Skim

We Read To Challenge Ourselves: An Interview With Mariko Tamaki
We Read To Challenge Ourselves: An Interview With Mariko Tamaki
We Read To Challenge Ourselves: An Interview With Mariko Tamaki
Writer and performance artist Mariko Tamaki is one of the breakout talents of her generation. She recently published the YA novel Saving Montgomery Sole through Roaring Brook Press, and her 2014 original graphic novel This One Summer, co-authored by her cousin Jillian Tamaki, made history last year as the first comics work to win both the prestigious Caldecott Honor for exceptional picture art and the Printz Honor for best Young Adult literature. The book also won an Eisner and an Ignatz! In recognition of her tremendous success, ComicsAlliance talked with Tamaki for a career-spanning interview about Saving Montgomery Sole, This One Summer, her performance art, and the importance of queer characters and stories in her work --- starting with a look back at Skim, the Tamakis' groundbreaking story of a Japanese-Canadian outsider at a Catholic girls' school.
A Conversation With 'This One Summer' Artist Jillian Tamaki
A Conversation With 'This One Summer' Artist Jillian Tamaki
A Conversation With 'This One Summer' Artist Jillian Tamaki
Jillian Tamaki’s work is a triumph of contradiction. It is lush, yet spare. Emotional, yet understated. Detailed, yet intriguingly simple. It is, at all times, astonishingly good. While reading This One Summer, which she created with her cousin, writer Mariko Tamaki, I found myself regularly putting the book down to better absorb the power of her pen. “Look at this!” I said, thrusting the book at nearby friends. “Look at that ocean! Look at those hands! Look at this part, where she does that flowy thing with the hair!” And my friends would look, and nod, and ask where I’d bought my copy so they could get one too. As I strolled the aisles of the 2014 Small Press Expo, talk of Tamaki’s work was everywhere. Other creators I interviewed name-dropped This One Summer. Fans referenced Super Mutant Magic Academy, her soon-to-be-print-published webcomic, as a favorite. Aspiring artists called her an inspiration. She became, over the course of the weekend, an Ignatz Award winner. In the midst of this well-earned celebration, ComicsAlliance sat down with her to talk success, adolescence, and what’s coming next.