The Eliza manifesto

A few days ago, I finalised a manifesto for Eliza that I had been toying with for a while.

I’ve found myself immediately delving into the next big Eliza project, which is the untitled 2028 ‘graphic novel’. The timescales of ‘graphic novel’ creation are very long term, so one has to hope their creative vision is one that works well in the long run. (Works well = sells more? expands creative practice? proves to be a deep exploration of subject matter? advances author’s expertise in subject matter and all the skills required to make a graphic novel? – perhaps all of the above.)

Ceci n’est pas une Graphic Novel

I’m still fighting the term graphic novel because it shall not be a single narrative like a ‘novel’, nor will it contain any visually explicit ‘graphic’ material.

Eliza is an entirely illustrated speculative / design / fiction / futures project that is for now being realised as another book.

Some examples of what the book will contain:

Speculative fiction, creation of new worlds, myths, and lore
Objects and artefacts from adjacent worlds
Visual essays about the nature of imagining futures and alternative worlds.

But yes, if there’s a place it can be found in a book store, it is probably the graphic novels section.

Turning off inspiration

I find myself looking at visual compositions by Chris Ware a lot, lately. I speak about more than just page compositions, but the in which entire chapters, and even books are put together and composed.

Image source: https://www.bodoi.info/building-stories-le-grand-oeuvre-de-chris-ware/

After watching the New Yorker at 100 documentary, followed by a bunch of Chris Ware interviews (linked below) in a YouTube Rabbit hole, I am convinced of the art-book like nature that the Eliza project should take.

https://youtu.be/XV1NjCkYk6E
https://youtu.be/lN8FaCH2xHY
https://youtu.be/I2qQgFM66lw
https://youtu.be/9WaYuLEvz5M
https://youtu.be/S5-CiQa_eME
https://youtu.be/7jSXRv4QaJ0

The project does feel like a hodge-podge of inspirations often: speculative design and fiction subject matter, optimism over criticism, a character I’ve created several years ago, ligne claire illustration style, the esoteric gravitas of an art book, (and perhaps even the eruditeness of New Yorker is something to pick up?)
I wonder if I can shut off some inspirations deliberately for more of a focus on just one kind of story… but the mind doesn’t work that way.

Maybe there will be a time in the future when they are purely 48-page long hard bound Bande Dessinée books only which make for a single fun visual story. And maybe right after, it is just a set of learnings from having made speculative fiction and design shown through a collection critical essays. Or it could then become a design fiction artefact like a product catalogue from an alternative world. As of now, all these worlds come together in a single book: the untitled 2028 Eliza Graphic Novel.

A part of me wants to make these artefacts separately, just like Building Stories by Chris Ware but the form factor of a single graphic novel still entices me, so they’re now all being drawn on uniformly sized pages.

I often wonder if my work is too technical and niche for a graphic novel reader and too visual for a critical minded futures person. As I read back the previous sentence, I realise I’m offending both of those kinds of people.

Is the venn diagram of two niches an even smaller slither of a niche?

Oh and here’s an excerpt from the graphic novel so far away in the distance.