A Thoughtful Interview on The Gulf

I recently had the pleasure of answering some questions from the talented J. Marshall Smith for his patreon Studio Dispatch.

Full spoilers below.

SMALL TREASURE: THE GULF

(Reformatted from an email thread, full of light spoilers)

Hey Adam, thanks for agreeing to answer some of my questions for my patreon blog. I really enjoyed The Gulf and am excited to tell my patrons about it in the next issue. I imagine you can talk about any of these at length, so don't feel like you have to answer everything perfectly, although I'd love to hear all your thoughts.

Hey Jonathan! Thanks for enjoying the book and for the thoughtful questions. I really chewed on some of them for quite a while. I hope these answers suffice. Let me know if you have any questions.

The specificity of setting feels really important to this story. Why did you choose the particular time and place for this story?

I’m not a strong enough writer to fabricate a setting. All of my stories come from something familiar and that specificity is the root of The Gulf. It’s what I know and knew.  I don’t think it would be the same story if it took place at a different time or in a different place.

I feel like that "war on terror" era disillusioned a lot of youth, myself included, so writing about characters that are a bit older than I was, who have a more vivid memory of that period, felt right. I considered what putting this in the Trump era would do but it's too hard to talk about the recent past with any sort of clarity - you kinda have to wait for the dust to settle a bit to tell a story that doesn't feel politically didactic.

The gulf islands off of the coast of where I grew up are wild in such a specific way that, whenever I visit, I feel displaced as a human. Not because the islands aren’t populated or are without the conveniences of roads and grocery stores but because the trees and ferns spill into the road, eagles soar overhead, ferns creep up the corners of buildings, orca’s pass by the shoreline, and deer flit across the hills. When I am there, I am keenly aware of the fact that the land is not for any one being or purpose. Despite naming it so, it’s not “property” that can truly be “owned”. That feeling has been important to me and I wanted the story to relate to that. The islands have their own history of communes and whenever I visit one I can feel that allure. The seclusion of the island invites a lot of folks who are attracted to an alternative way of living, both on the right and the left of that thought, and I think setting the story amongst people who have lived out that impulse allows Oli to interact with adults who just kinda understand her.

The Gulf is full of characters that are easy to like, even when they do things you may not like. Oli's violence and rage particularly jumps out as a trait you don't often see in a protagonist. What is your process like for creating characters that are flawed but we can still root for? Is there anything you knew you did not want to do with these characters?

It felt honest to portray Oli and the crew as volatile and sometimes unlikeable. I feel like that's just how it is to be a person but especially a teenager; you feel things deeply, react strongly, and are often at odds with yourself. I think interesting characters are born from that friction.

In many ways Oli feels like a trapped animal. The way she is treated at school is a symptom of ills that have motivated her to want to flee. It just felt right that she would snap. At the end of the day, I don't really have a rubric for what works outside of what feels honest to me based on my own experiences and what I've observed. All I know is that the last thing I want to do is reduce people to archetypes or make coming of age feel like a victorious or simple thing. I don’t know that I need a reader to always like my characters but I think it’s necessary for them to be understood. These contradictions are what interest me in characters and frustrate me about people. It just feels right to write about it.

Oli is both injured and causes injury to others in this book, and is trying to find a way out of a society that we are told will keep us safe. I'd like to know why you included so many instances that bring questions of harm and safety into the story?

I think The Gulf is partially a story about harm and care. Most people truly do not believe they are causing harm. Harm is easy to overlook. It’s often peripheral. Systems permit it. It usually isn’t a fist to the face but can be just a gentle trickle into a stream. Unlike harm, I believe caring takes effort. It’s impossible to accidentally care.

Oli is constantly harming others against her own will and receives care that she does not register as such. Yet, that care, by the end of the story, does seep in and change her. I’m not sure what that means to me, honestly. All I know is that when systemic harm is allowed to become background noise it shows a frustrating lack of intention and care.

Oli is a person of extremes. She unintentionally harms others because she is overwhelmed by the sanctioned violence she recognises around her. She really does want to live in a better world. She really doesn’t want to be part of the problem. Oli sees no way forward but out. Her violence comes from that - she is angry and frustrated with the state of things and is caught by the impulse to inflict violence or try and destroy what fences her in. I don't condone the violence Oli does to others but I also think we shouldn't quickly condemn it - the boys she levels are assholes...how are we supposed to deal with that, really? There’s something rotten that allows them to feel entitled, or safe, in treating Oli (and others) as they do.

It feels strange to call this "utopian fiction" because it is so grounded, but The Gulf's characters try to find a different kind of world to live in than the one they are sold. Have you got any books or other media that influenced the story?

It’s kinda trite but while working on the pitch for the book I re-read Catcher in the Rye and felt strongly that Oli is, in a lot of ways, a Holden Caulfield. He desperately doesn't want to grow up because he views the adult world as "phony" and self sabotages as a way to avoid it. At the time I was reading it, I thought, "isn't this just a symptom of the same ill that Oli feels?”. Maybe I’m just primed to have that reading. Right when I began The Gulf, I started a non-fiction kick that has lasted until the present. I started off reading about communes but it led me down a rabbit hole that has helped me better understand myself politically and philosophically.

You were working on The Gulf while also working on your great strip Blind Alley. I can imagine there were difficulties juggling both projects, but I would like to know what were the benefits of doing both? What are the things in either project that were fed by the other?

Blind Alley gave me a much needed counterbalance to working on a more structured project and the difficulties were mainly to do with time management. For better and worse, Blind Alley reflects all of my selfish impulses and The Gulf is something refined through collaboration. Working on the two in tandem certainly taught me a lot about myself as a writer. Specifically, that taking time to write before I start drawing is actually incredibly valuable; not all my instincts are the correct ones. In a lot of ways, I feel The Gulf and Blind Alley will forever be linked as they work through (maybe distantly to a reader) a lot of the same ideas. Blind Alley is kinda just the raw material whereas The Gulf is the refined product.

Comics take a long time to make. How long did this project take you, and what ways of working helped you most?

The Gulf took me two-ish years of on and off work to complete. I worked furiously and then would send my script or roughs off for feedback, work on Blind Alley for a month, receive feedback, revise, and then get the green light to jump forward again. There was this feeling of constantly needing to sprint in order to never miss a self-imposed deadline. I also think I feared that that if I slowed down too much I’d lose my momentum and begin hating the project. I coloured the whole book in a month and a half and consequently burnt out really hard. The worst part is that all the sprinting was just something I put on myself. My editor and art director were always kind and accommodating. I didn't prove anything valuable to anyone by overworking myself. I don’t know why but I feel like I need to mention all of this when I say it was done in 2-ish years. Maybe the honest answer is that I don’t know what helped me other than caring about what I was working on. It’s all too close currently and I genuinely do not feel my habits were always healthy while working on this book.

Now that you've done it, I imagine there were things you learned along the way. What are some things this book taught you?

That being kind to yourself and taking breaks is truly part of the creative process. The heart of this book was written while going for long walks, sitting amongst friends, or doing the dishes. You have to think about other things and really live a life to write anything worth spending time sharing. I've learnt that caring for myself is the only way to do this sustainably.

I also have metabolized the idea that your work must not be for everyone; it has to be for someone specific. That means not everyone will receive it how you intend but knowing that it's for someone specific means that you will know whether or not you’ve succeeded in your intentions. Maybe it's stupid to hang my hat on external validation - I love what I do - but I do think considering who I am writing for makes me a better writer.

Have you got any favorite drawings in the book?

Honestly, it was drawn in such a fugue state that I am surprised by a lot of it. A certain mysterious and tearful sequence on a dark beach and the final pages of the book may be my personal favourites.

One of the most disorienting things for folks trying to make comics is pitching books to publishers, and in many ways The Gulf feels different from the standard YA stories we see on shelves. What was your pitch experience like, and how close was the final book to your initial plans for it?

I was extremely lucky that, from the get go, I had people on my side who wanted to see The Gulf get made. My art director and editor were enthusiastic and supportive from the initial pitch and both enabled me to make the book I wanted to make (down to the ridiculous size and low price point). I feel so grateful for that care they put into it. I spent a lot of time worrying it would have to be sanitised or drastically changed for the audience but the heart of it is exactly what I wanted. Of course there were things that changed or were cut while working on it but I feel strongly that this is the book I wanted to make. There are a lot of ways it would be different if I made it on my own but I do not believe it would be a better book for it.

Finally, this book is about reaching for a different way of living. Did it inspire you to change anything about how you live or work?

Writing about someone who desires to do “nothing” helped me diminish the deeply ingrained idea that my labor is what makes me valuable as a human or that work is my purpose. It feels like a huge win to be rid of the feeling of being tethered to my drafting table even when I’m out in the world. I like being a well rounded, often idle, human being.

I feel more certain that the struggle for something better is worthwhile. We’re always asked to have an answer for “what” our radically better future looks like or how it will function by a broken system that expects our answer to fit inside it. I would like to think that our refusal to give answers is potentially powerful. There’s no end result of this. There’s no fixed result in an ecosystem. We’re constantly asked to “be reasonable” by something that twists reason and logic to evil ends and is focussed upon a fixed outcome. We must always push against it. I think defiantly but confidently not knowing what the future looks like but feeling strongly that it should be equitable for all (human and non-human alike) is worth acting upon, inexhaustibly (“like a weed,” as the book says).