Emma Grove (The Third Person): An Exploration of Art, Mental Health, and Identity

In the latest episode of Transcending Comics, join us as we delve into the world of Emma Grove, acclaimed author and artist of the graphic novel memoir, 'The Third Person'. Learn about Emma's journey through navigating the mental health care system during her transition, her inspirations, writing process, and upcoming projects. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:17):
Welcome to Transcending Comics, a podcast dedicated to trans representation
in comic books, manga, and webtoons, both on panel and behind the scenes.
I'm your host, Tommy, and joining me today is someone I've wanted to interview
since this show's inception.
She's the writer and artist behind The Third Person, a beautiful graphic novel
memoir about her experience navigating the mental health care system in an attempt

(00:39):
to begin hormone replacement therapy,
and the difficulties she faced from a reluctant therapist and a diagnosis for
dissociative identity disorder.
Here to discuss the book's origins, as well as her upcoming projects,
is today's guest, Emma Grove.
Welcome to the show, Emma. Hello, how are you? Doing well. I'm really glad I
could finally get you on the show. Wasn't sure if I'd ever have this opportunity.

(01:01):
Thanks. But how about you? How are you doing the start of the new year here?
I'm doing okay. Just, I don't really have any New Year's resolutions.
I did, after the third person, I did do a fictional book about good witches,
about two good witch sisters who save a little girl from an evil demon.
And that I'm in the process of trying to just do a final edit on.
And my goal is to try to get that published.

(01:23):
Awesome. And is that another graphic novel or a prose novel?
No, it's a graphic novel. It's like a little over 200 pages.
So it's just my foray into fiction. And I've always liked,
like being a New Englander, I always loved witches and I always thought they
were misunderstood and maligned,
just like trans people are misunderstood and

(01:45):
maligned and people make assumptions about them
that usually aren't true so there's a lot of
that in the book so that's basically what i'm
what i'm working on now and trying to start graphic novel number three which
i have like so many ideas for that and like so many pieces of concept art for
like 10 different books that i have to pick one but i've also been getting a

(02:07):
lot into a watercolor painting so that's one thing i've been really really getting into just trying to,
I've always loved watercolor painting, but I never was really good at it.
So I've been just trying slowly, just trying to learn technique and get better at watercolor.
So I'm hoping that I can do a graphic novel in watercolor. So are you thinking

(02:28):
for your next project after the witch graphic novel, do you think you'll stay
in the world of fiction or do you think you'd do like more kind of nonfiction
memoir work about your life?
Well, the third person was 900 pages. And before I edited it,
it was actually 1200 pages originally.
And then I, the publisher didn't edit it. I edited it myself before I submitted

(02:50):
it from, because I'm like 1200 is just too long.
And the most I could narrow it down to is 900. so as
far as doing autobiographical stuff i'm a
little burned out and i think i pretty much
said i mean i'm sure that there's there's a
lot of other things i could write and tell about myself and
there's a lot of adventures and misadventures that i've

(03:11):
had you know as a trans person that you know
my my friend andy thinks would make great graphic novels
but a lot of them are just painful and personal that i
don't really want to get into and part of it is
just i'm a little little burned out from writing about myself i think
i think i've said pretty much all that i
care to say about myself at this point and i'm a little tired of writing

(03:32):
about and drawing myself but one thing that i'm
a lot of artists and writers acknowledge is that any work
that you do has an aspect of autobiography in
it anyway so anything you do like
in the the witch book that i'm doing like five of
the main characters all have aspects of myself now i.
Was really curious when I first heard you mention the trimming

(03:53):
down of those 300 pages and I think an
interview with Prism I know you don't look
to draw more of yourself in the future but have
you ever thought about giving those 300 pages a
second life elsewhere like online or in
a future creative project because I know you mentioned
that a lot of it was about like your work as an animator

(04:13):
and the creative process of making the
third person and like I'm a big enough fan of
the the book that i would love yeah any kind of bonus material
that was put out there oh thanks yeah there
was a lot of stuff that i personally really liked that i
had that i just chose to edit out like the when i
was reading the book there was like this whole like for a

(04:33):
little while like i was working in an animation studio in boston
for a few years and then i moved out telly and
tried to get more animation work and everything was switching to
computers and cgi so as a hand-drawn animator that was working in pen paper
and pencils I couldn't get work so that section I loved because I loved writing
about animation but the the problem is that it had nothing to do with the theme

(04:56):
of the book and the book just basically stopped dead when I reached that point and just
I was the only one that really found it interesting. And then the more I reread
it, the more even I found it was just kind of boring.
So I'd love to do something about my love affair with animation and how I trained
my whole life to be a Disney animator. And then it went away.

(05:17):
Disney didn't do hand-drawn animation and features anymore. And I was lost.
I didn't know what to do with my life. So for 10 or 12 years,
I was just kind of wandering and
doing odd jobs and just doing a bunch of things. I did children's books.
I wrote screenplays. I did comic strip collections.
For a year, I did an online comic strip on Tumblr, just trying to get myself out there.

(05:41):
And then I did a comic strip collection of, like, I came up with this character called Tom Calloway.
He was a Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood parody, where he was an abusive cop
that just beat everyone up.
And I didn't realize it at the time, but it was only,
like, months after I did this comic comic strip collection of this
abusive cop that I realized he was basically my

(06:01):
grandfather and then I was talking with my friend Andy
about it and I'm like wow there's a lot of things about my
grandfather that I'm getting out like the reason I'm writing this character
is because he's my grandfather I'm writing about how abusive he was and then
I'm like you know what there's a lot of things about myself I've never written
about so that book is what led me to doing the the third person and talking

(06:23):
about my grandfather and talking about when I had DID.
So it's now been almost two years since the book was released to quite a bit of praise.
And I'd love to know how it's since shaped your life as a former animator and an ongoing cartoonist.
Would you say it's changed your life at all having this book out there?

(06:44):
Honestly, I hate to say it, but not really. The only thing that my life has changed is...
Like when I go to the grocery store, I don't have to worry about like,
you know, because I have some savings and some money from the book.
I don't have to worry about like, can I afford to buy myself food,
which it was a concern I always had when I was broke and working.

(07:05):
Like when I was when I started the book, I was actually working full time at Sears.
I mean, that's, you know, I waitressed for nine years, you know,
it's I did like all these odd jobs that didn't they paid OK.
OK, but, you know, I was always struggling and it was always a struggle to pay
rent and bills, you know, so I do have savings now.
But, you know, like I took a couple of months off when the book got published

(07:28):
and did a lot of interviews and book signings. And then I just basically went
right back to my at the time I was working when the book got published.
I was working full time at a bank answering phones.
I just went right back to my job answering phones and then got another job.
So I've just been working and just doing what I always did, doing my art and writing on the side.

(07:48):
Now, I know you've mentioned that a lot of the motivation for writing this book
came from the desire to help others that may be in a similar position as you were back then.
And so as you've had a chance to meet readers of the book at book clubs or cons
or book fairs, I'd love to know what the reception has been like from other
systems or other people that have had D.I.D.

(08:11):
And others with similar experiences since the book's release.
The most rewarding a year ago, I did the Mice Festival in Boston,
and that was, I think, the most rewarding experience I've had.
It was two solid days my and i shared a
table with my with my best friend andy andy worked
on adventure time so he had a lot of adventure

(08:32):
time art he was a storyboard artist and he's done
a lot of things he's done character design storyboards
he's done his own graphic novels he's done
his own comic book and comic strip collections so he
he had a lot of his table was very full he
had big posters of Cartoon Network artwork and I
just had my book and that was all I had but the

(08:54):
reception I got from women and a couple of people
that had DID or were struggling with similar things just
talking with them was the most rewarding I think
just to know that they it meant something to them and they and it helped them
they got something out of it and then the second the end of the second day I
actually ended up talking to like another trans woman who is in the beginning

(09:17):
stages of our transition and and uh we just sat and talked for a half hour that was,
It was things like that, just making that connection with people that I think
that was the most rewarding two days I've ever had.
It was just, you know, it was really great. I did I did sell books,
but it wasn't really about the money. It was really just about connecting with people.
And I mean, by day two, I was exhausted, but I did as many free drawings for

(09:41):
people as I could. I'm like, here, here's a drawing.
That's beautiful. So, yeah, that was that was a lot of fun.
One of the things I admire about the comic is how much it's carried by its dialogue
and how even though it largely takes place in one location, it never feels visually dull.

(10:02):
I'd love to know how you went about drawing a familiar setting in so many panels
over 900 pages in a way that stays visually engaging for the reader.
I'm glad you said that because I didn't know if
that would get claustrophobic for people and a couple
of people on goodreads they're like they're a little sick of the talking
and the dialogue and when I was working on the book my

(10:24):
my sister actually discouraged me from
she's like nobody's going to want to publish this it's it's too
much talking it's too much therapy sessions but I believed in
the book what I was trying to do with the book was like
in the I was thinking about this the other day like one of
my favorite Disney movies is the jungle book and what
they accomplished in a couple of scenes in that book was where

(10:45):
the it was two characters talking there was a scene
of bagheera and blue talking and then right after
that there was one of mogli and blue talking those two scenes together you when
you're watching it you completely forget that you're looking at drawings that
you're looking that you're watching a film even you're just watching two characters
interacting and that's what i was going for with the book where even when i reread it,

(11:09):
I lose myself and I forget that I'm looking at ink drawings.
I'm just so engrossed in the person I call Toby as a character and his gestures
and what he's thinking, what he's feeling, and just the interaction between me and Toby.
So for me, that was my goal. So if I accomplish that, then that was what I was
striving for, for people to forget that they're looking at drawings and just

(11:31):
lose themselves in the interaction between these two characters.
Because as an animator, That was always my most exciting scenes.
I loved scenes of just two characters talking.
That was always my favorite scenes to animate, just two characters relating
and their expressions and their thought processes.
And one of the things that you do as an animator, at least this is what I train

(11:54):
myself to do, is to be constantly trying to communicate to the audience what
the character is thinking and feeling.
So that was a big focus in the book, trying to, like, all you have to do is
look at a drawing of Toby and you know what he's thinking, what he's feeling.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. And I like how a lot of the time when we see
the thought bubbles, there's a picture in there rather than just like an internal monologue.

(12:17):
But like that sense of claustrophobia people mentioned, I feel like really adds to it.
Like, I think the eight panel grids kind of help, but just that I feel like
we can feel your sense of like almost disrespected personal space every time
they're leaning way forward or seeming to jump from one place to another.
So I think it works to the story's advantage. advantage

(12:37):
oh thanks yeah and i intentionally kept the background
blank as often as i could because like for
example like there was a computer desk behind toby where
he was sitting but if i drew that not only would i have to
draw that literally thousands of times and like
but it would be distracting for the audience i just wanted
the or the reader rather to just focus on

(12:58):
the characters and that's it i didn't want anything to even
if there's a plant behind me or something or a wallpaper design i
didn't want anything that distracted from the two characters talking
that was that was my big focus but i
did worry that it would be claustrophobic so as as often
as i could i broke out of that space like if i
was walking around the city i'm like all right let me make this as big as

(13:19):
i can just get out of that space but there was just
no way around just being trapped in that space that
was just part of the book i think that kind of plays into my
next question because I wanted to ask about how like the book
is pretty consistently drawn in eight panel
grids on each page and drawn out
moments are often represented with multiple similar panels of the characters

(13:42):
and I know in many traditional comics longer moments are represented by larger
panels equating the length of a moment with its page space and I know your comic
occasionally Occasionally does that as well,
like for those moments in the city or a few moments when you leave the office
and we get a whole half page.
So I'd love to know how you decided which method to use depending on the moment.

(14:07):
So what I wanted was for, I wanted it to be a quick read and I wanted it to be an easy read.
What I wanted was for when you're reading the book, for the time that it takes
to read you to play out in the time that it would take somebody to say it.
So like I was thinking about this the other day, that if there was a pause of
two seconds, then I would do two panels because it takes about a second to look at a panel.

(14:31):
Or if there was a brief pause, then there was just one channel.
So just the pacing was very important. I wanted it to play out quickly in the
same time that it would take somebody to say it.
And again, that was just so that people would lose themselves in just the rhythm of the dialogue.
And the biggest thing I learned was once I started remembering everything,
because it was all locked away, the way I was able to remember all of the dialogue word for word,

(14:56):
there was only like out of all of the dialogue,
there's only about five sentences that i trimmed a
word or two out of just for because they were repetitive or
whatever um it was word for word what was said
so when i was going over the book with the the editor
at the publisher they wanted to grammatically correct things i'm like
i can't because that's what was said that's exactly

(15:17):
the wording they used so sorry i'm
blanking no i think that actually answers it pretty well
it gives me an idea of how like it seems like those multiple
blank panels are used used for a conversational rhythm
whereas like a lot of the larger panels you used
are usually for like almost a widescreen moment
of like something big from your childhood or like dramatically leaving toby's

(15:40):
office so that makes sense to me from how it's in the book oh yeah i remember
what i was going to say so what i was going to say is as an animator i never
looked at dialogue as words or talking i always looked at it as music like dialogue
has a natural rhythm conversations have have a rhythm.
When people are moving, it's not really like walking. It's more like a dance.
So one of the ways that I was able to remember all of the dialogue word for

(16:03):
word was I remembered the rhythm of the dialogue.
And a lot of that came from just being an animator.
And when you're working on a scene, having to remember, like if you're working
on a half hour animated show, just having all of that dialogue in your head
and just being able to remember it rhythmically.
So the rhythm of the dialogue is how I was able to remember so much of it word for word.

(16:27):
One thing I thought was admirable about the comic is that for the majority of
the graphic novel, I feel like the therapist referred to as Toby is treated
fairly sympathetically.
And it's not until towards the end when you start seeing the second more sympathetic
therapist that we see how flawed Toby's methods were.
Were was it an intentional decision not

(16:50):
to portray him as an outright bad guy until the
last section of the book or was that just a natural repercussion of
trying to keep the dialogue as close to what you
could recall as possible yeah i would say it was
a little bit of both not wanting to paint him as a villain because i don't i
don't think he was a villain he made mistakes but so did i and he was a flawed

(17:11):
person but so was i so one of the things that the publisher liked was that they're
like it it would have been so easy to just paint him in one dimensionally as
a villain. And you didn't do that.
And then part of it was just, there were a lot of things that I didn't understand
until I wrote the book because the therapy sessions actually like when I,
when I wrote them out and was remembering them, I didn't remember them chronologically.

(17:33):
So I would remember session five, session three, session seven.
And then I would go back and like fill in the gaps. And then I would slowly
piece together what exactly he meant.
I didn't understand a lot of what he was saying
so like a lot of things that he was saying that
I thought were attacks against me actually were not there was a lot of moments

(17:54):
like for example there's this one point in the book where I misunderstand what
he's saying and I think that he's implying that that he's threatening to have
me committed and then it wasn't until I wrote the book that I'm like oh that's
not what he was saying at all there were parts where he was inappropriate.
But the main thing I learned from writing the book was this was the biggest
lesson that I learned from the book was how flawed every single person in the

(18:18):
book is, including myself.
And I'm the most flawed in the book. And it really made me more forgiving towards everybody.
I'm like, we're all just so flawed and messed up. And, you know,
we do we make mistakes and we do things and we think that we're justified in
doing them. And they seem rational at the time.
And it's just we make mistakes. There's nobody. nobody
I'm not perfect and I don't know any perfect person have

(18:41):
you ever heard anything from this therapist since the
book's release or do you know if they're even aware of it
I haven't and I like when I
started the book I actually tried calling their
office and like they were away on sick leave or
something and I was too afraid to leave a message because
it just didn't end well and it wasn't until three

(19:02):
years after working the book that I even remembered how
I remembered that the last session didn't end
well and that I was basically like it
was over like I was forbidden from coming back in the office but
I couldn't remember why or what was said and it wasn't until the tail end of
work on the book that I even remembered so one thing I was afraid that I had

(19:23):
been really inappropriate or said something personal or attacked him personally
I found out thank God later that I didn't do that but I was so afraid that.
Because I was remembering everything as I was writing it. So one of my fears was like, I don't know.
I don't remember so much of what I said. Like, what did I say? What did I do?
And did you ever hear from other patients of Toby's to like,

(19:47):
see if some of his more out of line behaviors?
No, no. And I, and I honestly, I don't wish him ill.
I don't wish anyone ill. And I did this, this, the last therapist you see in
the book, I actually did call her when I had a copy of the book and sent her a copy of the book.
I don't know what she thought of it, but she, she was actually okay being in the book.

(20:07):
I hope she's okay being in it, but she was like, one thing I told her was like,
well, without you, there is no book because she was such a breath of fresh air.
And she was such a note of just calm sanity and just so kind and understanding
that without her, the book would have had a very different ending.
But I think there was, and again, there was things that I, I didn't remember
about her until I wrote it.

(20:29):
And then I was like, Like, wow, like there is there is just some of the things
she said were so kind that once I remembered them, I'm like,
wow, it was just just some very sweet memories.
So I hope that I haven't gotten her reaction of what she thinks about the book.
So the one thing that I think I might have gotten wrong as far as what she said
is one of the last things she says in the book is she's like someone should

(20:52):
write a book about how people use DID to cope with being trans. ends.
I think what she actually said was help people with dissociation.
I think that was her actual wordings.
On that note of disassociation, the book portrays a few moments of blacking
out for periods of time and other early signs of DID.

(21:14):
Were there any other significant moments like this in your early life that you
wanted to include in the book, but that didn't quite fit the book's narrative
or its focus on your therapy sessions?
Yeah, there's a lot of instances that I could have put in the book.
But again, it's just, it was so long.
And I really wanted to just focus on the relationship between me and Toby. That was the main focus.

(21:38):
I mean, I can relate a couple of them. There was a time when I was,
this happened a lot where like, I think I was in the kindergarten or the first
grade where like, I would, I showed up to school.
And I couldn't remember where I was, is where my classroom was.
I had no idea who anyone was.
And my teachers were flabbergasted. They're like, you've been showing up to class.

(21:59):
I think this was when I was in the first grade. They're like,
you've been showing up to class. They're like, what do you mean?
I'm like, I'm lost. I don't know where my classroom is.
I don't know why I'm here. I don't know how I got here.
There's a lot of instances peppered throughout my life.
And that happened when I was working as a server. And this is when I was in the book.
At a certain point, I stopped going into work as my alter ed,

(22:22):
and I started going in as my core self, Edgar slash Emma, even though I was
transitioning at the time and I had long hair, but I was still presenting as a guy.
But I'd never, and I know this sounds funny, but it's the truth.
I'd never worked my job. I'd been there a lot as Katina, but I'd never gone
in as Edgar slash Emma into work and worked a shift.

(22:42):
So like I went into work this one day and like I
was staring at the computer screen where we're ringing up orders and it
was like it was I was I'd literally never seen it before I
had no idea where anything is and my boss was like what's wrong with you
and I'm like I don't know where anything is somebody wants a hamburger and a
steak and I don't know she's like the screen hasn't changed since yesterday
what's wrong with you or there was a lot of times that I didn't include in the

(23:05):
book where I would leave Toby's office as Katina and I would basically wake up in my car as Emma.
And sometimes it was when I was driving that happened a couple of times where
I was actually driving on the road and I would phase out as Katina and wake up as Emma.
And I'd be like driving and I, and I'd all of a sudden I'd wake up as Emma and

(23:26):
I'm driving and I have no idea where I am.
And I had no memory. Like the last memory I had was sitting in Toby's office.
This that happened a lot I didn't include any of those
in the book for pacing and flow and stuff but um the
the very last session I had with him like I
did wake up I wasn't driving but the very last
session I had with him and this was one of the things that really helped me

(23:47):
to deal with being dissociative I'm like wow this isn't this is a serious problem
I have to deal with is I remembered the first maybe 20 minutes of the session
and then and then I woke up in my car And I had no memory of what I said,
what I did. I had no memory of how I got in my car.
And that happened a lot. But the last time it happened, I'm like,

(24:09):
all I knew was that I was forbidden from going to his office again. That's all I knew.
What really actually sparked me to finally get
help on my own and study dissociation and deal with this was the fear of not
knowing what I said to him in that last session and what I said or might have
done to him even that made him kick me out of the therapy session and be like, it's over forever.

(24:34):
I knew it was over forever, but I didn't know why and I didn't know what I said.
So that fear of not knowing what I said, not knowing what I might have done,
that terrified me so much.
And I'm like, I need to deal with this. They need to get help.
And then I found the dissociative identity disorder sourcebook and just started
to deal with, you know, I have this thing and I have to, I need help.

(24:55):
But that dissociative identity disorder sourcebook was amazing.
I mean, I can talk about that if you want. I think that'll be great,
especially for any listeners out there that might be going through something similar.
So if you'd like to speak more at length about the dissociative identity disorder
sourcebook, like I'm happy to promote important resources people should know about. out?
Yeah, it was a really helpful book for me. One of the first things it did at

(25:18):
the beginning was gave you questions to help you identify if you're dissociative.
Like, you know, have you ever lost, like it gave you checkboxes.
Like for example, one of them was time works funny for me, or sometimes I lose objects.
They just disappear, which you see in the book. You see it happen a couple of
times, once with a straw when I'm at a bar and then once with the library book,

(25:40):
which which was a big central chapter in the book.
You know, do objects disappear? Do you sometimes look at the clock and it jumps
two hours later and you have no idea what happened with that intervening two or three hours?
Are you obsessed with time? Things like that. And then it gives you exercises
where it teaches you how to, personally, I think the only way to.

(26:02):
I don't know if there's a cure for DID, but one of the ways to heal from being
dissociative and from trauma is,
I think, and what I learned is, and I learned this from the book Sybil,
which I read after seeing Toby, not before, which he accused me of,
but it wasn't until after I saw Toby that I'm like, I have to deal with this.
So one of the books I picked up was the dissociative identity disorder source

(26:25):
book. The other one was Sybil.
So one of the things that the therapist does with Sybil is she keeps going back
to the traumatic memories and helping her deal with them and process them and
not only deal with them mentally, but deal with them emotionally.
Because what happens is when you dissociate, like say you're six years old and

(26:45):
somebody does something horrible and traumatic to you, not only do you cut yourself off mentally,
but you cut off all emotions and you go what I call robot mode, which I did a lot.
So there's all these thoughts. So not only is the memory dead in your mind,
but all these emotions that you should have been feeling are still there.
You've just cut yourself off.

(27:06):
Of them. So one thing that happened when I started to remember all of these
things after seeing Toby was I would remember them not only mentally,
but I would remember them emotionally.
And all the things I should have been feeling in the moment came up.
The anger, the rage, the terror, the sorrow, the sadness, all of these things came up.

(27:27):
And I spent like two or three months just crying every day, just dealing with
these horrible memories that I barely cover in the book. There was a lot of
things I didn't include.
For example, my grandmother was very mentally abusive and my grandparents were both alcoholics.
There was a lot of physical abuse I just didn't put in the book.

(27:48):
I gave a CliffsNote version of.
A few instances, but there was so much that I just didn't even have the space.
It would have been another 900 page book that spanned, you know, a decade.
So just remembering all these things. And then I kept going back, back.
Back until I finally, after months and months and months and months,

(28:09):
remembered the first time I dissociated and I dealt with that and how I felt
about that, dealt with my emotions.
And then I'm like, all right, now I can move forward and start to heal.
And that that's when the healing process began but
this from the time that i came to grips with
the fact that i was dissociative until i finally started to
feel like one whole solid person it was

(28:32):
and honestly it wasn't until really i finished this
book so you're talking 13 years until i
finally felt like healed and i'm
still dealing with it in my own way sometimes but but
basically the point I'm at now is the walls between there's
no more walls between the parts of myself
so where I'm at right now is I'm just

(28:54):
one person all the time and I remember everything I
did as memories constantly come back to
me now like if I want to I can remember everything
I did as Ed now I can remember everything I did as Katina
but there's no walls separating the parts of myself anymore more but one thing
that i'm one carryover is that i still think of myself in the plural and it's

(29:15):
just something that i'm so used to that it's just a hard habit to break out
of like you know it's easier for me to say let's go do this or we should go
do that it's just more comfortable for me and.
Even though like i don't there's not any walls between the parts of myself i
still talked to the parts of myself like if i'm going to see a movie it's like
oh what do you think katina and oh maybe this is something I would like it's

(29:38):
just so I can connect with the parts of myself but there's no walls between them anymore,
On that note of the internal monologue and seeing yourself in the plural,
I was curious about the scenes in the book where we see you speaking with your alters.
I remember one in particular shows you and Katina speaking in that blacked out

(29:59):
space through a mirror specifically.
And I was curious if this is reflective of the inner world you experience or
if you've had any kind of like inner world where these dialogues would happen.
Or if that was something that was just stylized for
the comic so anything that you see in the book
is not made up like so at that moment i actually

(30:21):
was talking to myself in the mirror i actually was
talking to katina and we were having
a dialogue i mean it was a dark room so
the the one thing i i never actually
saw somebody physically next to
me and that's the the one artistic license i did do
like i'll give you an example there's this one

(30:41):
part in the book where i'm sitting on my futon and i'm
talking to ed and katina and they're both on
either side of me and i'm talking to them so i
actually did that that's not made up but i didn't actually physically see them
it was more like a present or there's this one point where and it's it's a person
but i felt a figure there like i felt like somebody was there sitting next to

(31:04):
me the only time i I actually saw something was there's the very,
very last moment when you see Katina
walk out of my life forever and walks through this darkened doorway.
In that moment, I actually did see a shadowy figure walk across the floor and
out that door and walk away out of my life.
And I don't know if that was a hallucination, if it was just a product of a

(31:25):
deranged mind or what, but I actually did physically see it was like a shadow figure.
And if you look at the cover of the book, when we were doing the art design
and stuff, The cover that I submitted, like when I submitted the book to the
publisher, they kept everything the same.
Everything that you see in the book on the cover, the graphic design,

(31:46):
the chapter list, everything was exactly how I pitched it.
Initially, they kept everything the same, even the cover. the one the editor
suggested she's like you know it might be nice if you put a shadow person,
on the side of katina on the cover that
might be nice and then we can do it in this graphic and then when she showed
me a picture of it it was scary because i'm like that's what i saw when she

(32:10):
walked out of my life so if you look at the cover of the book that shadow person
that's standing next to me on the cover that's what i saw when katina basically
walked out of my life forever.
But when I was like, for example, when I was talking to myself in the mirror,
I was having a conversation with Katina and I was looking at,
you know, I didn't actually physically see another person in the mirror,

(32:32):
but it's almost like you can feel the presence there.
Yeah. But talking in the mirror was the easiest way to just have an open conversation with her.
But a lot of it was like where you see it where it's like in a completely black space.
A lot of that just did happen in my mind where parts in my mind would come to
the surface or pull back and go away.

(32:53):
Or internally in my mind, they would have conversations.
So usually when you see me in a black space, it's because it's something that's going on in my mind.
Now in the preparation to publish
your first comic i know you've mentioned that you worked on
a few other either unpublished comics or like
little strips that maybe would just went on tumblr and a

(33:14):
250 page graphic novel memoir i'd
especially like to know about that last one there and how the previous 250 page
memoir relates to the third person yeah so one of the many things i did was
This was when I was seeing The Last Therapist, you see in the book. I wrote...

(33:35):
There were some illustrations, but all the illustrations were basically drawings
that I'd done when I was taking art classes in L.A.
When I was in L.A. trying to get a job as an animator, I took a lot of cheap
classes at the animators union.
Or if I did a drawing of a dream or something like that, I would put it in the book.
But yeah, I did do a... It was around 250 pages. It was a memoir called Spiders Are Stupid.

(33:59):
And it was basically about how I was living in this basement apartment and there
was all these spiders that were coming into the basement apartment and they
were just so easy to kill.
They were just laying out there like they didn't even try to get away.
So the gist of the book was that as a trans person, I was just always very mobile
and I was always moving around and just not settling anywhere because I was

(34:21):
afraid that if I settled anywhere, somebody would kill me.
They i'd get murdered or something bad would happen so
that was a precursor to the third person this was
years before i tackled it and then the um the
on tumblr the year-long comic i
did and i i eventually just ran out of steam it was just too much to keep up
a full-time job in the comic it was called mr v and it was basically about this

(34:45):
mean angry ebenezer scrooge guy who actually is the nicest guy in the comic
even though on the surface he seems like a a Grinch and an Ebenezer Scrooge.
And it come to find out he is like, he takes in a stray dog and nurses him back to health.
He gets a girlfriend who's, who comes out as transgender and he stays with her.
He has a roommate that comes out as gay and he stays and he supports him and defends him.

(35:08):
So it's like the whole point of the strip was to not judge things by their surface.
But just doing a daily comic every day really helped me to just get in the groove
of being able to work not sloppily, but quickly and accurately and,
So there was a lot of things like doing that year-long comic strip on Tumblr.
And I got way better at my lettering, things like that. I was doing that comic strip in Prismacolor.

(35:33):
And then when I started the third person, I really wanted to do,
I'd never done it before, but I really wanted to do the entire book,
including the lettering with an ink brush pen.
And it was the first time I'd done it. So the first chapter I did was the library book chapter.
So if you look at some of those drawings of Toby and me, they're pretty wonky.
Like i'm not quite figuring out and

(35:55):
then by the end of the book you can see that it's really polished
but it took me a year to really get good at
the ink brush pen but uh i'd love to redo that library
book chapter but the the problem is when
you redo artwork that has this spontaneity and
this freshness you can redo it and make it more professional
and polished but it'll lose that sense of

(36:15):
life that it had when you first put it down so even
though the drawings weren't perfect I just left them I cleaned them
up a little bit like I'm just not going to touch them they're not
perfect it's okay you know they're close enough to
what Toby looks like but it took me a long time to figure out how to draw Toby
in the end he ended up looking more like Charlie Brown than anything but that

(36:36):
was like my my big homage to Charlie Schultz whose volume of work that he did
over his lifetime was so inspiring like if you just look at the thousands and and thousands,
and thousands of pages that he did of Peanuts comic strips.
It's just what he did with the graphic medium and comic strips is.

(36:57):
I think anyone working in comic strips, comic books, owes him,
I mean, maybe not so much graphic novels, because I think people owe more to,
like, for autobiographical work,
more to people like Ellison Bedstall and Harvey Pekar,
and people that really broke through and did
serious autobiographical graphic novels but

(37:17):
as far as just the graphic medium of comics i mean
we also owe so much to charles schultz i mean he
was just he created a mold and just broke every mold and
he was a huge inspiration for me so you
see a lot of the charlie brown influence in the book and
again like so the minimalist thing was also inspired
by charles schultz the one thing that

(37:38):
inspired me about Charles Schultz is he never included anything
in the panel that didn't need to be there there was
nothing extraneous so if Lucy and Charlie Brown
were walking outside he would do a tuft of grass and a tree and that's that's
all you needed and you see them in the winter coats and their hats and that's
all you need you didn't need to see the village and the mountains and the other

(37:59):
houses and a lot of that was influenced by UPA this animation studio that was
just very very minimalist.
So that was a big inspiration was just deciding what's in the panel and,
you know, just not just throwing everything in there. It's like, no, I'm choosing what I.
The audience is looking at. And another graphic decision in the book was one

(38:21):
thing I don't like about a lot of graphic novels is they're too busy.
So after like a few pages, your
eye just gets tired. It's just too much information. It's too jumbled.
The lettering is too hard to see. You're just jumping all over the place.
So I intentionally wanted empty space just to give the audience breathing room.
So if there's a really crowded panel, then the next page I tried to have it

(38:44):
open and airy, just to allow people to read.
So a lot of that got into the pacing, but just wanting to just not tax the reader,
just make it an easy read.
So one thing that I really like that people have said is that it's a breezy
read, and it's a fast read. And that was all intentional.
So that makes me happy that people have said that, because that was all I intentionally wanted that.

(39:05):
On the note of your inspirations, and also your interests and passions,
the book mentions how Now, your different alters had different levels of interest,
like Katina liking to go out and party, Emma liking to read,
and Ed being like the worker bee.
Now that you've processed a lot of what you were going through back then and

(39:27):
are now on the other side of it without all the walls between the different
parts of yourself, I'd like to know how that's affected the ways you spend your free time.
And I'm curious if you would still say you're much like the Emma we see in the
book, or if you've taken on more traits of those other parts.
Yeah, honestly, I'd like to be more like a teen, but I'm not.

(39:48):
I can stand up for myself when I need to, which I didn't have the ability to do.
One thing that I that I had to edit out of the book that I did want to include
was when that part of me walked out of my life.
There was about seven years or more where when she left, she took those aspects
of herself that I needed, like the aspect of being able to tell people off,

(40:12):
stand up for myself and just have fun and dance.
And then it wasn't until I started working on the book, the third person book,
that it was almost like she came back.
But I wasn't dissociative anymore and I wasn't a separate person.
Person just all of the aspects of her it
was almost like a gift she was giving me she's like i'm not

(40:34):
in your life anymore but here's everything that i taught you here's
everything that i did when i was in your life when i was sharing your body sharing
your brain so like all of a sudden i could the the reason that the book ends
with me like dancing is because it's something like a whole person basically
from working on the book there's something i could do again but because i'm
kind of older now, I'm actually pretty boring.

(40:56):
I work my job, I play a lot of computer chess, I do a lot of painting and drawing and writing, and I.
I think I'm more like, I'm much more like the Emma you see in the book.
And also a lot of the aspects of Ed just, you know, just really focused on work.
And a lot of that is just getting older.
You know, it's just, you know, I'm just kind of old and tired.

(41:18):
And a lot of it is just, you know, I've kind of been through a lot,
like dealing with the dissociative identity disorder and healing from that was hard.
And it was like, honestly, it was doing the 900 page
book was a breeze compared to healing from the dissociation and DID and the
trauma and the abuse and just the trauma of having to present as something I'm

(41:42):
not for so long and having to do the guy thing when it was just never a fit for me.
And it worked for so many people, but it just never worked for me. It never felt natural.
I was always, I could never just say what came naturally to me.
I could never do what came naturally to me. I could never move in the way that came naturally to me.

(42:04):
And just having to always edit myself like that was just exhausting.
So a lot of it is just being old and just getting older and just being a little
just tired and a little worn out from dealing with all these things.
As for other major pieces of your life that may have helped you get through
a lot of that, I know in the book, you mentioned God being a major part of your

(42:28):
life and part of your your sense of self or seeing God as part of yourself.
And we even see you then in the 2019 section, still attending church.
If it's not too personal, do you mind if I ask if God is still a major part of your life?
I would say yes, but I'm not, I still, I'm Catholic and I still consider myself a Catholic.

(42:49):
I, I've turned away from, from God a few times in my life where I'm like, I don't need him.
And then I realized quickly that, no, I do need God in my life.
And without God in my life, I, I tend to just not, I just feel lost without.
So the one thing that like I'm sad about was like, I stopped going to church when COVID struck.

(43:10):
And I haven't had the courage to go back because I was just so afraid of just being in a public space.
So I'd like to start going back to church again. So yeah, I do consider that.
I mean, there's two things that I'm very glad that I included in the book.
One of them is that I mentioned God because that was important for me and basically
defend him, which was also important, but also to mention my mom,

(43:33):
which that's a whole other story.
And I've thought about doing a book about about her life
and and how she died and but it's just honestly too
heartbreaking and i'm just not in a place to do it but um
so the two things i'm glad that i that i included in the
book are how much of an influence my mom was on my just even wanting to be an
artist i used to look at she was she was honestly one of the best natural gifted

(43:59):
artists that i've ever seen she had this just confidence she used to there was
like in our garage our garage had this I don't know what you call it,
but it was like this tan colored wallboard type stuff.
And she just did all these drawings of like women and devil and angel costumes
and Archie inspired drawings of women.
And she just whipped them out. Just she had this confidence in her line.

(44:21):
And I remember she did this oil painting once.
It was this little or it was like a little pastel of like squirrels that she
just happened to draw one day.
And like for years, I just kept I don't know what happened to it.
But for years, I just stared at it.
It was just such a beautiful. It was just something she just did she just one
day she just saw some squirrels and just did a pastel drawing of them and it was just so perfect and.

(44:42):
So she was, honestly, I spent a lot of my teenage years just wanting to honestly
draw as well as she could draw, just with that confidence.
So she was a big inspiration for me.
And she died when I was three, and she was only the ripe age of 29.
There's other factors that led to her death, but she was an alcoholic.

(45:04):
But I'm actually curious why nobody has ever asked more about her in the book
when they interview me. Like, you know, what happened to your mom?
How did she die? and the last story I had
of my mom was that she was she had handed
over custody of of me and my sister to my grandparents and
she was working as a waitress and trying to get
sober trying to get her life together trying to

(45:25):
get her kids back and the last story I
heard was that she got pneumonia and died but there
was like for my whole childhood there was this mystery about how
she died and our grandparents wouldn't didn't want
to talk about her they wouldn't tell us so I'm not
exactly sure exactly how she died that's
the latest story i heard from other relatives that

(45:45):
i saw years ago but again i wasn't there so i don't exactly know but i thought
about doing a book where i research exactly how she died in her life and her
wanting to be an artist but again it was just too heartbreaking i just it was
just too sad just to see somebody that kind of talent die at 29.
With her whole life ahead of her i mean really was just

(46:07):
it's just too heartbreaking thank you you for sharing that that was very
personal and like I know that's not deeply
explored in the book but like it is certainly
kind of a hanging mystery that's left there and since it's
clear you're so young when it's mentioned I can see how many other interviewers
might think that like yeah I mean when you're getting kind of dismissed at the
age of three or four I I feel like the memories you've managed to recollect

(46:31):
over the years are surprisingly clear so I'm always surprised to hear these early bits come up and.
I think that'd certainly make for a fascinating project or some kind of follow-up researching her.
But thank you for opening up about something so personal and painful in that.
Yeah, I would like to. I'm glad that I honored her at least a little bit in the book.

(46:52):
And I do feel bad that I portrayed her as, you know, the one drawing you really
see of her is when she's, you know, drunk and passed out.
But she actually was a very beautiful woman.
And so I do feel bad that that's the only drawing you see of her.
But I did try to honor at least that I greatly respected her as an artist.
As far as other artists you respect,

(47:13):
for readers that strongly identify with the experience shared in the third person
or have read the third person and are left wanting more like it,
what would you recommend for further reading,
both in the realm of graphic novels and in other forms of writing?
I mean, one of the biggest inspiration for me in doing a not a biographical

(47:36):
graphic novel was Alison Bechtel's Fun Home.
I think that as far as graphic novels go, I'm trying.
And like I try that Alison Bechtel, I think is the real her writing is on.
I just think that's just a phenomenal book that I never get tired of reading.
And just the courage that she had in doing this and being so open and so honest.

(47:57):
I just think her work is phenomenal. I mean, honestly, I don't read a lot of,
I don't know how this sounds, but I don't read a lot of graphic novels.
I don't know, because I'm mainly, I'm an animator at heart, so my favorite comic
books are the original 1960s and 1970s Asterix comics from France.
And he was an aspiring, he always wanted to work for Disney.

(48:20):
When I was a kid, I loved the Uncle Scrooge comic books.
Books i've never read the harvey p car american splendor
books but but i just love that he was i think
the maybe i'm talking out of my hat but i believe he
was the first person to really just do everyday autobiographical
stuff and um just have the courage to be like look this
is just real life unedited so he broke a

(48:43):
lot of ground doing that so you know just like we owe
a lot to charles schultz we owe a lot to him i know
i think his work has been hard for me to to pick up just because
so many artists worked on his stuff that um
there's so many different graphic novelists that you know
robert crumb is obviously the most well-known artist
that did his stories but maybe it's just that inconsistency just kind of threw

(49:05):
me off that it was if it was just one artist always telling his story i think
i'd be more inclined to pick up the books but um i love the movie though american
splendor was a fantastic movie even Even though I hear it didn't portray Robert Crumb accurately.
He didn't like his portrayal and his wives didn't like it either.
They're like, that's not the Robert Crumb we know.
Sorry, I'm rambling a little bit. No, these are all helpful suggestions.

(49:29):
Like the first time I read the third person was within a couple months of having
read Blankets by Craig Thompson for the first time.
And both of those were my first time reading like these massive autobiographical
kind of graphic novel memoirs. memoirs.
And I'm someone who was raised very much on superhero comics and traditional American comics.

(49:50):
So getting exposed to something so different than what I was used to has been really eye opening.
And I feel like graphic novels don't have the same like
I mean, superhero comics at Marvel and DC and one or two other companies that you really get from.
But there's just so much more in the realm of graphic novels and not the same
channels of learning about what's new, what's great.

(50:12):
So I'm always on the lookout for other things I should read that'll really expand my horizons.
And I feel like your suggestions really do that.
Like I hadn't considered American Splendor before, but I'll certainly be keeping
an eye out for that going forward.
Word yeah i mean one of the things that inspired
me to write the the third person book was i wanted
to there was a lot of autobiographical books about

(50:34):
dissociation but i couldn't find one that showed
visually and graphically what it felt like to be
to go through dissociation so that was the
hardest part of the book was to try to
figure out how to show people graphically what it felt like like
this is how it feels to be dissociative and you
know i think i could have pushed it it further but i did

(50:55):
my best you know i mean i i wanted to
actually make the book more confusing more disorienting but
it just would have been and then have people literally
have to put all the pieces together like you know
like for example the to do one whole section
where it's just katina's memories and one whole section where it's just emma's
memories and then the audience has to like kind of do the piece but it was just

(51:18):
i didn't want to confuse people that much but that's but But that's basically
how I did the book is just I remembered I would remember what I did as Katina.
And then two days later, I'd remember what I did as Emma and just had to piece
them together like a puzzle.
I'm sorry to get back to him. Yeah, no, please. No need to apologize.

(51:39):
I love hearing about the process. But for our listeners that would like to keep
tabs on your future work and stay up to date when your next graphic novel does release.
Is there anywhere that they can
follow you online like if you're still on tumblr or are
you on any other social media where you talk about
your work so this is a problem with me personally is i'm

(52:00):
not i'm not good at social media and i'm not good at i'm not good at networking
i'm i mean all honestly all i'm really and i'm such a traditionalist that all
i'm really good at is sitting down with paper and pencils and ink brushes and
paint and just working on paper i'm not i'm not good at social social media.
So it's not that I'm being snobbish and it's not that I don't want to connect with people.

(52:23):
It's just, I'm just so bad at it. I'm just, I wouldn't say I'm exactly a lewdite.
I don't mind using technology for certain things, but I'm just not, I'm just not good at it.
I'm just not adept at it. I mean, I can work, you know, for my job,
for my day job, I have to work on a laptop all the time and I have to navigate
online and computer programs,

(52:44):
but I'm just not not a social media person and that actually that when the book got published.
One frustrating thing for me is that the only way for people to contact me is
to contact my publisher because I don't have a website.
I didn't even put an email address anywhere in the book. And again,
that wasn't because I was trying to alienate myself from people.
It was just I was so busy writing the book and then editing it and then doing

(53:08):
the final proofs. And then before I knew it, the book was at the printers.
And I'm like, oh, I didn't put any way for people to contact me. so
for all I know people have been contacting me
with offers to do whatever and maybe I
just haven't gotten it or so it's a
problem I should probably be more social media
savvy so that people can at least contact me I don't mind people contacting

(53:32):
me and I would like to be more connected with other people and I'm kind of an
open book so it's not like that I'm being like snobbish it's just uh you know
I still work a day job and then I come home and I just sit down with with paper
and pencils and just do my artwork.
And that's like, you know, I go on, I have a laptop that I, I play computer
chess, you know, I watch YouTube videos and I check my email.

(53:54):
That's pretty much my day.
I know you're not alone in that. And I personally am a, I'm the computer science trans stereotype.
So if you ever want help setting up a website, let me know me or many others
I know would be happy to help.
And I mean, if nothing else, like I've genuinely
loved the third person since like I was starting to research trans comics and

(54:15):
graphic novels it's been one that I've been singing the praises of since this
podcast started so whenever you are ready with your next graphic novel and have
your publication figured out I will certainly be promoting it here and happy
to have you on again to talk about it.
Oh, thanks. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so I haven't done another autobiographical
graphic novel, just because I think I'm a little burned out.

(54:37):
Yeah, talking about myself. So I wanted to just kind of do fiction for a while
and then see how that goes.
But yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that I'll never do another autobiographical
one or do things that I wasn't able to include in the third person.
And also, like, I'm not a very self-centered person.
I don't believe even though I did a 900 page book about myself,
I don't really enjoy talking about myself.

(55:00):
Like, even though I've done it, like, you know, in this interview.
So I think I for now, I said pretty much all that I have to say about myself,
like when not to compare myself to her, but for the To Kill a Mockingbird,
who I can't I'm blanking on who wrote that.
Harper Lee. Harper Lee. Yeah. So when Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird,

(55:21):
which is still considered an American classic, people, I mean,
it's still a bestseller.
You know, a lot of people were saying like, you know, why don't you write another
book? And she's like, well, I said what I had to say.
She was like, I did it. So in a way, as far as autobiographies,
for now, at least, I feel like I did have something, a lot of things to say, and I kind of said it.
So now I'm wanting to tell other

(55:42):
kind of stories for now. And I think I'm just a little bit burned out.
This, this writing the book was such an emotional journey that I think I just needed, I think I did.
I think I'm just a little bit burned out for right now, but maybe one day I'll
get into autobiographical stuff again.
Thank you again though, Emma, for making the time to come on the show.
I'm really glad we were able to get ahold of each other. And I had the opportunity to talk about this.

(56:07):
Like, I feel like I've gotten like an hour of bonus material on one of my favorite graphic novels.
So it's been great to get so much more of the story in conversational form than I would have.
Reading the comic well thank you I'm so glad that you like
the book I mean as artists and writers I mean I can't
sing my own praises the book all I can say is as an artist and a writer this is
what I'm trying to do the only one that can say if I achieved anything is the

(56:30):
people that have read it so that means a lot to me thank you if the listeners
at home have requests or recommendations for comics or creators you'd like us
to cover in the future you can send them our way on social You can find us on
the Transcending Comics Instagram and Facebook page, on Twitter as at Transcend Comics,
or email us at TranscendingComics at gmail.com.
We'd like to thank you again for giving our podcast a chance and give a special

(56:53):
shout out to Ray Day Parade for designing our logo.
Our intro music this week is A Little Soul by Carlson. You can check out more
of his music on Carlson.com.
Our outro is a self-played cover of 99 Red Balloons by Nina. This one's for Katina.
Join us again next week as we continue Transcending Boundaries and exploring
the colorful world of trans, non-binary, and genderqueer representation in comic books of all kinds.

(57:17):
As the curtains fall on this episode of Transcending Comics,
remember that comics have the power to inspire change in countless worlds, including our own.
Keep reading, keep writing, and keep transcending.
Music.