'MY' WORDCON 2-PART 1

It’s time for WordCon 2, a three-day event organised by Melbourne Polytechnic, that offers a series of lectures and encounters with people outside school, but related to the writing and publishing field.

To open the event, there is Simon McKeown, an architect but also a graphic novels writer, interviewed by one of my teachers, the journalist Robyn Doreian. Graphic novel is a genre that I really interested in. I want, in fact, to write and illustrate books for which I create also the text.

Simon brings with him his last work, The True History of the Whipstick Sound. I am curious to know what this story is about and to see the illustrations. But I’m late.

I’m never late to events of this sort. In fact, today I was incredibly earlier than usual, more than one hour before its commencement. This was not intentional; I simply didn’t properly check the schedule posted everywhere at the university walls.

So, I decide to go to the library and spend some time writing. When I look at the time again, ten minutes has already passed since the supposed beginning of the meeting. By the time I collect all my stuff, another five minutes fly. Well, conferences never start punctually, right?

Wrong!

When I reach the conference room, the door is closed and the light inside lowered; the journalist and the interviewee give me their back. The interview has started without me.

I enter trying to make as little noise as possible; I quietly take a seat while I damn myself for being late.

“Focus Lucia, focus! You can still catch up!”

The projector is displaying a page of the book. I like Simon’s style; it reminds me some comic illustrators whose names I can’t remember, and some animated cartoon I used to watch a long time ago, broadcasted on MTV.

In black and white, the illustrations definitely show hand ability, but they are not perfect; yet, they are able to give sense and credibility. There is something that makes them unique, a personal style.

I can tune into the conversation ongoing, because the question hits my attention.

“Are they [illustrations] hand made?”

And the answer fulfills me.

“Yes, there is very little of use of Photoshop, but it is all manually made, scanned and reduced in size.”

We live in a world where everything is becoming digital, where everything is made through technology and fast, where illustrations are realised mostly by computer—although an artistic flair and ability at drawing is still fundamental. In a world like the one where we live, Simon’s work becomes remarkable and unusual.

Illustrations completely made by hand and scanned belong to the past; this is what I heard many times, from lecturers and illustrators passed by this course. However, they admit that there are some circumstances where methods of the past still survive. With my great pleasure, Simon McKeown is a proof of it.

This gives me hope; drawing and painting on paper and then scanning is exactly what I do. Having to renounce this for the sake of technology and for going with the mainstream would be disappointing. I might be old-fashioned, but paper, tangible drawings and painting are my enjoyment, the essence of this form of art that should never die.

Despite my delay, I’m able to catch up with the conference; but I still miss an important thing: what The True History of the Whipstick Sound is about?

There is only a way to discover it: I go to the library and I grab a copy!