The last time I spoke with artist Caitlin Du, she mentioned that she was working on an autobiographical comic about culture shock diaspora. On being Asian and then coming to America and what it was like for a child from China to be thrown into an American public elementary school, not knowing how to speak English or how to make friends.
Well, Du and I caught up a few weeks ago, and surely enough, that comic now exists in the real world. It’s called JIALIN’S WORLD and it showcases some of the artist’s most signature styles. I spoke with Du regarding the creation of this new autobiographical comic. You can read our brief interview below and check out these preview pages.
CHRISTIAN ANGELES: JIALIN’S WORLD was such a cute story. It feels more like a children’s book to me. What inspired you to write about finding friendship?
CAITLIN DU: The idea of this story started very organically. I was chatting with my boyfriend and the conversation drifted off to an unhinged story of my childhood. I took things very seriously as a kid. I committed to acts including “jumping off the 2nd floor of a building to prove my courage” and “questioning the existence of God because I didn’t see him in the sky during an airplane ride”. My extremely supportive boyfriend laughed at this and told me he would love to see a comic about that, about me as a kid.
That led me to creating “Jialin”, a version of me (but not me). I chose the four-panel format because I was reading a lot of newspaper comics. I am very inspired by Calvin and Hobbes in particular. It is silly but introspective, and I love how each strip can be understood even without previous context.
ANGELES: They say every artist begins by writing what you know. What can you tell us about your experience going to school here as someone who spoke predominantly Chinese and had to fit in?
DU: My process of adjusting to America was much harder than Jialin, especially because I didn’t learn english just by eating chicken nuggets. I lived in the States for a year when I was 8. My mom was finishing her masters degree in North Carolina, so I stayed with her and was enrolled into a Christian elementary school nearby. A huge part of Jialin’s World was supposed to be revolving around Jialin’s confusion with God. But I decided to remove that plot after writing about the character more – Jialin does not question, she instead, comes up with her own explanations.
Learning a new language is hard. I remember being able to understand, but not being able to communicate. It was isolating. Even as someone who speaks fluent English now, I still make mistakes interpreting idioms. Please be patient with non-english speakers, it is hard!
ANGELES: So true. Did your mother encourage you to read comics as a kid? Where were your first comic or artistic influences from?
DU: She did not! Both my parents do not understand comics. My dad even asked me the reading order for my previous comics.
The strip you are referring to, with Jialin’s mother giving her a comic to “pass time” was based on real life. But it only happened because I only read comics by choice. I even refused to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid for a while because there are too many words. To young Caitlin, comics are great = less words, more pictures. (Imagine my surprise when I started reading Persepolis and Maus in middleschool.)
Besides that, my first comic influences came from a very bad comic adaptation of the popular Chinese cartoons Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, the manga Bleach and Chinese newspaper comic strips. Worth mentioning too, Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole is what inspired me to be an actual cartoonist.
ANGELES: This is the second comic I’ve read from you about a daughter and her motherly figure. First, Fly Child and now Jialin’s World. Are you trying to say something in regards to a motif? Perhaps some kind of message?
DU: This is actually my fourth completed comic zine that includes a significant mother figure. I didn’t have a great relationship with her growing up. I held a deep sense of resentment against her for a while and I felt like she was controlling, neglectful and emotionally unstable. Our relationship worsened when I was clinically depressed in high school.
But I started to understand her more recently. She was and still is a busy woman who needed to take care of her business, her parents wellbeing, her family finances and her children while still striving to achieve more. So in this comic, I tried to portray her as that. She is always on her device, but she attempts to make time for Jialin. She does not give the best advice, but she is trying her best.
ANGELES: What tools or techniques do you use to do the colors in your art? You’ve got very vibrant splash pages.
DU: Thank you! I am very proud of that. I use a dip pen for inking and Procreate for coloring. I had a problem where I went too dark with colors. So I tried to leave white areas on the pages as highlights. This really works! Colors are relative, so blocking out white areas and filling in more solid blacks makes the colors pop more.
ANGELES: Finally, what’s next regarding your creative projects or finishing your program?
DU: I am working on a new comic！It is a Sci-fi / dystopian comic based on an alternative reality where Earth ran out of fossil fuel. The two main characters are tasked with finding alternative energy sources but discover a darker secret… It is their choice to achieve their dream in a society they hate, or abandon everything to start anew.
I am on a very early stage! I am almost done with the writing and started making the first dummy. But I will keep you updated through my Instagram @phantalism.
And hopefully you will see me at some fairs soon!
