The Start of a New Adventure
By Frederic Du Chau
I have spent my entire life wanting to make movies. It started as a passion for drawing when I was very little and then turned into a love for animation, once I was old enough to understand how that all worked. This took me to the other side of the world. Hollywood, where I worked as an animator. Maybe not the most skilled one, but I loved it. It didn’t take too long before I wanted to write and create, which lead me to directing animation and eventually animated feature film for WB.
I got more opportunities to write and direct a few more films which came to a stop when covid hit. The film work and corporate video work was slowing down anyway and it was time to revisit my other kid’s dream. Comics — or since I grew up in Belgium, more like graphic novels. I have always drawn them when I had time. I LOVE them. Any kind. European bandes dessinées, Manga, American superhero comics and especially graphic novels. I am obsessed with telling stories in a visually engaging way.
So when we all had to stay home I finally started to rework some old ideas, worlds and characters I created. I wrote and drew a graphic novel starring my kids and a few odd characters we came up with during bedtime stories who are solving mysteries caused by climate change. The mysteries and adventures are fun and imaginative but the climate change facts are real. This way I can make kids familiar with real-world problems without having to lecture them or give them scary numbers and doomsday scenarios. Reading about fun characters and imaginative situations left an impression on me when I was a pre-teen, opening the newspaper — remember those? — every morning to read my favorite comic, Suske en Wiske, which happened to install a life-long love for travel, and discovering new cultures as well as pointing at some more serious issues without making it feel like I was in a classroom or reading the news.
Anyway, it’s time to get this book out and share with everyone. I have only a few more months to go on finishing the coloring and then it’s go-time! I am not sure yet if I will self-publish or look for an established publisher but I’m researching as much as I can and in this blog, I will keep you informed about my journey.
I was thinking about putting this as my introduction to the book. It sets up why I spend two years making it.
Making a graphic novel is something I have wanted to do since I was a kid. I have always been obsessed by telling stories through pictures and as I grew up, I read and watched everything I could get my hands on. Eventually I chose to go into animation and then later into live-action. It was a tough but rewarding journey which took up all my time. Unfortunately, it pushed my dreams of becoming an author aside. All my efforts, networking and learning was focused on making movies. I woke up thinking about movies and went to bed dreaming about them.
And then, when life slowed down because of Covid 19, and with all movie work coming to a halt, I picked up a pencil and dug up old story ideas that were never used. I combined this world building with the bedtime stories I used to tell my kids and came up with a plan to write and draw something I cared about. Something my kids could get into. No pressure from studios, producers or focus groups during test screenings. I was going to do whatever felt like fun. Whether this turned into a good book or not I leave up to you, the reader. Regardless of the result, it was a lot of fun to draw my kids and the whacky characters they came up with. How else would there be a captain Frankenstein and a pirate named Boo Boo Boo?
Making a book was a tough journey. I was no longer going to be ‘just’ a fan but try and create something professional. Ans these days in a n age run by opinions on social media, it was very intimidating to see all the enormously talented artists across the world showing off their work. I started with pencil and paper, then switched to Clip Studio and Adobe Photoshop. I had a lot of help from the ultra-talented Stephan Franck, who took time to explain step by step how to set up a book. Even though it has been quite an intimidating adventure, I can’t wait to do it all again. I also wished I could draw better, but I can’t keep whining about that. I just had to roll up my sleeves and finish my first book. A book that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my wife, Laura, who works long impossible hours to keep our family going.
Finally, I wanted to talk about climate change without forcing a lot of numbers down anyone’s throat or wave doomsday scenarios with fear-inducing slogans in the readers’ faces. There’s already plenty of that in the world. Instead, I wanted to tell an entertaining story with a fact-based underlaying plot. I used all the tricks I collected during decades of making family movies to come up with a book that is a conversation starter. I did not want to point fingers, although I see you, fossil fuel industry, and I didn’t want to choose a political side or religion or make one country out to be better than another. All humans are in this together. Climate change is real and complex, and all opinions and sides need to be heard. So, let’s talk.
A long time ago I won a prize at the Angoulême festival for comic books in France, as best unpublished artist. More than a decade later I finally made my first book. I hope I deliver on that premise.
How could I, as a Belgian, not take this opportunity for a picture next to a statue of Hergé?
Here’s the short story I made for the festival of Angoulême.
The characters where from a children’s book I never published or did anything with. See a few pictures below. The quality is poor because this was scanned over a decade ago.
