Seven Squamish teens are making their voices heard graphically.
The teens will celebrate the launch of their graphic novel memoir, You Are Here, at the Squamish Public Library on Monday night.
The self-published book is a collection of stories crafted by Cyparis Polman, Helena Jacobsen, Johanne Augland, Kai Levett, Zoe Gruber, Leighlon Tower and Lochlan Page.
The youth aged 14 to 18 years old created their stories for the book in Sunday workshops over eight weeks led by writer Andrea Hoff.
Tower’s story “Nothing Special” is about his dream of being a hero when he was a boy.
“I used to run around the backyard being a hero from games and stuff,” he said with a laugh.
“But then I grew up, and you can’t be Spiderman when you’re 18.”
Each of the stories is based on its author’s life.
“They came up with these amazing stories,” said Hoff. “Very personal and kind of heartbreaking in a way. There’s the trials and tribulations of being a teenager.”
Bullying, frustration and issues of control are themes of some of the stories.
Hoff said parents sometimes dismiss the graphic novel as a lesser form of literature, but the medium is quite sophisticated.
“There’s something that seems kind of light about it,” she acknowledged. “But then the stories that are being told, especially in the last five to six years are very diverse. There’s a lot very unique, often marginalized voices coming through in graphic novels.”
Technically, comics and graphic novels – long-form sequential art stories – are different, Hoff explained.
A lot of the visual cues are the same as in comics, but graphic novels are more literary. “These stories are not just about a fictional world or kind of a really simple story arch,” Hoff said.
It goes back to when 1950s comic book artist Will Eisner started telling long-form stories that weren’t funny.
“They were beautifully crafted, but quite harsh stories,” Hoff said. “And the whole book would come to the conclusion of the story, rather than piece by piece.”
Hoff said the current movement in graphic novels, and in particular in graphic memoir is toward finding stories in things that don’t seem extraordinary.
“Often comics were about extraordinary people with extraordinary talents,” Hoff said. “Graphic novels can be [that] but they also don’t have to be. You can see how your life as a teenager in Squamish can be worthy of a story.”
Tower said while he was happy with his part in the memoir collection, he looks forward to creating something more “professional.”
“I am still new and I still have to learn a lot,” he said, adding he has been working on other stories since the workshops ended.
Through the program, Tower said he learned making a graphic novel is not as easy as it may seem.
“It is super fun, but it takes a lot of time to create a single page,” he said. “There is a lot of thinking involved.”
Hoff received funding from the Squamish Arts Council to run the program. She hopes to put on another graphic novel-making series in the fall with youth from age nine to 13.
The youth will launch the book at the library on Monday, July 11 from 6:30-8 p.m.
