Tuna Sandwiches

The excellent folks at Scottish Book Trust got in touch with me at the beginning of October to ask if I would adapt a short story for Book Week Scotland into a comic. In the lead up to BWS, they run a programme called Scotland’s Stories. Every year they pick a theme and put out an open call to the people for true stories relating to it. This year the theme is Friendship and I was assigned the moving and poignant ‘Tuna Sandwiches’.

I don’t often draw comics based on other people’s prose. It’s an honour and a big responsibility to visually interpret another writer’s words. This sketchbook spread shows a little of my thought process. I tried to choose a part of the story that would most readily accept images, making delicate cuts to help the rhythm of the piece flow visually.

I like to work in layers. Putting notes and sketches and little paintings on top of one another. Then, through the clutter and the noise, themes, core images and colours begin to make themselves known.

For this commission, the comic has to work both in a book and as a swipeable Instagram post. I kept it quite simple. I like squares and as I still work mostly in analogue, I like things that fit satisfyingly onto a single page.

I chose to draw animal characters because then I don’t have to worry about not knowing what the people in the story look like. These little cats and dogs first started showing up in comics about Palestine and now I’m drawing them more and more.

I ordered the images around a little journey to lead the reader through the world with me.

As I wasn’t illustrating the whole piece, I tried to refer to little details in some of the panels. Note the wholegrain bread and ‘80s dad jumper. I regret not having the narrator’s face looking the other way in the third panel. The comic stutters over this decision.

It’s so strange, the orchestration of moving over a page in time to a story.

This was all that was left of the black pencil I was using at the end. I wear things down to nubs. I give myself cramp and sore fingers and arms trying to draw with the sad memory of what was once a crayon. I think it’s a weird manifestation of my hyperfocus.

My pencil case is filled with unusable nubs but I hate throwing them out. They’re the ghosts of everything I’ve drawn.

I urge you to read the whole of the original story on Scottish Book Trust’s website.

It is a joy and a privilege to be trusted with someone else’s words. I hope I was able to do them justice.