Carta Monir is a cartoonist, critic, editor, podcaster, and most recently, a publisher. Her Diskette Press, based out of Ann Arbor, focuses on beautiful-looking minicomics published on her Risograph printer in various color tones. Monir is an incisive critic and challenging cartoonist, and much of her work centers around confronting past trauma and the challenges she faced and faces as a trans woman. She's created a space for other queer and trans artists and has been an essential element of the burgeoning comics scene in Ann Arbor. This interview focuses on the works she's publishing and her thoughts on the comics, the scene, and her various skills and interests with regard to art.
Rob Clough: When you started drawing comics, did you already have ideas like publishing and criticism in mind, or did that develop later?
Carta Monir: I actually started my “professional” career as a critic, doing really clumsy criticism right out of college. I didn’t really know anyone in the community and I pitched to a site that my friend recommended. I wrote some middling criticism there for a couple of years and then got tired of people I admired shouting at me, haha. This was all before I transitioned. I guess I came into the larger comics scene as a combination artist/critic because as I was published around the time that I started recording We Should Be Friends, a now mostly-defunct book club podcast I hosted with a few close friends in Ann Arbor.
RC: That show was an enormous amount of fun and points to your eclectic interests. What did you find most rewarding about it?
CM: It was so much fun to hang out with my friends every week-ish! We have great chemistry. Several of us had college radio experience, so we felt pretty comfortable on the microphone from the beginning. And the show really achieved its purpose! We became friends with so many of the cartoonists we talked about. I’m grateful that we were received so positively.
RC: What intellectual itch does writing criticism satisfy in particular? What is your approach as a critic?
CM: Mostly just the itch to talk about work I love, and to share things that stick in my brain. I love talking about comics! I always have. It’s nice to have an outlet for that.
RC: What aspects of your creative self do publishing and criticism satisfy in a way that's different from actually doing comics?
CM: I don’t generally… maybe ever… want to make comics in response to a comic I just read. I want to talk about it with my friends! Criticism feels more like that kind of conversation. I know there are people who think that comics should be answered with comics or whatever, but that’s tedious. I use comics to tell my stories, nobody wants to read my illustrated opinions on someone else’s book.
RC: Do you have a particular style or method as a critic? Does this depend on what you're critiquing?
CM: In the past, my answer would have been “direct” or “mean,” but I’ve been trying to pivot to “celebratory.” There aren’t many comics with enough cultural impact for me to talk shit about if I hate them, you know? If someone makes a bad comic that only maybe a hundred people will read, I don’t need to take the time to get angry about it. I’d rather celebrate and promote the comics that move me, and that makes me excited about the possibilities of the medium.
RC: What provided the impetus to start Diskette Press?
CM: I bought a risograph!! Once I started printing my own comics, it felt like a natural step to start printing other people’s comics also.
RC: Were you already familiar with how to use a Risograph, or was there a learning curve?
CM: I had never touched a risograph. I had barely even seen one! I didn’t know if the one I was buying was like a good model… I got very lucky. The first several months of riso ownership were filled with a lot of frustrated tinkering and very little printing. But I did learn, and I got it up and running! And when I eventually was able to hire an employee, Renée Cymry, to act as my print tech, she learned everything too. We’re both the de facto GR3770 experts in this part of the country!
RC: The comics scene in Ann Arbor seems to be hopping, and you seem to be at the center of it. How much of it is something you've cultivated as a publisher and presence?
CM: It’s been building! I really like meeting other artists and building community, so as soon as I moved here I started looking for other cartoonists. I was very lucky to find Casey Nowak early on, and several friends (including Emma Jayne) moved to Ann Arbor after we did. We’ve built a scene from the ground up!
RC: How often do you all get to meet? Do you have jam sessions or critiques? Are there any local zine fests or small press shows?
CM: We hang out all the time! I live with Casey, and Emma is just across town. All of us are kind of private about what we’re working on, but we frequently invite each other to read a script or look at thumbnails. Emma comes over and draws for hours at a time… she puts my productivity to shame!! There are some local shows, but Casey is the only one who really participates in them. There’s a local show called A2CAF and a zine fair in Grand Rapids, which is only an hour and a bit away.
RC: How has being a publisher affected your output and method as a cartoonist?
CM: It’s definitely shifted my focus a little, but I don’t know if it’s slowed my output too much. I was never a fast cartoonist, and honestly, it’s nice to have something new at every show I go to, even if it’s not my work! I’m so proud of the artists we publish and I like putting in the time to make their work look good.
Diskette Press -- The Books
Emma Jayne's bold, clear line combined with her crisp dialogue sets up what appears to be a story about three friends struggling to keep a band together post-high school. That is actually an accurate but vague description of what happens in the book. After several pages of quickly establishing the relationships between Cassi, Seb, and Char, the story takes a sudden left turn into the realm of fantasy. It's a turn that commits to this fully-realized world of magic that runs in families, sinister familiars, and dream-eating monsters.
When Cassi accidentally summons a Dreameater when trying to wish that her bass was fixed, it sets off a course of action that forces each character to confront hard truths about themselves and their friends. Magic is a part of their world, as familiar as unrequited crushes and finding venues for a young band to play. While the supernatural aspects of the story are entertaining, well-crafted, and genuinely unsettling, the real draw of this book is the raw, uncompromising, and messy quality of the relationships Jayne depicts. Long-simmering tensions erupt and are then not neatly resolved. Indeed, Emma Jayne's refusal to tack on a pat ending adds a level of emotional complexity while still serving its plot.
RC: Let's start with the most prolific cartoonist from Diskette Press, Emma Jayne. Dreameater caught me completely by surprise. I was expecting something along the lines of her version of Jaime Hernandez's Locas saga, wherein a bunch of post-high school kids are drifting a bit and center their lives around a band. That was all in there, of course, but the extremely detailed and lived-in fantasy/horror milieu that the story is set in was a fantastic swerve. You've mentioned enjoying off-beat horror and fantasy; what about this story made it a project you wanted to publish? It's the first and only novel-length project you've published, which made it quite a commitment.
CM: So full disclosure, Dreameater is a book Diskette is selling, but it’s not technically one that we published. Emma self-published it. It’s 100% her hard work that made her project come to life in such an amazing way. I watched her work on this book tirelessly over several years, and I’m so impressed with how it came together. The reason Diskette didn’t print this book is that it was really long… Risograph printing requires you to make a master [which is like a one-time use print screen] for every two pages in the book. If a book is 200 pages long, that’s going to be 400 masters if it’s printed in a single color. That takes forever and is very easy to mess up at that scale… we also didn’t have a great way to bind a book that large. Emma wisely went with a local print shop that was able to perfect bind her books in a short time, and they turned out really great.
RC: What do you see as Emma's greatest strengths as an artist?
CM: She’s relentless. She’s always drawing and always improving. I’ve known her for nearly ten years now, and her output has been consistently amazing. And she’s funny, too. Her storytelling is just getting better and better.
RC: As a publisher, how closely have you worked with your artists as an editor? Emma's work, in particular, seems so fully-formed.
CM: I’m trying to find a balance between “do what you want” and “let me see what I’m printing, please,” haha! I like artists to feel like they have creative freedom. I do like to keep a close watch on how a project is developing, and I’m very available to give feedback if an artist feels stuck or wants my opinion. But mostly I want to facilitate the creation of new and inventive work, and I don’t want to get in the way of that.
RC: What are some examples of the kind of feedback an artist has requested, and what sort of feedback or opinions have you given?
CM: When I was working with Victor Martins, he asked me a lot of questions about pacing and clarity. Other artists, like Elliott G., asked more technical questions about bookbinding and layout. I try to make myself available for any kind of feedback because I want every artist to feel that we’ve done their book justice.
This is a follow-up to Dreameater, featuring Char and Cassi now living in the city, playing in a band as a duo. It doesn't touch on the fantasy elements that much but, instead, focuses on Cassi's loneliness and alienation in her new surroundings. In just twelve pages, Emma Jayne gives the reader a sense of the bond between the two young women, their frustrations, and their quiet joys. The single blue tone from the RIsograph adds some needed contrast for Jayne's fairly thick line weight, especially since she doesn't use cross-hatching or grayscaling. This also helps in bringing gesture and body language into sharper relief and providing greater nuance for the story. This comic feels like a fragment of a larger story, but it adeptly makes the reader understand and care about these characters in short order.
RC: Emma certainly has a talent for creating vividly realized characters. Her mini In An Empty City picks up from Dreameater, with a focus on the two female leads. I read this before I read Dreameater, and her clarity of storytelling is such that it was easy to follow. Do you see future books coming featuring Char and Cassi?
CM: I hope so! I know how much Emma loves Jaime Hernandez’s work, and I’d love to see her expand the universes she’s building. Whether or not she continues with Char and Cassi though, I’m confident that she’ll make something great!
This is Emma Jayne's newest comic, and it feels like her most personal work to date. It's about two trans women going out for a night, a proposition that is fraught with anxiety. That's especially true for Cleo, who rarely goes out in public, and who lacks the apparent self-confidence of her friend Winnie. Emma Jayne's dialogue is note-perfect, as the ease of their friendship and their hilarious rapport is instantly winning. It's an evening with some fun moments like video games and drinks, but it also has anxieties about bathrooms, misgendering, and a creepy chaser dude who wigs out Cleo. There are tears at the end of the evening for both women, as Cleo feels alone in her experience and Winnie feels guilty for inadvertently hurting her friend. Emma Jayne hits at something that should be obvious but needed to be said: the experience of every trans woman as they transition is different. Each woman faces different challenges based on any number of factors, including body type and overall dysmorphia. At the same time, as Winnie points out, though we can never truly know what someone else is going through (even, in her case, another trans woman), it's important to note that there are enough similarities to provide support and even advice if wanted.
There's a magnificent clarity to Emma Jayne's work no matter the genre or subject. Her line is always precise but warm and inviting. Her layouts are clear but varied enough to interest the eye as she leads it across the page. Her figures are dynamic and stand out on the page because of her sophisticated mastery of gesture. Though her style is naturalistic, there is just enough of a cartoony touch to her characters to draw the reader in. Emma Jayne is a good artist but an even better writer, as the verisimilitude of her dialogue is what makes her comics so compelling. These are real people, and she makes the reader care about them.
RC: Emma Jayne's dialogue is so effective because of its high degree of verisimilitude. Trans Girls Hit The Town in particular works because as a reader, Winnie and Cleo feel real. That makes Cleo's struggles, in particular, all the more affecting because the reader is already on her side. That said, these are stories that are not necessarily widely-told in the wider culture, much less comics. How important has it been to you as a publisher to provide a spotlight for these kinds of stories?
CM: It’s my highest priority. I want to publish stories that aren’t being told elsewhere. I’m especially interested in messy stories without clean resolutions… there’s so much saccharine queer media designed to reassure cishet audiences. I’m not particularly interested in adding to that pool of work.
RC: Do you see a lot of those kinds of saccharine stories in comics?
CM: I think straight, cis editors really like them. You see them a lot in more corporate books; stories where a character calmly explains statistics to the audience, as if they’re giving a powerpoint with a rainbow flag background. There’s a space for these stories, but I get very frustrated when they’re the only queer narratives that are allowed to exist.
RC: Every artist you publish has a radically different style. Do you have a personal aesthetic as a publisher that emerges in the artists that you choose to publish? Or do you have broad tastes that are reflected in artists that haven't received opportunities elsewhere, much the same way Annie Koyama (and Dylan Williams before her) operates?
CM: Annie is my primary inspiration. I’ve looked up to her since I was in college. I guess my method of recruiting artists is currently kind of informal… I find a (usually trans) artist whose work I admire and I ask them to make something for Diskette. It’s not much more complicated than that!! The only challenge is pacing myself.
RC: So it seems clear that you have a wide variety of aesthetic interests with regard to comics. Are there any particular genres or styles that you tend to avoid or actively dislike?
CM: Not really! If someone comes to me with an interesting premise or unusual art, I’m eager to see more. I don’t want to limit myself by saying “I’d never publish superheroes” or whatever because as soon as I said that I’m sure I’d be pitched a really amazing superhero book, you know?
This is a beautiful, poetic comic about trauma and recovery. The fragmented layout is reflective of the memory fragments it contains in this "love letter to myself." It's a testament of strength and power in the face of trauma and abuse. The purple and orange color scheme gives the comic a cool and even calm feeling in the face of horror, as each trauma is confronted in turn on the page through a visual representation of the Notepad application. The open-page layouts stack smaller images and those Notepad text boxes atop other images. Some of those are concrete, like beach scenes, while others are more metaphorical and even abstract.
The stories are about trying to please horrible and abusive men. Even when Elliott G broke free, the feelings of worthlessness and aimlessness remained. There is a powerful sequence recounting that his abusers faced no consequences and are free to live successful lives. That rising anger is addressed and processed so as to let his own self-healing begin. In many ways, this is not so much a love letter as it is an incantation. It's a prayer or a summoning. By professing that he is loved, bright, and strong, he creates his own capacity for love, brightness, and strength. The connection to the earth and the ocean that acts as a running motif in the book is the key to all of this, as that natural connection supersedes the actions of abusers. This is a bracing, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful journey through a frankly-named series of abuses that acknowledges and transcends them.
RC: Ebb Tide, by Elliott G., for example, is a comic that is tonally as different from Emma Jayne's stuff as possible in some ways. Yet, it's in the same emotional continuum with regard to dealing with and overcoming trauma and learning to love oneself. Do you enjoy comics-as-poetry in general?
CM: Oh absolutely. I love making them and I love reading them. Ebb Tide is one of my favorite books of all time and I’m so honored to have been a part of bringing it to life.
RC: The use of the two tones on the Risograph made this comic in particular look beautiful. How much of that was your guidance, and how much of the color process was Elliott's plan?
CM: Elliott knew what colors we could print with, and adapted his story to work with our palette. The credit for those beautifully printed tones is also Renée’s. She’s a genius at getting our printer to do what it should. Ebb Tide is her baby too, and I’m amazed at what she was able to do with it.
RC: Like much of the work you publish, this is an intense and emotionally challenging comic that nonetheless speaks to self-expression and self-love. Do people bring their work to you first for publishing consideration, or do you tell the artists you work with to simply do something and you'll publish it?
CM: Both! We’ve printed work that was already finished (like Yllw Yllw Yllw) and we’ve commissioned new work! I might figure out a more formalized process in the future, but for now, I’m printing things that I get excited about.
This is a perfectly designed queer romance comic that mixes a beautifully fluid clear line with marvelously loopy and expressive spot colors. It is a story of a burgeoning romance between Sol and Basil, with the latter flaking out each time their level of sexual activity grows hotter. What is interesting is that Basil's emotions, lust, and passion literally bubble out of them in the form of a light-rose series of squiggles, ribbons, stars, and other shapes. It is the other side of the coin from another Diskette book, Erika Price's Disorder 1/3. In both books, one's feelings are made manifest. For Price, it's a dark and nightmarish scenario. For Mar Julia, it's but in a dreamier and more ethereal manner. In Yllw Yllw Yllw, the colors are in the form of discernible patterns as I noted, but the linework here uses no black at all. It takes a moment to even register what's going on, adding to the confusion of poor Sol.
While the frankness of the depiction of sex is refreshing in its relaxed and casual manner, Mar Julia's depiction of friendships and young people hanging out is every bit as powerful. It's important to the narrative as well, as it establishes this community of close, intimate friends who aren't afraid to show each other affection. The use of body language and gesture are also key elements in expressing this intimacy, with the smallest of body movements conveying a great deal of information. The character design is also appealing, with a variety of body types on display. The final conversation between Sol and Basil is cathartic, as each discusses their own difficulties with their emotions. For Basil, their emotions literally bubble over to the surface and thus make them too easy to read. For Sol, she describes herself as "emotionally opaque," making it difficult to read her. Both come to an understanding of their issues in a final splash page image that's warm and expansive. This comic is a burst of warmth that pleasantly ambles along while it picks up emotional steam.
RC: Mar Julia's Yllw Yllw Yllw is another example of the color gradations of the Risograph playing a key role in simply parsing the comic. It's also an example of a comic that's similar in terms of subject matter to others you've published, but with a dramatically different aesthetic approach. Mar Julia's line and use of shading are radically different from Emma Jayne, even if both write about relationships. Color plays a role in the narrative here, literally becoming an expression of emotions made visible. As a publisher and as an artist, how important is formal experimentation to you, especially when it's integral to the narrative?
CM: Mar approached me about printing Yllw Yllw Yllw for TCAF, and was originally inquiring about just getting it printed through us. As soon as I saw it, though, I thought it was so amazing! I asked if we could publish the work instead of just printing it. Again, Renée should get a lot of credit for making it work so beautifully on the printed page. She’s as interested in pushing the technical limits of the Riso as I am.
This is the roughest-looking of the otherwise-polished Diskette entries, However, Matarneh's storytelling and enthusiasm elevate the quality of this comic. There's no poetic license or metaphors at work here, as Matarneh bluntly and matter-of-factly discusses every problem he can think of with regard to being trans. He makes his scribbly style work as part of various creative flourishes, as it's highly expressive and fun to look at. Indeed, despite the many difficulties enumerated in this comic, there's still a sense of joy to be found once you've figured out your sexuality. In the end, after talking about problems with clothes, misgendering, and dysphoria, there's a wistful couple of drawings depicting how the artist hopes they'll look like in a few years' time. There is power in these drawings, and though Matarneh lacks the skill of other artists, his expressiveness, humor, and bluntness come through on every page.
RC: My Issues Of Being Transgender by Sorren Matarneh is a visual departure for Diskette in that it's much rougher in terms of line. However, it's tonally right in line with the other comics that you publish. Is this a case of you encouraging a young artist to publish, or did you find Sorren bursting to express himself?
CM: Both! I’ve known Sorren for several years. He’s seventeen right now, and this is his first-ever published work. I’ve been excited about his comics since I met him when he was twelve. I think it’s really exciting to show off a young artist with a lot of potential!
This is a horror comic that focuses on body horror in particular as a manifestation of dysmorphia. Price's line weight is exceedingly fine, allowing her to create a level of detail so dense that it's almost suffocating. This is the desired effect, as this is the story of a monster seeking to destroy itself. In page after page of visceral, heart-rending detail, the spiked monster rends its own flesh, stabs itself with its own spiky protuberances, and otherwise revolts against its very embodiment. It is the manifestation of psychological pain made physical. The final segment switches from heavy spotted blacks to a white background with the densest drawings of an already dense comic. It is the image of a destroyer spurning simple entropy, carrying with it one thought: "To destroy. To rebuild." It's the one kernel of hope in an otherwise bleak howl of a comic. There is still pain and ugliness, but there is the possibility of something new arising out of it. These final pages in particular feature masterful page layouts, as Price stuffs individual panels full of lined details but also creates a gestalt of an image that merges each panel together. Disorder 1/3 is lyrical in its despair as it confronts the reader with Price's pain on a number of different levels.
RC: Dysmorphia is a recurring theme in the comics you publish, expressed in radically different ways. For Sorren, it's refreshingly and endearingly blunt: "Here's one problem with being trans. Here's another problem, etc." Erika Price's Disorder 1/3, on the other hand, is a horror comic where a self-destructive monster is a metaphor for dysphoria. Given your love of horror, how much did Disorder affect you on a visceral level the first time you saw it?
CM: Oh yeah! Erika is amazing and Disorder is so unlike any other comics I’ve ever seen. It’s horror and it’s also just a very raw autobio comic about living with chronic illness and dysphoria. It really speaks to me. It was also a real technical challenge to print! Riso has trouble with large color fills, and it took a lot of tinkering to make this very inky book look right! Again, huge kudos to Renée.
This single-toned Risographed minicomic addresses the thorny topic of body dysmorphia by way of exploring sex and sexuality. The character of Arsene is a self-described "trans boy" who navigates fantasies about his best friend and his relationship with his self-identified asexuality. Above all else, he grapples with the idea of being seen, in all senses of the word. Primarily, it's embracing the idea of being seen as a sexual being by others, as well as allowing himself to open up emotionally.
See Me's layout is fluid, reflecting both the narrative and the character. The second page, for example, is technically a four-panel grid. However, the upper two panels are merged into a single image with no panel borders (it's of Arsene and his best friend), and that image bleeds into the bottom two panels, which are close-ups of fantasized groping. When Arsene snaps out of that fantasy, the next page has three horizontal panels. Notably, the second page has white negative space, giving the sense of the image bursting out of the page; and the third page has dark negative space, giving the sense of the page closing in on the image. Later pages with sexual fantasies abandon the grid altogether, with images smashing into each other featuring overlapping touching arms and legs and genitalia. Once again, the page is filled with white negative space as those fantasies are rushing from Arsene's imagination.
There are other clever formal tricks, where screens act as bordered panels. For example, Arsene watching porn on his phone features a panel of the images on the phone. The same goes for Arsene's brief fling with Tinder, the hook-up dating application. Layout is everything in this comic, especially since Jackson uses stripped-down and scribbly character designs in order to further facilitate the immediacy of the images. See Me is about Arsene's being uncomfortable with being seen, yet Jackson's storytelling creates an intimate environment that's all about being seen.
This is a tiny mini by the publisher that's a series of selfies and photos with commentary. Control of one's own image is a crucial aspect of change for a trans person, after years of feeling alienated from their self-representations. Monir challenges this notion head on, wanting to take pictures of herself for herself but also wanting to be seen and found to be pretty. I found the last statement to be simultaneously sincere and ironic, as Monir undoubtedly couldn't care less about the gaze of others but at the same time recognizes the cultural standards of what it looks like to be a woman. This is a comic about still feeling not at home in one's body and the way it looks but sharing that vulnerability with the world.
RC: One thing you've talked about in comics is a more frank depiction of sex and sexuality. In many regards, E.Jackson's See Me is a perfect encapsulation of this idea. The slightly disembodied depictions of the narrator's body engaging in sexual acts, the shots of porn and the quick-cut quality of the storytelling are all an ideal vehicle for engaging in fantasy while still navigating your friendships. Above all else, it's all about being seen, which is also expressed in your mini Pretty Girl. That seems to be the essence of Diskette Press: giving visibility to people who have not had it. What would you say is the guiding ethos of Diskette?
CM: Hmmmmm…. probably just “print the work I want to see celebrated.” I want to uplift and promote interesting creators and I want to help them make some money from their work. That’s pretty much all I want!!
RC: Speaking of money, are the people you publish paid a flat fee up front, or do they get royalties from sales?
CM: I try to be very generous with royalties. When I started out I only got 10% of the proceeds of my book, which meant 80 cents on an $8.00 book. I can’t afford to pay artists an advance at the present time, but I do make sure that they keep 50-60% of all proceeds from any book I publish for them. I’m covering my own expenses and labor, but my profits don’t come at the expense of my artists. I want them to feel like we’re collaborating, not like I’m taking advantage of their hard work.
RC: What are your future goals as a publisher?
CM: I want to publish a lot more straightforward queer pornography like Leyland did with titles like Meatmen. There’s really nothing happening in North American porn comics that interests me right now, and I want to change that. I think we have the potential to make some really interesting and provocative work.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Clough has written about comics for Cicada, the Comics Journal, Sequential, tcj.com,
sequart.com, Savant, Foxing Quarterly, Studygroup Magazine, as well as for his own blog, High-Low (highlowcomics.blogspot.com).
