Mariko and Jillian Tamaki discuss the make-or-break experiences of travelling with friends
The Canadian cousins and collaborators spoke to The Next Chapter about their latest graphic novel, Roaming
Originally published on Oct. 14, 2023.
In their third graphic novel collaboration, Roaming, Jillian and Mariko Tamaki travel us back in time to a world of limited cell phone use and formative moments of young adulthood.
Set on a trip to New York City in 2009, Roaming is a graphic novel that follows best friends Zoe and Dani during their first year of college. As a queer romance blossoms between Zoe and Dani's classmate Fiona — who tags along — friendships get put to the test and all three girls learn more about who they are set against the backdrop of the big city.
Mariko Tamaki is a writer based in California. Her other books include the YA novels (you) Set Me On Fire and Saving Montgomery Sole. She's also the author of many superhero comics for DC Comics, Darkhorse and Marvel.
Jillian Tamaki is a Toronto-based cartoonist, illustrator and educator. With her cousin Mariko Tamaki, she co-created the YA graphic novel Skim, which was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award. Another collaboration, This One Summer, won the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — illustration.
The Tamakis spoke with The Next Chapter's Ali Hassan about reflecting on travelling with friends as a young adult.
It's been nearly a decade since your last collaboration on This One Summer, and I'll ask both of you this question: how much have things changed for each of you in how you approach collaboration or have they at all?
Mariko Tamaki: I don't know if things have changed in how I approach collaboration. I think Jillian and I specifically have such a set way of doing things together in that it's a very personalized way of working with each other and it's distinct from other projects that I do specifically working for DC or Marvel. I think I appreciate the freedom of working with someone that I've worked with so closely for so long.
I think we just have a combined sense, which is not to say that I don't have that in other projects, but it's just a very familial sense of how we work together and how we feel through a story together. We have a flavour to the projects that we do together in that they are sort of specific slice-of-life, very observed realities. It's not a lot of plot, it's more a lot of experience in our work and I think we tend to experience those things together as we write in a way that's just very unique to us.
I think I appreciate the freedom of working with someone that I've worked with so closely for so long.- Mariko Tamaki
Jillian Tamaki: I would agree. I think that our process is informed by the fact that we both started making comics with no experience and it really was us learning the process together and having no training but figuring out how to tell a story our way. That's really great and I almost wish I could go back sometimes to be less informed or have less of a streamlined process because there's something really difficult but cool about figuring it out as you're doing it. I think the results can be very raw, immediate, charming and unexpected versus if you have a very buttoned down process, so I always try to keep that freshness by mixing up the process a little bit because the result will always be different and you will be engaged in a deeper way.
In the thank you note at the end of the book you thank every friend who ever went to New York with you and had "a mostly fun time". Tell me about those experiences, how much did the mostly fun bits help shape this book?
MT: I think it really is a make or break moment for a lot of friendships to go on a trip together. This book outlines that you have your sort of first two days of everything being new and you're just really enjoying the experiences. Then I think the blood sugar levels and tiredness kick into a new experience around the third day when everybody's just a little cranky and tempers are just a little shorter.
I have one friend who I am certainly better friends with because we went to New York together and it was one of the most bonding experiences of my life. I've had other friends who at the end of the trip were like, "maybe you and me… not so much", and we'll certainly never travel together again. Jillian can attest to this cause she's traveled with me a lot. Around my third day, I'm definitely like, "this is too much for me."
I just need to eat my muffin and be alone.
As the days wear on in this story, these relationships between Zoe, Dani and Fiona grow more tense. Dani wants to fit in sightseeing as much as possible and that's her priority. Fiona is more preoccupied with shopping, partying and some not-so secret flirting with Zoe. What did you want to explore through those dynamics?
JT: I just thought it's all so delicious! Those interpersonal dynamics and tensions, especially of young people, I think of as our youth. They're so serious to you at the time and they are serious, but they're also so funny. I think [it's about] riding that balance of really respecting those emotions and those dramas. Toeing that line is our bread and butter but it really was also just reflecting on the nature of travel especially when you haven't traveled a lot and you feel the need to go see the big things.
We have to go see the Statue of Liberty and Times Square and I think that there's a tension because all these girls want to experience the city, take in the place and take in the trip in a different way that they kind of clash.
I think [it's about] riding that balance of really respecting those emotions and those dramas.- Jillian Tamaki
The book is called Roaming, what does that act of roaming mean to you?
MT: It's an inside Canadian joke on top of a literal meeting. So the ongoing joke for anybody who's ever had a Canadian cell phone and travelled to the States, especially back in the day, was that if you turned the roaming on your phone, you would come home with a massive bill. One of my first trips to New York with the cell phone was my friend turning it on and then turning it off right away.
You turn it on, load the map, screenshot it or whatever and then turn off right away. So it's an inside joke to the Canadian experience of being in the United States as a tourist and then it kind of just fits because it really is about this idea of being let loose. When you're a kid, you go to Florida with your parents and that's a kid trip and then when you're an adult, you go to New York with your friends and you're unleashed, right?
Nobody's telling you what to eat so you eat pizza every night and you're free, without the benefit of the cell phone experience, to really just experience things as you encounter them.
Why 2009? What was it about that particular year and that moment in time that you wanted to capture besides the broader cell phone charges?
JT: I lived in New York from 2005 to 2015 so that's smack dab in the middle of my time there. I also taught at art school there, so I was teaching a lot of 19 year-old kids that had moved to New York City from different places around the States, some from Canada, a lot of them from South Korea.
They were experiencing the city for the first time as well. But I do think that there was something very amusing and useful narratively to set the book at that time because we don't travel the same way. I'm not saying that I am not guilty of this too, but you can look up what's the best ice cream I can eat on this block and you have that answer. I feel like there's a little bit less stumbling upon things.
You're never going to get lost, there's always a map there, you're never going to fall out of contact with somebody or lose your friend in the city. So that was narratively very useful to us and I think that if you had a cell phone in the story some of the stuff in the book might not even happen.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
