Jillian Tamaki facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jillian Tamaki
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Jillian Tamaki at the 2019 Stockholm international comics festival
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| Born | April 17, 1980 |
| Alma mater | Alberta College of Art and Design |
| Known for | Illustrator for comics |
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Notable work
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Skim (comics), This One Summer, Roaming |
Jillian Tamaki (born April 17, 1980) is a Canadian American illustrator and comic artist known for her work in The New York Times and The New Yorker in addition to the graphic novels Boundless, as well as Skim, This One Summer and Roaming written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki.
Early life
Tamaki was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and grew up in Calgary, Alberta. She attended Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School and went on to study Visual Communication Design and graduate from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2003. After graduating art school, she worked at the video game company BioWare and later taught illustration at the New York City School of Visual Arts.
Influences and themes
Tamaki read Archie comics and newspaper strips as a child. She submitted outfit designs into contests for Betty & Veronica comics. Her parents also had anthologies of other popular comics, including The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Herman. In high school she made zines for fun, but she had stopped reading comics after outgrowing Archie. Her interest in alternative and indie comics began while she attended college. Some of her favorite comics during this time include Bipolar by Tomer Hanuka and Asaf Hanuka, a few Drawn & Quarterly artists including Julie Doucet, Chester Brown, Seth, Michel Rabagliati, as well as books by Will Eisner. She began making mini-comics after graduating in 2003, and her very first mini-comic appears in her first book, Gilded Lilies, which was published in 2006. Tamaki often acknowledges her influences as inspirations for beginning her work as they helped her learn the basics of cartooning. She also worked on boarding for the popular television show Adventure Time.
As a self-proclaimed feminist, Tamaki is often questioned about the role this plays in her work. She also grew up in an area of Canada where she was the only mixed-race child in her school. In multiple interviews, Tamaki explains that her identity shapes the lens that she sees through, but she does not make conscious effort to work these themes into her illustrations and designs. ..... Being shaped by feminism and race, her work aims to include diverse characters that readers can better identify with.
Career
Gilded Lilies (2006) is Tamaki's first published book and is a collection of Tamaki's illustrations and comic strips. The first part of the book comprises a carefully selected assemblage of paintings, personal drawings, illustrations and comics. The second part consists of a wordless graphic narrative titled The Tapemines, which tells the story of two children in a surreal landscape featuring "forests of cassette tape".
Skim (2008) is a critically acclaimed graphic novel illustrated by Jillian and written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki. .....
Indoor Voice (2010) collects Tamaki's drawings, illustrations and comic strips and is part of publisher Drawn & Quarterly's Petit Livre series. The majority of the book is printed in black and white, but it also features some colour illustrations. Indoor Voice was released to mixed reviews.
"Now & then & when" (2008), a drawing with ink and graphite, was purchased by the Library of Congress in 2011. Within a two-panel horizontal, she depicted herself as a central, monumental figure, flanked by smaller full length figures of herself from infancy to adulthood on the left, from middle age to elderly on the right. Tamaki's variation on the theme with figures in bathing suits, related vignettes and speech balloons, presents an updated counterpart to the demure figures and texts of artistic precedents.
This One Summer (2014) by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki is a graphic novel that centres on the experiences of close friends Rose and Windy, who are on the cusp of adolescence, during a summer holiday. This One Summer won a 2014 Ignatz Award, the 2015 Printz Honor, the Caldecott Honor, the 2015 Eisner Award, and the 2014 Governor General's Awards for Children's Literature — Illustration category.
In 2015, Drawn & Quarterly published SuperMutant Magic Academy, a collection of Tamaki's web comic of the same name from 2010 to 2014. Previously, these comics won an Ignatz Award in 2012 for Outstanding Online Comic.
In June 2017, Drawn & Quarterly published Tamaki's graphic novel Boundless, a collection of short stories. The book received rave reviews. A review in The Atlantic described the book as "an ambitious and eclectic set of tales, [that] focuses on the interior lives of unexpected subjects." Other reviews called Boundless a "picture-perfect" collection and as "a showcase for Tamaki's mercurial style." NPR and Publishers Weekly named Boundless as one of the best graphic novels of the year.
Roaming, created with Mariko Tamaki, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel. Roaming won the 2024 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, with Tamaki herself winning the 2024 Eisner for Best Penciler/Inker.
Tamaki hand-embroidered three book covers for Penguin. The covers were designed for three classic literature books: Emma by Jane Austen, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. In her free time, she also makes quilts as a hobby.
In September 2020 Tamaki published Our Little Kitchen, an illustrated book about cooking in a community kitchen.
