Lezley Davidson is a cartoonist and storyteller from Ontario, Canada. She is the creator of the webcomic PEELING ONIONS, and her website is home to a fascinating array of art tutorials, motivational posts and marketing strategies for creative types. You can find it at: www.lezleydavidson.com. CBI reporter Dino Caruso recently interviewed the Canadian native about her career in comics…
DC: Have you always been a comic book reader, or did you come to it more recently? Any notable favourite books or creators that you gravitated toward when you were first starting out as a fan?
LD: When I was young I read the standards; Archie digest, Mad and Crackked magazines, but I came to comics pretty late – I was 27 when I really got the bug. One of my staff was an avid comic fan and brought tpbs in to work all the time. He’d tried in the past to get me to read them because he was sure that I would love them, but I refused. To me, comics were superheroes in tights and too much lycra covered t ‘n’ a for comfort. One day at work I’d forgotten my book to read on my lunch and my comic loving staff member happened to have the first issue of Sandman with him… and a love affair with comics was begun.
In the beginning I devoured the whole Sandman series, and then anything related to Sandman – all the Death books, Lucifer,Thessaly, The Books of Magic… Luckily, my neighbourhood comic book store had a very pro-indie employee who introduced me to great stuff like Y: The Last Man, Strangers inParadiseand auto bio creators like Chester Brown and Guy Delisle.
Now my tastes run very indie, and heavy on the auto bio (not surprising given my comic). I still collect the Hellblazer tpb and am slowly picking up Alan Moore’s stint on The Swamp Thing. Just recently at TCAF I picked up Chester Brown’s “Paying For It”, Julia Wertz’s “Drinking at the Movies”, Sarah Glidden’s “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less”, The Anthology Project II, and all 5 volumes of the web comic “Girls with Slingshots” by Danielle Corsetto. I’ve got some stellar reading in front of me!
DC: When did your interest in art develop? What were/are your favourite media?
LD: I’ve been involved in art since I was a child. At age 6 I started attending Saturday morning art classes through the Scarborough Board of Education and continued for 8 years. I also attended the “Art in the Country” program (“Art Camp”) inNorthern Ontariofor 7 years, also through the Scarborough Board of Education. I attended one year at OCAD, but didn’t continue. I’d already finished my degree at Queen’s and my OSAP loans at that point were already pretty exciting, so another 3 years was a crippling thought.
I learned how to paint using watercolours and it’s my favourite medium. I’ve painted in acrylic as well, but I always return to pen & ink with a watercolour wash.
DC: Was Peeling Onions your first venture into creating comics?
LD: Peeling Onions is my first comics venture. It’s come through a couple incarnations and is in the process of changing again, but it is really the only comics I create.
DC: The first iteration of Peeling Onions was as an autobio strip. How true-to-life were the situations you depicted? Did you ever fictionalize things for the sake of storytelling?
LD: Peeling Onions is all true to life. I may rearrange timing or emphasis to assist in the storytelling and often I’ll paraphrase dialogue because I don’t remember the exact wording. There are some fantasy elements that are obviously fictional additions and are more indicative of my interior emotional landscape than exterior events. It’s primarily true to life, but sometimes an event or conversation is remembered very differently by the parties involved.
DC: How do you feel that your storytelling/art/technique evolved during the run of the “autobio strip” version of Peeling Onions?
LD: Well, look from the first panel in 2008 and the last panel in 2011 and you can see how the art has changed. (How embarrassing!!) I can’t draw every day for 3 years and not improve. I’m constantly getting better and improving my drawing and becoming more confident in my line work. Peeling Onions started as a black & white line work which evolved into line work with photoshop tones and then into line work plus watercolour. This is where I feel I do my best work; brush pen and fineliner plus watercolour. I think I can work in this for years and still only scratch the surface of what the medium offers.
DC: One of my favourite moments occurred during the “Inkstud” arc, when you and a friend are in the restaurant discussing the situation, then the camera pulls back and she points a finger and calls you a cougar. Where do you draw influences for things like pacing, camera angles, and dialogue?
LD: That arc was really fun to do. It was ripe with storytelling emotion and energy and the people involved were completely open and allowing of the story to be told without censorship so I felt free to expose as much as I could. Pacing, angles and dialogue is all influenced by the movies, television and graphic novels I’m consuming at the time. Movies are a bigger influence I think, as is my actual consciousness of what is possible in the medium. Changing angle and perspective are more reflective of emotional / psychological states and are aspects of comic storytelling than I’m only just starting to think about in a conscious way. The same thing with pacing and dialogue placement within a panel and within the larger page layout – it all affects the timing and pace of the narrative and has an enormous impact on how the comic is ‘read’.
I’m only just starting to think about these aspects of comic storytelling in an objective, conscious way and it’s moving me to expand beyond the 3 panel ‘strip’ layout. I’m moving away from telling stories in strip panel ‘pieces’ and am excited to start exploring fuller, more complete stories that utilize a more long-form full page layout design.
DC: You’ve had some pretty extensive experience at conventions. What are your likes and dislikes about the convention-aspect of the biz?
LD: I still consider myself a noob when it comes to conventions; I’ve only been exhibiting for 2 years and still have a lot to learn – especially about getting over my resistance to promoting and selling my own art and books. It’s contrary to what we’re taught growing up about being humble and not bragging… humble and quiet about your accomplishments gets you NO WHERE at the conventions – you have to stand up and make eye contact and engage people walking by and hand out your book and ask them questions… It can be tough.
But… I digress. What I love most about the conventions are the readers – it’s so great to meet someone that’s specifically come to meet me and share their experiences and how Peeling Onions touched them or resonated with their life experience. That’s really the most awesome and rewarding part.
Then there’s the dark flip-side of that coin – the booth barnacle. There are some people in life who don’t read social interaction cues very well and do not register that the conversation has run it’s course and it’s time to move on. Those interactions become very uncomfortable – smiling awkwardly and desperately trying to think of something to say or hoping that they’ll move on or that other readers will come and rescue me with new faces and conversations. It happens at every convention and I’m starting to get used to it, but it’s the most awkward situation… and I don’t think that these people understand that they’re blocking your table and preventing other people from seeing your art and comics.
I love conventions, but they are exhausting. I always need a day of watching movies on the couch after a convention.
DC: Do you have any advice for people who’d like to start down the path of becoming a comics creator?
LD: Read lots of comics and draw all the time.
Readinglots of comics, all different types of comics – will teach you a variety of ways of storytelling and timing and styles and dialogue. Try them out, test, experiment, break frames, break rules – see what you like, what works, what doesn’t and don’t worry about your ‘style’ – your style will develop naturally as you draw, draw, draw, all the time, drawing.
Drawing all the time will improve your skill. There’s no getting around the drawing, there’s no shortcuts for drawing all the time, every day. It will build your skill, your confidence and it will reveal to you your own unique, personal drawing style.
DC: Is writer’s block an issue when you’re doing an autobio strip? Have you ever just hit a wall, and not known how to go forward with that day’s strip?
LD: It’s not really writer’s block that I get – it’s more like timing, pacing and organization block. I may know what stories I want to tell, but I can be blocked on what order they should be done in or how I want to tell them. I may not be sure on what aspects of the story I want to concentrate or how deep into the story I need to tread. It’s never the what, more the how that can get in the way. And it has. It does.
DC: I’m curious about what’s next for you? Longer projects? Fiction? Different genres? Different media?
LD: Yah, I’m in flux right now and I’m not sure exactly how I’m going forward. I’m definitely going back to focusing on Autobio – I couldn’t stop even when I thought I was done with it. I guess I’m just a self-absorbed egomaniac. 
I’m not continuing the one panel spots. I don’t like them, they don’t fit. It’s like a shirt that’s made of itch. I’m not going back to Peeling Onions in the 3 panel monochromatic that I’ve done for the past 3 years either – it’s too confining and I think I’d like to experiment with longer form page layout and begin tackling those stories from the past that I’ve never had a chance to tell. With the longer form, I can approach these stories as complete tales, not serialized into bit-sized morsels. This will have an impact on my publishing schedule which will no longer be 3 times a week (though I’m not sure what I’m doing about that yet).
This is what I think I’ll do – I’m not entirely sure what’s up and next for me. I’d like to continue working in colour, but that’s a huge expense to print and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that…
…though it’s always fun to experiment in public with everyone watching. :s
DC: Thanks so much for your time Lezley. We’ll follow along with you at www.lezleydavidson.com.
LD: Thanks and I look forward to reading the interview!
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About the interviewer -
Dino Caruso is a writer who has self-published several projects (including Against The Wall, Olga & FISK: Substitute Hero) and appeared in anthologies from publishers such as New Reliable Press, Ape Entertainment, Heske Horror, Ronin Studios and Blackglass Press.
Dino can be reached at dcaruso@comicbookinterviews.com.
Best. Interview. EVER.
(lulz)
Thanks Dino!
Thanks Comic Book Interviews!