Jillian Tamaki photographed in 2017 in Montréal, Québec, Canada at the Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore
Tamaki read Archie comics and newspaper strips as a child. She submitted outfit designs into contests for Betty & Veronica comics. Her parents also had anthologies of other popular comics, including The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Herman. In high school she made zines for fun, but she had stopped reading comics after outgrowing Archie. Her interest in alternative and indie comics began while she attended college. Some of her favorite comics during this time include Bipolar by Tomer Hanuka and Asaf Hanuka, a few Drawn & Quarterly artists including Julie Doucet, Chester Brown, Seth, Michel Rabagliati, as well as books by Will Eisner. She began making mini-comics after graduating in 2003, and her very first mini-comic appears in her first book, Gilded Lilies, which was published in 2006. Tamaki often acknowledges her influences as inspirations for beginning her work as they helped her learn the basics of cartooning.[6][7] She also worked on boarding for the popular television show Adventure Time.[8]
As a self-proclaimed feminist, Tamaki is often questioned about the role this plays in her work. She also grew up in an area of Canada where she was the only mixed-race child in her school. In multiple interviews, Tamaki explains that her identity shapes the lens that she sees through, but she does not make conscious effort to work these themes into her illustrations and designs. She is interested in the female experience and viewing women as whole human beings in an industry that often sexualized women's bodies. Being shaped by feminism and race, her work aims to include diverse characters that readers can better identify with.
Career
Gilded Lilies (2006) is Tamaki's first published book and is a collection of Tamaki's illustrations and comic strips.[9] The first part of the book comprises a carefully selected assemblage of paintings, personal drawings, illustrations and comics. The second part consists of a wordless graphic narrative titled The Tapemines, which tells the story of two children in a surreal landscape featuring "forests of cassette tape".[10][11]
Skim (2008) is a critically acclaimed graphic novel illustrated by Jillian and written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki.[12] It tells the story of a young high-school girl and touches on themes of friendship, suicide, sexuality, and identity.[13]
Indoor Voice (2010) collects Tamaki's drawings, illustrations and comic strips and is part of publisher Drawn & Quarterly's Petit Livre series. The majority of the book is printed in black and white, but it also features some colour illustrations.[14]Indoor Voice was released to mixed reviews.[15][16][17]
"Now & then & when" (2008), a drawing with ink and graphite, was purchased by the Library of Congress in 2011. Within a two-panel horizontal, she depicted herself as a central, monumental figure, flanked by smaller full length figures of herself from infancy to adulthood on the left, from middle age to elderly on the right. Tamaki's variation on the theme with figures in bathing suits, related vignettes and speech balloons, presents an updated counterpart to the demure figures and texts of artistic precedents.[18]
In 2015, Drawn & Quarterly published SuperMutant Magic Academy, a collection of Tamaki's web comic of the same name from 2010 to 2014.[23] Previously, these comics won an Ignatz Award in 2012 for Outstanding Online Comic.[24]
In June 2017, Drawn & Quarterly published Tamaki's graphic novel Boundless, a collection of short stories.[25] The book received rave reviews.[26][27][28] A review in The Atlantic described the book as "an ambitious and eclectic set of tales, [that] focuses on the interior lives of unexpected subjects."[29] Other reviews called Boundless a "picture-perfect" collection[30] and as "a showcase for Tamaki's mercurial style."[31]NPR and Publishers Weekly named Boundless as one of the best graphic novels of the year.[32][33]
Roaming, created with Mariko Tamaki, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel.[34]Roaming won the 2024 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, with Tamaki herself winning the 2024 Eisner for Best Penciler/Inker. [35]
In September 2020 Tamaki published Our Little Kitchen, an illustrated book about cooking in a community kitchen.[37]
Controversy
Tamaki became the center of controversy when Mariko Tamaki alone was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for Skim. The comics community and others circulated an open letter to the Awards Committee that argued for Tamaki as a co-nominee, which was signed by notable comics artists such as Lynda Barry, Dan Clowes, and Julie Doucet.[38] They state in the letter:
In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative. The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text. Try to imagine evaluating Skim if you couldn't see the drawings. Jillian's contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration: she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.[39]
This One Summer, created by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, ranked #1 on the list of top ten most banned and challenged books in the US in 2016. The main reasons this book was challenged were for its LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, sexually explicit content, and mature themes.[40]
Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a year in 2001 due to the show's cancellation after the September 11 attacks. As of 2014 SPX has been held in either Bethesda, North Bethesda, or Silver Spring, Maryland.
Steve Rolston is a Canadian artist and writer of comic books and graphic novels currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia. After working in story boards for various animated series, he got his first break from Oni Press as the penciler and inker of the first four issues of their on-going Queen & Country comic series by praised author Greg Rucka. From 2005 to 2017, Rolston taught a course at Vancouver Institute of Media Arts entitled "Introduction to Comic Book Production".
Hope Raue Larson is an American illustrator and cartoonist. Her main field is comic books.
First Second Books is an American publisher of graphic novels. An imprint of Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, First Second publishes fiction, biographies, personal memoirs, history, visual essays, and comics journalism. It also publishes graphic non-fiction for young readers, including the Science Comics and History Comics collections, and for adults, including the World Citizen Comics, a line of civics graphic books, and biographical works such as The Accidental Czar.
The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning are literary awards handed out annually since 2005 during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to Canadian cartoonists honouring excellence in comics and graphic novels published in English. The awards are named in honour of Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright. Winners are selected by a jury of Canadians who have made significant contributions to national culture, based on shortlisted selections provided by a nominating committee of five experts in the comics field. The Wrights are handed out in three main categories, "Best Book", "The Spotlight Award", and, since 2008, the "Pigskin Peters Award" for non-narrative or experimental works. In 2020, the organizers added "The Egghead", an award for best kids’ book for readers under twelve. In addition to the awards, since 2005 the organizers annually induct at least one cartoonist into the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall Fame.
Nathan Lee Powell is an American graphic novelist and musician. His 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won an Ignatz Award and Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. He illustrated the March trilogy, an autobiographical series written by U.S. Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, which received the 2016 National Book Award, making Powell the first cartoonist to receive the award.
The 2008 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit: Finalists in 14 categories were announced October 21, winners announced November 18. The prize for writers and illustrators was $25,000 and "a specially bound copy of the winning book".
Skim is a Canadian graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and drawn by Jillian Tamaki. Set in 1993, in a Toronto Catholic girls high school, it is about an outsider girl called Skim.
Kathryn Moira Beaton is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant, which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books The Princess and the Pony and King Baby, published in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The former was made into an Apple TV+ series called Pinecone & Pony released in 2022 on which Beaton worked as an executive producer. Also in 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, about her experience working in the Alberta oil sands. Publishers Weekly named Ducks one of their top ten books of the year.
Eleanor McCutcheon Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels Skim, Emiko Superstar, and This One Summer, and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction. In 2016 she began writing for both Marvel and DC Comics. She has twice been named a runner-up for the Michael L. Printz Award.
Hillary Chute is an American literary scholar and an expert on comics and graphic narratives. She is Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University. She was formerly associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago and an associate faculty member of the University’s Department of Visual Arts, as well as a visiting professor at Harvard University. She was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2007 to 2010.
This One Summer is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki published by First Second Books in 2014. It is a coming of age story about two teenage friends, Rose and Windy, during a summer in Awago, a small beach town. Rose and Windy discover themselves and their sexuality while battling family dynamics and mental disabilities.
Rosemary Valero-O'Connell is an American illustrator and cartoonist. She is known for her work with DC Comics and BOOM! Studios.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell. It follows Frederica "Freddy" Riley throughout her struggles with her on-again, off-again relationship with the eponymous Laura Dean. The novel was first published by First Second Books on May 7, 2019. A young adult and lesbian teen novel, Laura Dean includes themes about teenage lesbian and queer sexuality.
Roaming is a fictional graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, and published on September 12, 2023.
↑ "About SuperMutant Magic Academy, Briefly". Archived from the original on April 6, 2019. Retrieved October 29, 2020. SuperMutant Magic Academy is a webcomic that I started in 2010 on a whim. I had been asked to contribute a comic to Marvel's Strange Tales II anthology and, despite having no real knowledge of the superhero genre, had a lot of fun.
↑ "The most exciting books coming out in fall 2020". CBC Books. October 8, 2020. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved October 29, 2020. Our Little Kitchen is a picture book that features a neighbourhood with colourful characters who come together in the kitchen to share a meal.
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