Kean Soo is the author of the Jellaby series of graphic novels and is a regular contributor and assistant editor for the FLIGHT anthologies. A former electrical engineer raised briefly in Hong Kong and currently residing in Canada, Kean’s work can be found across various media, from The Morning News to, most recently, the Machine of Death anthology.

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What is your creative process like? When you start a new comic how much time do you spend writing the story line as opposed to creating the images that will tell the story?

Oof, tough first question! That’s a really hard one to quantify. I do put the most emphasis on writing the story and getting everything in place before I start drawing, because once I start drawing the comic, it’s incredibly difficult to make a lot of significant changes to the story without altering the page layouts — If I decide to add in a panel or two to a certain scene, that will disrupt all my subsequent page layouts and cause me to have to rework those pages as well.

That being said, for me, my characters are the first thing that I always develop, and they almost always start as drawings or doodles from my sketchbook. The characters that are the most interesting to me are the ones that I always want to ask more questions about. And in asking those questions, usually (in the case of the more interesting characters, at least) a story or narrative starts to form that I can use to build around the characters.

The drawing part of the process definitely takes me the longest, but my brain is typically on autopilot at that point, and while revisions are still made to the story, it’s usually nothing major. All the hardest work is done right at the beginning, working out all the important writer-ly bits first. To give you an idea, my second book, Jellaby: Monster in the City, was basically written and thumbnailed in 4 months, and the art was finished in about 12 months, for a total of 16 months. And that was under an extremely tight deadline (which I totally blew the first time, by the way). In an ideal world, I really would’ve preferred to have had a couple more months at the writing stage to have been able to smooth out the story problems I encountered in that book.

So to recap, my process for working on a big project like a graphic novel would be: character sketches and development -> outlining and writing the story -> thumbnails and page layouts -> drawing the thing.

Are you a full-time writer? Does it pay the bills or do you have some kind of day job?

I am indeed a full time writer/cartoonist. It only partially pays the bills, which I’ve supplemented with creative writing grants (care of the Canada Council for the Arts, which I am eternally grateful for), the odd illustration job, as well as speaking engagements and cartooning workshops for kids.

Do you write (or draw) every day? What is your typical daily or weekly creative schedule?

I do work every day, and often into weekends. If I’m outlining or writing, I’m usually only good for about 3 hours of intense writing. Often, the rest of my time is spent ‘researching’ or just bumming around. It’s the most annoying part of the job for me, because I don’t really see myself as much of a writer. The thumbnailing/layout stage is the most exciting for me, and that’s where the writing really comes together in my mind.

If I’m drawing, I typically just knuckle down and just work for a solid 8-12 hours or so. It’s an unfortunate nature of comics that my schedule tends to lean in one direction or the other (purely writing or drawing), with very little leeway. I do like that the monotony is occasionally broken up by the odd illustration job or short story assignment. It’s a nice change, and I usually jump at those opportunities if I’m deep into something else (and can spare the time for it). I like to think of it as ‘productive’ procrastination.

I know some people that work a regular 9 to 5 at making comics, and it’s something I really marvel at. Me, I procrastinate. A lot.

In your career you’ve done a mix of self-publishing and working with big publishing houses (Disney/Hyperion for the Jellaby books, Image & Ballentine for the Flight anthologies). Which came first?

So far for me, the self-publishing has always come first — I started out making and posting a little journal comic to the web that led to me falling in with some of the people in the webcomics community. That led to us coming together to make a fun, little ‘zine for a comic convention (I believe this was for the Alternative Press Expo in ’02). It was going to be a little black and white photocopied thing of maybe 40 pages. That ended up turning into Flight: a 200-page, full colour anthology. We’re saying goodbye to Flight this summer, after 8 years and 8 volumes. It’s been a really good run. Some of my strongest friendships have been made in that time.

And similarly with Jellaby, Hope Larson and I launched a joint website, the Secret Friend Society, where we were posting pages from our full-length graphic novels with the direct goal of using the website to find publishers for our work. In both our cases, it succeeded, and both our careers were off to the races at that point.

What was working with Disney like?

It was a great experience. There was an extreme learning curve on both our parts, which made for some growing pains very early on. At the time, Hyperion was new to the graphic novel scene, and with myself coming from a webcomics background, I was especially frustrated at the seemingly glacial pace of the book publishing world — I really missed the sense of immediate gratification that working on the web provided. On the other hand, there are some great things that a publisher can provide that simply can’t be beat. Like an editor. Or a marketing team that really knows what they’re doing.

By the time the second Jellaby book rolled around, we were pretty much a well oiled machine. That was an intense but really fun time.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently working on a boy’s adventure comic, tentatively titled Kay and the Mystery of the Basho Pot. It involves a talking octopus, adorable (yet plucky) ragamuffins, time travel, a car chase through the streets of Hong Kong, ray guns, a Lake Fiend, Vikings, comfy pillows, swordfights, and a giant tuna. I’m playing with a lot of classical myths, and it’s my hope that the book will read like an Indiana Jones- meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy- meets Journey to the West sort of thing. In other words: that awesome book the 10-year old me would’ve loved.

Also on the side, I’m working on a travel memoir with Tory Woollcott about a trip to Italy we took last summer. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’m working on two graphic novels at once right now.

Do you currently have a book deal?

I don’t have a book deal at the moment, but I’m hoping to find a publisher for Kay soon. Fingers crossed.

There is a part of me that just wants to throw caution to the wind and just start posting pages of it to the web. I’m awfully proud of the new work, I still feel like I’m learning and growing a lot as an illustrator.

Is the process of finding a publisher for a graphic novel is the same as it is for a novelist? Do you have to send out agent queries, find an agent, then write a book proposal where you try to justify the book’s existence and identify the target demographic?

Yep, it’s exactly the same. The only difference is, in addition to a written outline, you’ve got to show some finished pages to go alongside it. It really helps when people can actually see what the finished product is going to look like.

You don’t seem to spend a lot of time on twitter/tumblr/whatever, or at least not as much as some other cartoonists and comics writers. Does that put you at a disadvantage in this culture where we’re supposed to be promoting ourselves all the time?

I think it definitely does, yes. I’m absolutely terrible at Twitter because I only check it like 2 or 3 times a week, so when I am on, it’s hard for me to keep up with everyone, and it just becomes overwhelming in the end. And especially now that I’ve started full-out drawing Kay, I’m probably going to drop off the map even more in the coming months.

I still (perhaps naively) believe in a meritocracy. I’m convinced that if you put out something good, even if it’s only once in a while, people will still find it.

So I suppose my real answer to your question is that it really doesn’t matter all that much, as long as you’re producing something? I don’t know. That’s a hard one to answer.

In your writing process, are there ever places where you struggle in the space between words and images? Have there been moments where you wrote something you thought “I have no idea how I’m going to draw that.” Or have you wished you could pause the imagery and somehow provide more explanation or story?

Oh man, I feel that ALL THE TIME. Artist Kean constantly wants to go back in time to strangle Writer Kean. Writing something like “Portia and Jellaby cross the street” sounds innocent enough, but having to draw that? I need to know what the street looks like, the buildings, the cars, how that fits into the larger geography of the scene, all of that stuff. It can be fun sometimes, but most of the time, it’s just hard work, the mundane part of the craft.

I’ve always loved reading about those sorts of tangential digressions, especially going back to when I first read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where the entire thing was a digression in itself. With this new book, I have a story element where I actually CAN pause the narrative flow and dig far deeper into the history of something, or to indulge myself with a little more of a character’s backstory. And especially with a book for younger readers, kids love that stuff and don’t mind it so much.

On the flipside, there’s a danger of losing the audience that’s keyed into reading a comic, and then all of a sudden they’re thrust into this huge block of text. So it’s a very delicate balancing act, and a few key drawings and the actual design of the page really helps in that department as well.

This all gets back to challenging and pushing yourself. I know when I’m writing something and think to myself “that’s going to be impossible to draw later,” I know I’m doing a proper job as a writer. I feel like there’s so much I still need to learn, and the only way I can really learn something is just to jump in the deep end and do it. I just came out of a school visit today where I kept telling kids to just practice, practice, practice, and to just draw their brains out. And sure, you’re going to produce some truly cringeworthy material sometimes, but you just have to put that behind you and move on to the next thing. That’s all part of the journey, isn’t it?