Jillian Tamaki (born April 17, 1980) is a Canadian American illustrator and comic artist known for her work in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' in addition to the graphic novels ''Boundless'', as well as ''
Skim'' and ''
This One Summer
''This One Summer'' is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki published by First Second Books in 2014. It is a coming of age story about two teenage friends, Rose and Windy, during a summer in Awago, a small be ...
'' written by her cousin
Mariko Tamaki
Mariko Tamaki (born 1975) is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels '' Skim'', ''Emiko Superstar,'' and ''This One Summer'', and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction."Mariko Tamaki". CBC Radio, '' The Next ...
.
Early life
Tamaki was born in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, and grew up in
Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
. She attended
Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School and went on to study Visual Communication Design and graduate from the
Alberta College of Art and Design in 2003. After graduating art school, she worked at the video game company
BioWare and later taught illustration at the New York City
School of Visual Arts.
Influences and themes
Tamaki read
Archie
Archie is a masculine given name, a diminutive of Archibald. It may refer to:
People Given name or nickname
*Archie Alexander (1888–1958), African-American mathematician, engineer and governor of the US Virgin Islands
* Archie Blake (mathematici ...
comics and newspaper strips as a child. She submitted outfit designs into contests for
Betty & Veronica comics. Her parents also had anthologies of other popular comics, including
Far Side
''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealis ...
,
Calvin and Hobbes, and
Herman. In high school she made zines for fun, but she had stopped reading comics after outgrowing Archie. Her interest in alternative and indie comics began while she attended college. Some of her favorite comics during this time include Bipolar by
Tomer Hanuka and
Asaf Hanuka
Asaf Hanuka ( he, אסף חנוכה; born 1974) is an Israeli illustrator and comic book artist, notable for his autobiographical comic ''The Realist''. He is twin brother of illustrator Tomer Hanuka.
Career
During his mandatory army service he ...
, a few
Drawn & Quarterly artists including
Julie Doucet,
Chester Brown, Seth,
Michel Rabahliati, as well as books by
Will Eisner
William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was no ...
. She began making mini-comics after graduating in 2003, and her very first mini-comic appears in her first book, Gilded Lilies, which was published in 2006. Tamaki often acknowledges her influences as inspirations for beginning her work as they helped her learn the basics of cartooning. She also worked on boarding for the popular television show "
Adventure Time
''Adventure Time'' is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and ...
".
As a self-proclaimed feminist, Tamaki is often questioned about the role this plays in her work. She also grew up in an area of Canada where she was the only mixed-race child in her school. In multiple interviews, Tamaki explains that her identity shapes the lens that she sees through, but she does not make conscious effort to work these themes into her illustrations and designs. She is interested in the female experience and viewing women as whole human beings in an industry that often sexualized women’s bodies. Being shaped by feminism and race, her work aims to include diverse characters that readers can better identify with.
Career
''Gilded Lilies'' (2006) is Tamaki's first published book and is a collection of Tamaki's illustrations and comic strips. The first part of the book comprises a carefully selected assemblage of paintings, personal drawings, illustrations and comics. The second part consists of a wordless
graphic narrative titled ''The Tapemines,'' which tells the story of two children in a surreal landscape featuring "forests of
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
".
''
Skim'' (2008) is a critically acclaimed
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
illustrated by Jillian and written by her cousin
Mariko Tamaki
Mariko Tamaki (born 1975) is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels '' Skim'', ''Emiko Superstar,'' and ''This One Summer'', and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction."Mariko Tamaki". CBC Radio, '' The Next ...
. It tells the story of a young high-school girl and touches on themes of friendship, suicide, sexuality, and identity.
''Indoor Voice'' (2010) collects Tamaki's drawings, illustrations and comic strips and is part of publisher ''
Drawn & Quarterlys Petit Livre series. The majority of the book is printed in black and white, but it also features some colour illustrations. ''Indoor Voice'' was released to mixed reviews.
"Now & then & when" (2008), a drawing with ink and graphite, was purchased by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
in 2011. Within a two-panel horizontal, she depicted herself as a central, monumental figure, flanked by smaller full length figures of herself from infancy to adulthood on the left, from middle age to elderly on the right. Tamaki's variation on the theme with figures in bathing suits, related vignettes and speech balloons, presents an updated counterpart to the demure figures and texts of artistic precedents.
''
This One Summer
''This One Summer'' is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki published by First Second Books in 2014. It is a coming of age story about two teenage friends, Rose and Windy, during a summer in Awago, a small be ...
'' (2014) by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki is a graphic novel that centres on the experiences of close friends Rose and Windy, who are on the cusp of adolescence, during a summer holiday. ''This One Summer'' won a 2014
Ignatz Award, the 2015
Printz Honor and
Caldecott Honor awards, the 2015
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...
and the 2014
Governor General's Awards for Children’s Literature — Illustration category.
In 2015,
Drawn & Quarterly published ''SuperMutant Magic Academy,'' a collection of Tamaki's web comic of the same name from 2010 to 2014. Previously, these comics won an
Ignatz Award in 2012 for Outstanding Online Comic.
[
In June 2017, Drawn & Quarterly published Tamaki's graphic novel ''Boundless'', a collection of short stories. The book received rave reviews. A review in The Atlantic described the book as "an ambitious and eclectic set of tales, hatfocuses on the interior lives of unexpected subjects." Other reviews called ''Boundless'' a "picture-perfect" collection and as "a showcase for Tamaki’s mercurial style." NPR and ]Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
named ''Boundless'' as one of the best graphic novels of the year.
Tamaki hand-embroidered three book covers for Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
. The covers were designed for three classic literature books: Emma by Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
, The Secret Garden
''The Secret Garden'' is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in ''The American Magazine'' (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and ...
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Anna Sewell (; 30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878)''The Oxford guide to British women writers'' by Joanne Shattock. p. 385, Oxford University Press. (1993) was an English novelist. She is known as the author of the 1877 novel ''Black Beauty'', her ...
. In her free time, she also makes quilts as a hobby.
In September 2020 Tamaki published '' Our Little Kitchen'', an illustrated book about preparing fresh food, for children.[
]
Controversy
Tamaki became the center of controversy when Mariko Tamaki alone was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for ''Skim''. The comics community and others circulated an open letter to the Awards Committee that argued for Tamaki as a co-nominee, which was signed by notable comics artists such as Lynda Barry
Linda Jean Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist.
Barry is best known for her weekly comic strip ''Ernie Pook's Comeek''. She garnered attention with her 1988 illustrated novel ''The Good Times are Killing Me'', about an interr ...
, Dan Clowes, and Julie Doucet. They state in the letter: "In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative. The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text. Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn’t see the drawings. Jillian’s contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration: she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was."
''This One Summer
''This One Summer'' is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki published by First Second Books in 2014. It is a coming of age story about two teenage friends, Rose and Windy, during a summer in Awago, a small be ...
'', created by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, ranked #1 on the list of top ten most banned and challenged books in the US in 2016. The main reasons this book was challenged were for its LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, sexually explicit content, and mature themes.
Awards
Bibliography
*
* ''Indoor Voice''. (Drawn & Quarterly, 2010)
* ''Frontier #7: SexCoven''. (Youth In Decline, 2015)
* ''SuperMutant Magic Academy''. (Drawn & Quarterly, 2015)
* ''Boundless''. (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017)
*''They Say Blue''. (Abrams, 2018)
* ''Our little kitchen''. Groundwood Books, 2020
* [Title in the online table of contents is "My grandfather's memories of life before internment".]
Co-created with Mariko Tamaki
* '' Skim'' (Groundwood Books, 2008)
* ''This One Summer
''This One Summer'' is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki published by First Second Books in 2014. It is a coming of age story about two teenage friends, Rose and Windy, during a summer in Awago, a small be ...
'' (First Second Books; Groundwood Books, 2014)
As illustrator
* ''Gertie's Leap to Greatness'' by Kate Beasley (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2016)
* ''My Best Friend'' by Julie Fogliano (Atheneum, 2020)
As editor
* '' The Best American Comics 2019'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019)
References
External links
*
Author profile at Walker Books
Interview at ''The Comics Journal''
(July 2011)
Tamaki at ''Drawn & Quarterly'' Artists
Feature at ''It's Nice That''
(August 2012)
Super Mutant Magic Academy
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tamaki, Jillian
1980 births
Living people
Artists from Calgary
Artists from Ottawa
The Believer (magazine) people
Canadian cartoonists
Canadian children's book illustrators
Canadian female comics artists
Canadian graphic novelists
Canadian people of Japanese descent
Female comics writers
Governor General's Award-winning children's illustrators
The New Yorker people
Writers from Calgary
Writers from Ottawa
21st-century Canadian women artists