But for me, her actions are less about gender and more about what the role of billionaire CEO requires, which is a staggering level of self-interest and narcissism, and very low levels of empathy. When I was writing it, it did occur to me that some people might get annoyed at the cliche of a female professional not being a good mother (very 00s rom-com). How do you see Michelle’s gender playing into her character? We judge her as a mother, for instance, in a way we might not judge a guy in the same role as a father. I think Michelle as a kind of girl boss Musk or Bezos is an interesting character. Katie is scrambling in a shared room to survive in a gig economy, her old friend Emma has a salaried tech job and attending stress, and her billionaire boss Michelle is a visionary and terrible tech giant. Gender roles and expectations are front and center in this comic, and we see women of different socioeconomic statuses interacting with each other a lot. This results in many small panels! It also gives the story a chaotic and restless vibe, and as you say, a feeling of compression, which adds another layer to the storytelling. The book is made up of lots of small moments – my characters tend to speak colloquially, in short bursts, with lots of hesitation and pauses. Can you talk about how your layout style developed for this project? Looking at your “making of” pages at the end, it looks like you started out with more traditional rectangular panels with narrow spaces between them. Thank *you*! A pleasure! The lozenge style of the panels was great for this story, as it felt claustrophobic, and like I wasn’t getting the whole picture - which, of course, I wasn’t. McGovern’s art in Twelve Percent Dread generally appears in capsule-like panels, as though the reader is scrolling through a social media page with lots of bite-sized updates from multiple people, and it builds tension through these snapshots to a monumental ending.Įmily McGovern chatted with WWAC about her process, goals, and toxic girl bosses.Įmily, thanks for doing this interview! I know it’s a busy time and I hope the UK launch is going great for you.
Drawing on some of McGovern’s own life experience as a tutor for a millionaire family right after she graduated from college, it’s also about the intersections between those worlds. It’s also about a tech giant making terrible ethical decisions, and how their employees become complicit.
It’s about roommates and former couple Katie and Nas, scrambling to get Nas’s visa approved and to survive in the gig economy. Emily McGovern’s latest graphic novel, Twelve Percent Dread, might increase your personal dread percentage, even as it entertains.
0 kommentar(er)
