Hi everyone and welcome to the second Adopted the Comic Newsletter, September 2010.

We can not believe that 10 months down the line that Adopted the Comic is still here alive and kicking =D. We have put it down to all the encouragement and feedback (good and bad) that we have received from all corners of the adoption community. I know we say this over and over, we really want to thank you all again for your continued support for the comic so far from the website, emails & the Facebook Like Page.

It has been a busy summer for us at Adopted the Comic. Bert is working on the planning for the Intercountry Adoption Summit (Sept. 2010) while having adopted from Vietnam in May. I have been working hard on my freelance work and been helping on the committee for the CAAWR adoptee reunion in Hong Kong (Sept. 2010). On top of that we have been passionately working on 3 comic commissions (more details below). Like always, life is getting in the way of comic making =P.

We don’t often bring out newsletters, but we hope you enjoyed this one =). Click the link to view Newsletter #1 which was way back in Jan 2010 =P.

Adopted the Comic gets Subbed

Here at Adopted the Comic we realise that we have a limitation on who we can reach. That limitation is mainly been on access to none-english speaking viewers. On the sidebar you may now notice a Google Translate option. We also have added typed “Transcripts” for each comic which we hope will make the comic more open to translation and accessible in general. We know that Google translation is not perfect but we hope it’s a good start =).

If you do speak another language and would like to translate any of the comics a bit more accurately then Google translate, please feel free to contact us.

See how it works with the screen shoots below.

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Adopted the Comic Gets Some Acting Lessons

I was lucky enough to meet Linda Goldstein Knowlton randomly at an adoption event (CACH) in the UK in 2006. She was filming a documentary about Chinese adoptees for her documentary called The Sisterhood.

Linda asked us here at Adopted the Comic to do 3 commissions with the themes of language, demographics/categories and luck to be part of the documentary. We are very excited and have been working hard for the past few months on them. They will be available on the website once the documentary is aired, but we do hope you get a chance to see it on the screen first =D. The documentary is now in its finial stages and expected in 2011, so watch this space. Linda wrote:

“My daughter’s name is Ruby. She is five. When my husband and I adopted her from China in 2006  we had no idea what lay ahead. In an instant, we became a family. I began to think about Ruby’s future and started to wonder how her coming-of-age would differ from mine. THE SISTERHOOD tells intimate stories of what it is like to come-of-age as a trans-racial adoptee in today’s America, as examined through the POV of some of the 79,562 adopted girls from China.

The reason we wanted to commission the comics for the documentary is because because they use HUMOR…and so brilliantly.  As Jessica said to me when we first met – she hoped that my film wouldn’t be all unicorns and rainbows in regards to examining the topic of adoption…but also not all dark and tormented.  With the addition of the comics, it will help me achieve that balance in the film.”

If your organisation, event, group etc are looking for a custom comic you can find details on the Publication & Commissions pages.

Behind the Scenes of Adopted the Comic

We thought it would be nice to let you have a sneak peek into our process from idea to completion. Me and Bert still have not meet in person (yet) and this whole process is purely done through emails.

Bert’s Writing Process

When I think about my role in all of this, I feel a bit inadequate compared to what Jess has to go through. Make no mistake, Jess is really the heart and soul in this venture. She has to interpret my work and put images to it and then subject what she creates to my feedback, sometimes capturing things in ways I don’t intend or don’t even see. It’s much easier to change words than images. She has my admiration in how difficult this process can be.

For my writing process, my inspiration comes from three places – myself and my experiences as an adoptee and adoptive parent, the experiences of other adoptees and adoptive families, and stand-up comedy. I like to laugh and while laughing I reflect on how they made me laugh (no, I don’t have any favourites per se, but I like comedians and comediennes who find humour in everyday life). I then see if I can find parallels in my life or in others’ lives around adoption on something similar.

My inspirations come in fits and spurts. I don’t sit and write or meditate heavily on the subject matter. Often inspiration comes after I’ve watched some comedy (which is random too and not on any routine) or when I’m talking with my wife and family or when I realize I’ve done something embarrassing or even when I’m struggling with my own adoption status. I write it down and send it off.

When I write it down, I will write out the panels I envision and the words to be said. I’ll look at it and see if it’s funny to me, maybe bounce it off of my wife and get her feedback, then send it off to Jess. Because my inspiration comes in fits and spurts,  I will often send 5-7 ideas to Jess at a time. She reads over them, gives me feedback and I tell her if she is on the right track or not with what I intended.

I believe we have a very collaborative process. There are probably more times we disagree and there are many ideas that are too cynical, dark, insulting, or inappropriate. But in there somewhere is a nugget or two that makes it out. Once Jess and I agree on the concept, she sends me early sketches, I give her my feedback. If good, she colours and voilà, we have a comic!

In this endeavour, I think I have it easy and Jess has all the hard work. I get to write about things I love from my own experience in a way that makes me and others laugh. That’s healing for me, and hopefully, for all of you as well.

Jess’ Art Process

I have to admit, it sometimes seems like a mammoth task to live up to Bert’s writings and still bring my own flavour while keeping the spirit of the theme/idea behind the comic. I was asked once how i came up with drawings for the comic. I didn’t answer the question so well last time, but since then i have been thinking about it.

The first step is to interpret what Bert has written. I start to think about my view of the adoption issue we are commenting on. I then think about where Bert himself might be coming from (which i sometimes don’t get totally right =P). I have been lucky enough to meet, talk and connect with many from the adoption world from all walks of life so i often think about what others have said about the same issue. The next step is to get my acting hat on. I often have to act out each panel and put myself into shoes of the charters which is how i work out the expressions and postures, and can often be found posing in my webcam pulling funny faces =P. The next step is to think about the clothing, age, sex and race of each character. And finally i need to think of the context through backgrounds or props if Bert has not already mentioned it.

Me and Bert talked early on about recurring characters. At the moment we feel new charters for each strip is working for us since each story has such a varied context. While recurring characters may speed up the drawing process, i agree it works better as it is at the moment, plus it’s more fun to draw something new every time =). Many comics tend to do black & white drawings which allow them to get out more comics. I think i shot myself in the foot by starting out with coloured comics, but just like the recurring characters, we both think colour looks better =)

For the first time I am showing  my artistic process for the comic using our the latest comic #24 Busy. You can look at each stage below and read a bit more detail each stage in the image description.

I sometimes upload a few sketches and unseen drawings on the Sketches Page. I also occasionally  post thoughts as i am drawing on Twitter.

Welcome to the first ever Adopted – The Comic Jan 2010 Newsletter.

First, me and Bert hope you had a brilliant holiday, and wish you all the best for 2010! =D.

And second, we’d like to thank you all for the support you have shown the comic so far =).

For our first news we thought that you’d give you an inside scope with a more in-depth interview into what drove us to start this comic and maybe share a funny story or two.

 

How long have you been exploring adoption in your work?

From a young age it was clear that i was destined to be an artist. While i loved to painting and draw when i was younger, i choice to pursue photography/video at uni. I was pretty resistant to using adoption in my work for many many years, and often told my tutors i wouldn’t look at my adoption claiming it didn’t effect who i was. It wasn’t until my last year of uni that they said we could look at any subject we wanted. As if in an instant my whole view point of adoption changed. Since then (when i was 22 yrs) i have been exploring adoption through my art practice ever since (which can be found at www.jessica-emmett.com).

Though i have been using adoption as a subject in my artwork since 2004, it wasn’t until 2008 i started to meet, do art workshops & talks within the adoption communities =).

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Ever since a young age, I have been very interested in my adoption. But it probably wasn’t until the end of high school/beginning of college, when leaving the comfortable confines of home, that I became really serious about it. During college I did what I could to look into my own adoption. One moment I vividly recall is seeing Miss Saigon and being so moved that tears were streaming down my face. I realized something happened in my past and I not be able to escape it So, I did a lot of research on Operation Babylift and Vietnamese adoptions, learning more about that event and international adoption in general.

After university, I went away from it for a bit until I got married and early in my marriage I had the opportunity to meet Betty Tisdale, the woman who evacuated myself and hundreds of others from An Lac orphanage in Vietnam and to attend a 25 year reunion with other Vietnamese adoptees. Both of these happened in 2000, and directly because of those events, I have been involved in international adoption.

I helped to co-found VAN – the Vietnamese Adoptee Network (http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=150497638969&ref=ts) and served on its board for many years. I was involved in Colorado Heritage Camps (http://www.heritagecamps.org/) for many years, serving on their board. I helped initiate the International Adoptee Congress. I was featured in and advised on the documentary film Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam (www.thebabylift.org). As I grew older and went on for a doctorate degree, I moved into researching international adoptee identity and adoptive families. I have two articles published with a couple more along the way.

Recently, I edited Pieces of Me: Who do I Want to Be? with EMK Press (www.emkpress.com/teenbook.html), a book for and by adoptive teenagers. I’m involved in lots of speaking, curriculum development, training, and writing for international adoption.

By way of context, my wife (Sarah)has four adopted siblings from Korea and we recently received a referral for a son from Vietnam, who we hope to pick up in Spring 2010 to add to our two biological daughters. Sarah, my wife, is also an adoption counselor. It is safe to say that adoption is a big part of my life – both at work and at home!

And even though adoption is a big part of many aspects of my life, I’m still on my own journey, learning more and more each day, including how to laugh at myself!

 

What inspired you to start a comic?

One day a light bulb went off in my head and i just said “I want to start an adoption comic” =P. Though i explained briefly why i wanted to start the comic on the website, the longer i thought about it the more i realized this flash of an idea has seemed a natural progression of the work i’ve been doing for years.

On the talks/panel talks that i have done, i often have explained complex or deep issues through the use of humorous stories. Partly cos i know my personality is a little like that joking around and stuff =), but also i found humor more accessible be they people contacted to adopted or not. I realized very quickly that i got a good response to stories or way i explained my own experiences of being an adoptee.

In the beginning of my research into art and adoption i often tried to find visual resources and back in 2004 found this extremely difficult. Though i found a lot of written resources, there few visual resources were mainly films and documentaries but they were few and far between. It’s very possible that i may not have been looking in the right place. These days i have started to find more and more artist and creative people looking adoption as part of their work… this comic is the start of getting visual resources out there… and for many years i have dreamed of setting up a website where artist can upload work like a visual hub of adoption art (watch this space, it’s still on the cards =P).

Though i never have properly tried illustration before, i have done a lot of drawing in the past for fun (especially when i was about 18). Ironically the reason i got back into drawing was that one day i wanted to try drawing pictures on mine and my friends game characters in a game i played =). I posted them on my Facebook and an very old adoptee friend i knew when i was living in Hong Kong saw them. She asked me to try developing some illustrations for a gymnastics books she was writing. Even though i didn’t pressure the book it gave me the confidence to try comic style (you can see how i progressed from the game sketches to the comic at the bottom of the page).

I’ve always loved watching cartoons, reading manga etc… i had never thought about making a comic before… but i think it all fell into place when Bert came on board to write for it =).

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What inspired me to start a comic? Jessica!

Ha! No seriously, I don’t have quite the history Jessica does, but I love humour. Not so much in that I love to laugh (which I do) or that I love to make my students and others around me laugh (which I also do), but I love humour for its authenticity.

Humour is serious communication (that’s a funny statement – think about it). Like Jessica said, it has the ability to make complex points in simple ways. It cuts through the bluster and the performance (with a performance of its own) to touch us where we need it – in a serious place, but in a lighthearted way. I love humour for that ability.

And when we can talk about a serious subject in a funny way, it grants us perspective to look at the serious subject more closely and more personally. That’s what I hope to do with Adopted – The Comic. I want to raise  important questions in the adoption experience – from the perspective of adoptees and adoptive parents (because I am both) to think seriously about them, but to also give us permission to laugh at ourselves.

Let’s face it. Sometimes we take adoption too seriously, forgetting to laugh at ourselves and the oddities we have created. I like to think we find healing by taking what do seriously, but not ourselves too seriously. Laughter sometimes truly can be the best medicine.

So, when I saw Jessica’s post on FB about wanting to do a comic, I thought, well if someone wants to try to draw what I write and think about, let’s give it a shot. Maybe humour will be good for all of us (myself included!)! And here we are!

 

Can you share any funny adoption stories with us?

My sister(who is a Hong Kong adoptee) come up to me when i was about 17 and said, “Oh my friend saw you with your boyfriend the other day.” I was blushing, “Oh really, thats cool =D”. My sister went on to say, “Yeah, she said you were getting into his car…”. I looked puzzled, “But my boyfriend doesn’t have a car.” My sister agrees, “I know i thought that was odd too, so i asked her what he looked like.” I eagerly awaited. “My friend said he was tall.” I puzzled, “weird my boyfriend’s not tall.” My sister agrees again, “i know totally… and my friend said he had grey hair and had an awesome sports car.” And like any teenager i want to dye of embarrassment, “OMG! your friend doesn’t mean… DAD!” My sister just laughs at me for ages. =P how evil of her =P.

And another funny story is more to do with my husband. Pretty much every time we go and have Asian food, the waiter will come up and say, “What would you like to drink?”. My husband is British white from the North of England and he always says, “Green tea.” The waiter will always look at me and i’ll say, “Diet Coke please.” They always ask me if i’m sure…. =P. I use to feel guilty that i some my husband was a better “Asian” than me =P but now i dont care. The irony is that i started drinking more green teas, but only sometimes =P

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Hmmm . . . which one should I share that doesn’t give away a future comic? :-)

This isn’t an adoption story per se, but about all the pent up, repressed anger at all the cute comments I got over the years. When you become a parent, somehow the perspective shifts a bit. Anyway, when my girls were young – like 2 and 1 (they are 19 mos. apart), we were in a store and a woman saw them and said, “Wow! What cute little girls! They look like China dolls. I just want to put them up on a shelf!”

Of course I’m angry at how my children are being objectified, but I’m really angry at all the years I was treated like that. Then I see the woman’s infant boy – a white, bald, wrinkly chub of a child. I responded, “Wow! What a bouncy baby boy! I want to take him out of his seat and use him like a bowling ball!”

Okay. I didn’t. But I really, really, really wanted to. I told my wife. We laughed for the rest of the evening. Maybe now that I’m a bit older I’ll use it.

 

How do you feel about the response to the comic so far?

We’ve had an overwhelming response to the comic in the very short time it’s been online (mid Dec ’09). From what started as such a small idea seems to be turning into way more. Me and Bert have received a number of emails and comments about the comic, and i really find the support very touching =).

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Overwhelming is right! I’m really surprised at the positive turnout. Part of me thought I’d be run out of town, but Jess was right – people are looking for a reason to talk about adoption in a fun and lighthearted way. So, I’m very astonished at the support, emails, and number of subscribers! I just hope I don’t disappoint now! Ha!

 

 

What are your hopes for the future of the comic?

While the comic is sill in it’s infancy i have many many hopes for the comic. My hopes is that we can continue to develop the comic. And maybe to see it in magazines or even possible move to publication. There are a number of new features on the website, merchandise, commissions & donations pages which can all help support the comic. We also have a Facebook group that is growing and we can be found on twitter.

(Edit Apri 2011: We have now moved out Facebook group to a like page which can now be found here www.facebook.com/adoptedthecomic. The above link was changed to the new page).

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Ditto Jess. I’m also hoping for it to be my retirement fund so donate and buy stuff! :-)

Seriously, I hope this gives folks a fun and lighthearted way to discuss topics of serious importance in the adoption journey and adoption experience. While more exposure is desired (please, please spread the word!), I hope more that it sparks conversation among adoptees, their families, and professionals and that it leads to a little bit of healing for all of us.

I’m passionate about carving out spaces where adoptees can talk honestly and openly about what it means to be adopted. This is one of the components of that kind of space.

Below is a few images of the drawings by Jess leading up the comic:

 

And a huge thanks to Bert for the awesome mug =D