Book Tour Diary (2024)

We kicked off the tour in Hong Kong, my home city, with two events:
November 18, 2023 marked the book’s birthday at PHD Group, with a talk moderated by Charis Poon. Special thanks to Silke for loaning me the AV equipment, and Jodie and May for handling the book sales with me.
On January 29, 2024, Professor Daniel Elam invited me to speak at the University of Hong Kong in collaboration with the Comp Lit department. The topic was How It Feels: Depression in Comics. The title of the talk refers to this essay by Jenny Zhang.

You can read a transcript of the launch conversation here.

Thanks again to Ysabelle, Willem and Neil of PHD Group for hosting us!

Shoutout especially to the students who came to the talk, I know being a student can be super tiring.

Thank you Professor Daniel Elam for having me!

Taipei was my first overseas stop on the tour. I met Helen while I was living there on an artist fellowship in late 2019. She’s a deeply spiritual illustrator who beautifully merges cultural traditions with a contemporary sensibility in her work. She kindly connected me to wooo cafe, a lovely Hong Kong themed vintage style cafe in the Dadaocheng district, where their team member Jason helped me put on this event. I was really into the vintage wallpaper! I remember it was cloudy and overcast that day, and I wasn’t sure if anyone would come. I’m glad some people did.

I screen printed tote bags for the event at Retro Jam, Taipei. Special thanks to the artist/staff @DotDotMarty for teaching me how to do this.

I was really impressed to see that the cafe had an independent book corner plus an events space on their second floor, their sound system and projector set up were great too. It always amazes me how that small businesses can do so much with what they have. I think sometimes in my life, I’ve felt afraid of being DIY/small. But its times like these that I feel strengthened in the power of people and community.

New York was my next stop on the tour. I remember I drew this poster during a layover in Korea (Incheon airport, to be specific). I was quite jet lagged and decided to break the usual format I had planned for the graphics. Instead of the city-themed square (in which character from the book, or myself + the moderator, would be in the location of the event), I decided to make a band poster because those were big influences on my style growing up. Its obvious that I don’t play an instrument because the guitars here are not even plugged in, haha… The event was in Chinatown so I included some traditional Chinese text in the flyer, and I also included a sticker of Ping’s dog on her guitar.

The audience for the New York event was particularly sweet, we packed almost eighty people into the store and everyone was so respectful of each other and asked such great questions. I couldn’t stop crying at the end because of how supported I felt… I’m a big softie and this crowd was really sensitive to that.

I made some specific memes for each stop on the tour, this one is about boygenius, they had just won a bunch of Grammys the month before the event:

I wasn’t excited about any of the clothes I brought on this trip, so this entire outfit was lent to me by my friend Brandon, whose couch I was also sleeping on: THANK YOU BRANDON! Also, the shoes I had gotten custom made in Taipei during the first event of the tour, by Translate.

Yo Katami and I all bundled up to face the Tokyo cold for some drinks and skewers after the event.

When I first made my Instagram account for comics, back in 2018, I was followed by a graphic designer from Tokyo, Yo Katami. At the time I was involved with co-founding Queer Reads Library, a collective focused connecting queer zines and books with readers. Yo Katami subsequently started loneliness books, citing QRL as one of his influences (also known as Queer Print Products QPP Tokyo). It has been such a privilege to see Yo carve out a space in Tokyo for his amazing bookstore and programming. I was also very touched that he designed custom posters for the event too. Special thanks to Kenneth for simultaneously interpreting English into Japanese and vice versa for this event.

The cute audience at my Tokyo book launch!

My table mates and I at Vancouver Comic Arts Festival 2024.

My friend Aaron, a Hong Kong-Canadian novelist, kindly let me his suit for the tour. I felt really confident in it.

Due to the proximity of Vancouver and San Francisco, I timed my San Francisco book launch to happen after Vancouver Comic Arts Festival. It was my first time going to Vancouver in over fifteen years, and I was bowled over by how strong the independent comic scene is over there. I was tabling next to two very cool artists, one of whom is entirely off social media because that’s how rad they are. The other was Sanika, Jackfruit Slayer, whose beautifully detailed and expressive work was a sight to behold. I also met Constant Yen, a really interesting Toronto-based animator and artist, who was tabling with his partner across from me. That’s the magic of these festivals, the chance encounters and fateful new friendships.

Showing attendees my cringe high school Surrealism phase. Because every artist starts somewhere.

I only had a whirlwind 36 hours in San Francisco but I really liked what I saw. I perused Silver Sprocket, visited SFMOMA, and ate some Toy Boat ice cream. This poster is outdated as my lovely friend + mentor Sophie (who worked with me on editing Eric’s Sister) got sick, so the awesome MariNaomi stepped in as moderator last minute. MariNaomi is a mainstay comics legend of the Bay Area and I was so grateful to have their support. And thanks to Green Apple Books on the Park for being awesome hosts, everyone who works there is saintly. The talk was recorded.

I stopped at Gosh Comics in London on my way to Berlin for the final book event. It is such a beautiful haven for indie comics, and special thanks to Greg for agreeing to stock both Eric’s Sister and my anthology hardcore fangirl there. You can feel they have a real passion for DIY creators there, the whole wall of self-published work really speaks to that ethos.

Special thanks to Spike Art Magazine for kindly agreeing to be venue host, they stepped in at the last minute and I am truly grateful. And Nino was a wonderful moderator, wisecracking and sharp and asked me some interesting craft questions that I hadn’t thought about before. Their graphic novel firebugs is one of my favourite books of all time.

The final public event I participated in for Eric’s Sister was Booked art book fair at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, at the end of August 2024. While I’d been tabling with a black cloth since 2019, when visiting my artist friend Alice dos Reis at her studio near Sham Shui Po, we decided to go fabric shopping and I decided on sky blue as my new table color. One of my favourite things to do before a book fair is make a new bubble letter slogan sign. This time, it was “CLOSING SALE” to mark the end of a whirlwind year of touring. I also put a photo of the late Leslie Cheung on the table as a lucky deity of sorts. To coincide with the fair, I launched two new zines about crushes and friendship. Special thanks to Aaron for tabling for me when I spoke on a panel.