Rumpus cartoonist MariNaomi is interviewed over at Panel Patter about her new book Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories as well as life as a autobiographical cartoonist:
Whit: Do you think that being an autobio cartoonist/writing candidly about your life makes people treat or view you and your work differently?
MariNaomi: Absolutely. For one thing, when many people review memoir, they tend to review the author’s life rather than the story and how it’s told. A lot of judgment gets placed on my lifestyle, whereas if I’d given it a fictional guise, I wouldn’t get the same criticism. I’ve talked to a lot of writers who do both memoir and fiction, and they all say the same thing. They could write about smoking a joint in a bathroom as a teenager and get a bunch of flack about it, but if their fictionalized teen character shoots heroin, no one bats an eye.
