This One Summer meets The Edge of Seventeen in this poignant coming-of-age YA graphic novel about two childhood friends at a crossroads in their lives and art from the author of Mastering Manga.
We had the pleasure of chatting with author and illustrator Mark Crilley about his new graphic novel My Last Summer With Cass, writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Mark! Tell our readers a bit about yourself!
I grew up in Michigan, and really saw myself mostly as an artist when I was young. But I always enjoyed coming up with stories, and by the time I’d finished college and gone off to teach English in Taiwan and Japan, I was challenging myself to create professional-looking comic books. One of these, “Akiko on the Planet Smoo,” eventually got published back in the United States, and that launched me into what I’ve been doing for the last 25 years: creating graphic novels and instructional art books.
After the chaos that was 2020, have you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they going so far?
My way of getting through the pandemic has been to work on a variety of little carpentry projects around the house. There’s a pleasure in stepping away from the storytelling for a bit and working with my hands to fix or improve something that’s become a bit of an eyesore. Of course, while I work on these things my mind drifts back to my graphic novel projects, and sometimes I come up with fresh ideas for them that might not have otherwise.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
My mother used to read me a beautifully illustrated version of Pinocchio, and I still have happy memories of snuggling up with her and going through that story, little by little, over a period of many days. But the book that made me want to become an author came into my life much, much later: David Small’s “Imogene’s Antlers,” a fantastic children’s book that I saw when I had the great good fortune of being one of David’s students back when I was in college. Seeing him beginning to make a living as a writer and illustrator inspired me to try following in his footsteps.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
When I was teaching English in Japan in the early nineties, I somewhat casually began working on a very silly comic book story called “The Beast that Ate Morioka.” As I went a long, I found myself taking it more and more seriously, until in the final pages it began to resemble something fairly professional-looking. I think that’s when I first got hooked on the writing process: coming up with plot lines, inventing characters, and bringing them to life by way of dialogue.
Your new novel, My Last Summer with Cass, is out March 16th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Two artists come into conflict.
What can readers expect?
It’s really a portrait of a friendship between two artists, showing its beginnings in early childhood and following through into high school, and finally college. At the heart of the story is Megan’s experiences during one incredible summer in New York City, when she goes to stay with her rebellious friend, Cass. Megan is pulled into Cass’s life: an eye-opening world of avant garde bohemians and people who break any rule that gets in the way of self-expression. Eventually Megan and Cass’s different artistic instincts bring them into conflict in a pretty shocking way. I’d better not give away any more than that!
Where did the inspiration for My Last Summer with Cass come from?
MY LAST SUMMER WITH CASS is very loosely based on a real-life friendship I’ve had since high school with a man by the name of John Walter. He moved to New York City in his twenties and became a film editor and director. I noticed that he seemed much more daring than I ever was, and I began wanting to tell a story that showed just how different two creative people can be. John and I have never had any big conflicts in our friendship, though. That part is pure fiction, thank goodness!
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
This book actually involved much more revising than I’ve ever had to do on a graphic novel. I’ll be honest: It was tough having to throw out page after page of work that was deemed not good enough to make the final cut. I got through it the way I usually do: by sorting the editor’s notes into a long list of things I could change without hesitation, a shorter list of things I was willing to compromise on, and finally a very short list of things I just couldn’t agree to change. That’s the tricky thing about being a writer: You have to be flexible, but you also have to stay true to your storytelling instincts. In the end, there’s no doubt the revising process improved the story in very substantial ways.
If it’s not too spoilery, were there any favourite moments you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
There’s a scene where Megan and Cass have a disagreement that gradually builds into a pretty catastrophic fight. In many ways the whole story had been building toward this moment, when the two of them finally are completely honest and just let loose on each other. I felt an obligation to do this scene justice in both the writing and the illustrations, so there was a certain pressure there to “deliver the goods.” But also I had grown close to these characters, and it was hard to see all this ugliness erupt between them—even if I was the one causing it to erupt! All that being said, a scene like that, which demands a lot of you as a writer and artist, becomes one that has extra meaning to you once it’s finished.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Well, it’s a pretty famous one, but you can’t get very far as a writer without learning to “show, don’t tell.” No one wants to read a sentence like, “Old man Murphy was one of the meanest guys you could ever meet.” What we need is a scene in which we SEE the man’s behaviour: We see him being mean to people in memorable ways.
One piece of writing advice that I have learned is actually not so great is the idea that it’s good to use a wide variety of verbs and adjectives to describe how the dialogue is said, For example: “’This soup is lousy,’ he grumbled.” If you start filling up your dialogue with “she muttered angrily” and “they gasped” and so forth, it begins to sound as if you’re trying a little too hard. I agree with those who feel it’s best to stick with “said,” which just gets the job done and stays out of the way.
What’s next for you?
I’ve just finished a book called THE COMIC BOOK LESSON, which is a follow up to a book I did a few years back called THE DRAWING LESSON. Both books use the format of a fictional story, in graphic novel form, to present a series of lessons to the reader. In the new book the main character, who wants to learn how to make comics, is shown the tricks of the trade by three mentors who each have different things to show her about how it’s done. And right now I’m in the middle of a new graphic novel about a high school student’s experiences in Taiwan during one particularly memorable day. I’d better not say any more about that one for now!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
In terms of graphic novels, readers should definitely check out Bone, by Jeff Smith, and of course all of Raina Telgemeier’s books. A recent one I loved is This One Summer, by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. When it comes to prose, I’m a big fan of nonfiction. Probably my favorite remains Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer.
