Jillian Tamaki takes the Proust questionnaire

Jillian Tamaki is one of Canada's most in-demand illustrators, contributing art to publications like the New York Times and New Yorker. Her graphic novel, This One Summer, co-created with her cousin Mariko Tamaki, won the Governor General's Award for Children's Illustration in 2014, as well as a Caldecott Honour and Printz Award. She recently published a collection of her popular webcomic SuperMutant Magic Academy and started a new webcomic series on Hazlitt called Early Stories.

Tamaki takes The Next Chapter's version of the Proust questionnaire, revealing her deepest regret and favourite artist. This interview originally aired on November 9, 2015.

Name your favourite writers.
I always find this question very hard, because you can only answer what you're interested in at the time. I am currently reading Siri Hustvedt's A Blazing World, and that seems very interesting, so I'll say that that's what I'm on now.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Probably my levels of self-scrutiny in every sense of the word, from my body to just thinking about myself constantly and what I'm projecting or how I feel. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I don't have to have an opinion on every single thing.

What do you value most in your friends?
I would say loyalty, and honesty. I think that I admire somebody who says things that aren't always going to make you happy, but perhaps need to be said anyway.

Your favourite painter?
Helen Frankenthaler. There is evidence of the process visible in front of you. It really is about colour control, and relationships within the picture, compositionally. They're very balanced and beautiful, but I think what makes them very beautiful is evidence of the act of making them.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
I think that the lowest depth of misery is a feeling of rootlessness or directionless-ness or cycling; not having forward motion is the worst feeling in the world.

What is your favourite journey?
Driving around Iceland. There's a road that goes all around the edge of the island and it dips in and out fjords. It doesn't take very long because Iceland is not a very big place, but that was my favourite place to go, partially because it was the first big vacation I had done on my own. It really is a place where you understand why people believe in magic because it's a very mystical place and it's very beautiful and weird.

What's your idea of perfect happiness?
I'd say balance and harmony in all aspects of your life. It's really wonderful to feel like you're juggling all the balls and you're keeping them up. That sense of peace with that is really perfect happiness to me.

What's your greatest fear?
Losing the creative impulse. I think that there is a current wave of thinking that says creativity is a myth, it's about hard working and putting in the hours and creating the right conditions. That is all very true, but I think that there is a sort of mystical quality of energy. I do believe energy is real and losing that drive or that internal fire/energy/spark/thing, all the clichés, is really terrifying.

What's your greatest regret?
Not starting a band in high school. I think it would have been really fun and it would have brought me closer to my friends at the time and it would have been really cool.

Jillian Tamaki's comments have been edited and condensed.