The delicate balance of art and activism

I’m working on the script for a new graphic novel. Something about childhood, about fantasy and the stories we tell ourselves, and something about the environment as well.

How do you write about environmentalism without sounding preachy? How do you turn it into art?
To answer this, I turned to one of my favorite creators of comics ever, Bill Watterson.
I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love Calvin and Hobbes (and if you’re reading this and you are that person, I’m sorry but you are wrong). The precocious six-year-old and his tiger friend are one of the things that made me so eager to make comics of my own. Despite being first published in a newspaper, Bill Watterson’s comic transcends the so-called “low brow” format. He is thoughtful and funny, he hits all of the Feels, and hits them hard.
Part of his brilliant subtlety is the gentleness with which he addresses issues like environmentalism. Calvin talks about extraterrestrials not wanting to visit earth with the brilliance of a child who doesn’t accept the crappy things adults do to the planet. He doesn’t see the politics that go into destruction of forests and extinction of species, he just sees that humans are hurting the creatures we share this planet with, and declares it wrong. He doesn’t preach at us, he doesn’t lecture us. I come away from comics like the one pictured above feeling like I’ve just been gifted a nugget of truth, and not the writer’s personal agenda.

Art that depicts activism well is honest and human, it shows you a piece of the world as seen through the artist’s eyes. It shies away from the whole “The moral of this story is…” style. It isn’t a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale about being a good little girl or boy. And trying to depict that is a challenge I am still working towards.

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