Molly Higgins (MH): You’ve done a lot in your career! Please introduce yourself and briefly describe your art work and career path to date.
R. Kikuo Johnson (RKJ): I’m a cartoonist and an illustrator who grew up in Hawaii and am now based in Brooklyn. I’m probably best known for my graphic novels and cover illustrations for The New Yorker. I began my first graphic novel, Night Fisher, as a junior in college, and its publication in 2005 kicked off a career in illustration with clients like the New York Times, Nike, and Apple. Making comics has always been my first passion, and since Night Fisher, I’ve created two other graphic novels: The all-ages tale, TheShark King, and No One Else, which will be released in November 2021.
MH: Your book, The Shark King was the APALA Children’s Literature Honor recipient in 2013. What originally inspired you to create the book? And has its meaning for you changed in the years since its publication?
RKJ: While exploring potential directions for an all-ages book with my publisher, we kept returning to the ancient mythology I grew up with. I’d like to think that these myths survive to the present because they contain truths about the place from which they originated. The story that I adapted in The Shark King explores themes of resource management, famine, and ostracization, and to this day, the story is a lens through which I view my birthplace.
MH: Would you tell us a little bit about the traditional Hawaiian story behind Shark King, and what it was like to adapt it into a graphic novel?
RKJ: I probably first came across Nanaue and his father, the shark-god Kamohoali’i, in elementary school, but rediscovering the mythology as an adult was a revelation. My interpretation in The Shark King tones down the violence and horror of traditional versions of the myth in which Nanaue’s insatiable appetite for meat compels him to devour passing fishermen. In some variations, he is ultimately butchered and cooked by villagers in retribution, and some historians speculate that this story may have emerged to explain the terror of an ancient cannibal. Despite its brutality, the ancient Nanaue myth has a strong emotional core in its protagonist, a young outcast searching for his place in the world. Rather than thinking in terms of simplifying the narrative for young readers, I focused on trying to convey this central conflict as directly as possible.
MH: Do you think your personal identity influences your work and/or the diversity of your audience? How?
RKJ: All three of my graphic novels are set in Hawaii, so the place and culture in which I grew up has been central to my creative output. Some artists find a muse and paint the same face a thousand times. In my case, I never tire of drawing Maui and imagining scenes unfolding there. I’m not sure how that affects who is drawn to the work, but my hope is that readers find some truth in it regardless of what culture they grew up in.
MH: We’re always looking for more to read. Who are five authors we should be reading? Why?
RKJ: I’ll highlight 5 graphic novelists telling adult stories who I admire:
Yoshiharu Tsuge. A pioneer of literary manga in Japan in the 1960s and 70s, Tsuge’s work has only recently begun to be translated into English. Despite having a few somewhat surreal elements, his graphic novel, The Man Without Talent, is a beautifully naturalistic work about a self-sabotaging father and husband struggling to get along with his family. I’ve never read anything quite like it.
Jillian Tamaki. Her coming-of-age Graphic Novel, This One Summer, won a Cadelcott medal, but the works of hers I love most are the short experimental comics she posts online, in various magazines, and in her collection, Boundless. Adult narratives layered with subtext and ambiguity are rendered with an unfussy line that lends them a striking urgency.
Nick Drnaso. His graphic novel, Sabrina, was the first graphic novel to be longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I love some of the short comics in his collection, Beverly, just as much. Extended wordless sequences full of subtle gesture that reward close study. The fact that the drawings themselves are so minimalist in style makes the scrutiny they demand feel like a magic trick.
Olivier Schrauwen: A Belgian cartoonist working in Berlin. His experimental sci-fi comics, especially the ones in his collection, Parallel Lives, are genuinely weird, a bit satirical, and humorously human. The virtuoso illustration gives these comics an added level of narrative precision.
Connor Willumsen: His comics can be as confounding as they are rewarding. I read his graphic novel, Bradley of Him, twice in a row before its structure began to make sense to me, but his comics are so unpredictable and compelling, I find myself drawn to rereading them.
MH: You recently illustrated a New Yorker cover of an Asian woman and girl looking around as they wait for the train. For me, and I think for a lot of people, it really captured the tension and anxiety of living with both a pandemic and a rise in anti-Asian violence. Part of it for me is the fact that both figures are watching, but in opposite directions. And waiting for the train is such a quotidian act. It made me think of how these circumstances are new, but these feelings aren’t. I’d like to ask– how did your experiences during the pandemic lead you to create this piece?
RKJ: The cover was primarily a reaction to the stream of reports of brutal attacks on Asian people in New York and other cities. So many mothers and grandmothers have been targeted. I imagined my own mom in that situation. I thought about my grandma and my aunt, who have been among my greatest sources of support. The mother in the drawing is a composite of all these women.
MH: You’re being interviewed by a librarian, for an audience of progressive Asian Pacific American librarians. What are your thoughts on libraries, and their place in building diverse communities?
RKJ: I owe so much to librarians and to libraries. My first graphic novel debuted in 2005, a time in which librarians nationwide were embracing comics in a way that was unprecedented. Any success of that book and the career that followed was in no small part due to open-minded and passionate librarians. As a young artist, expensive graphic novels were out of my reach, but the public library system always helped satisfy my reading appetite and provided so much inspiration. Thank you, librarians!
MH: What advice would you give young professionals, especially those from diverse backgrounds, who are interested in a career in writing?
RKJ: Make the book that you want to read that no one else has made. If you’re waiting for that book, odds are good that other readers are too.
MH: Your newest book, No One Else, is coming soon. What would you like us to know about it?
RKJ: No One Else is a graphic novella about a family struggling to find their footing after the death of the grandfather. So far, the words people have used to describe it are, “atmospheric,” “darkly humorous,” “bittersweet” and “adult.” For all its successes and failures, I’m pretty sure No One Else is the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m excited for readers to find it.
Interview by Molly Higgins with editing support by Silvia Lew.