. Lots of bike riding, finding all those tracks between houses, walking along the coastal roads down to the ocean and spending hours looking in rock pools and climbing around dangerous cliffs.

Not to romanticise it too much though. Of course it was a country town and came with all the negative aspects of that lifestyle as well. As I said, I left to push myself out into the world and see what I could make of myself.

What made you decide to make your recent move to Melbourne?

I had come back to live in Australia after a few years in Japan and wanted to work on my art full-time, which meant I didn't need to be in any city in particular. I'd already spent a lot of time in Brisbane, I wasn't very interested in Sydney and a couple of my friends were also planning on moving to Melbourne, so we all decided to get a place down here together. Which we did! And it's been pretty fantastic.

Melbourne very quickly let me know it was my new home. Whenever I live in Australia, I'm pretty sure it will be in Melbourne. It's well established as the Australian hub of art, food and excellent coffee, which all suit me fine. I love the lifestyle here, I love how exciting Melbourne is, I love the general enthusiasm and trend towards more sustainable living here. Melbourne is full of amazing potential and it bubbles with those possibilities. I even have a respect for the ever-changing weather here, which I prefer to Brisbane's dependable humidity. Oh, and trams. Trams are GREAT.

How did you first get into comics?

My initial answer is always that it was only a few years back really. I was living in Japan and had given up on art for a few years. I hadn't grown up with comics and had only fairly recently discovered some interest in European comics via Tintin and American comics via Alan Moore. I'd grown up with some British comic anthologies when I was very young, but I barely even thought of those when I heard the word 'comics'.

Some of my good friends were cartoonists and I of course had an interest in their work, but it didn't really occur to me that it was something I could do. I never thought about it. I had even stopped drawing until I was inspired by some new artists who excited me and I became encouraged, largely by Patrick Alexander, my best friend and housemate at the time. I started to draw again and try to draw from my own head, my own personality and imagination instead of trying to copy others (I had spent my teenage years learning to draw in a manga style and attempting to be 'just like the professionals!'), and it was a pretty amazing and liberating feeling!

I started to read a few webcomics (the ones that stick in my head are Beaver and Steve by James Turner and Name Removed by Nick Wolfe) and I was pretty in love with this new medium that seemed to be the place with the kind of comics, creativity and humour that appealed to me. Fairly soon after, I decided to buy a domain and start drawing comics and putting them online to see where it took me. They were TERRIBLE at first, but some very nice people liked them anyway and that encouraged me. Pretty soon after that, I guess, it started to take shape. I improved, I started to get an idea of what kind of comics I was interested in and my audience grew and grew. The possibility of having a career as an artist finally started to feel real.

 

What is it about webcomics in particular that helped to renew your interest in art?

First, I never really cared about comics while growing up because what 'comics' was to me, outside of newspaper strips like Garfield and Hagar, was American superhero comics. Zero interest. They made comics seem like a very stagnant form indeed and were just completely samey and boring to look at. I loved books. I loved cartoons. I loved illustration. I loved great comedy and TV shows. I loved video games; that's what I spent my childhood with more than just about anything.

I think one aspect of it is that when I discovered web comics, I found the comics that MY generation was inspired to create, and in the place that best suited us, and with the freedom to express things the way we wanted and to find our own audience. I finally found comics that struck me as fun, and funny, and beautiful, and original, and creative and there was no one to tell their creators to do anything differently, and there were lots of them, all doing what they wanted. Obviously I thought lots of them were crap too but that's part of what makes them wonderful. It must have been much like what discovering zines was to people who grew up with print comics.

In a kind of wanky way, it was like rather than me discovering comics, comics had come to MY playground. Where I'd always been and where my interests lay. On top of that of course, there were far, far, FAR fewer limitations on them and it was an exciting new medium and industry. It's accessible to everyone and it's always growing and changing. It's very exciting to explore.

What do you enjoy about making comics?

One of the things I enjoy the most is how liberating an art form comics can be. I feel like I get to be an illustrator, a writer, an animator, a comedian and a teacher, all in one. I often see much of the world in comics form. It's exciting to have these thoughts and be able to translate the world, my experience and imagination, using all the different facets that make up a comic. Finding a particular configuration of images, words, lines, colour, layout, timing, typeface, ideas ... I think any medium handled well can feel limitless like that, but I feel it most with comics. When I see an amazing page or story that brings everything together elegantly and effectively, and makes me feel consumed with admiration and pure excitement for art and creativity in general, I think those are the times I love comics the most.

To be able to feel you've achieved that, or that you're getting closer to feeling like you might achieve that is an amazing feeling. I deeply enjoy looking at a page for a long time and considering the possibilities. Finding new ways (for me, at least) to communicate an idea. Getting expressions just right. Being impressed with some really economical lines or some great unconventional palette. Creating a page that makes people laugh or smile, or makes them read it again trying to discover all the things you've put into it (that's what we always hope for). Being told my comics have actually inspired people in some way.

And being able to make my dumb jokes as beautiful as my good ones is pretty nice too.

All images copyright 2012 Rebecca Clements. Interview copyright 2012 Chris Beach