Hello everyone and welcome to Balboa Park episode 15.
if you don’t want to listen, you can read a automatic retranscription down here:
If it's the first time you happen to listen to this podcast I am Nicoz Balboa.
I am an Italian French based trans man and I do tattoos and graphic novels and graphic journaling classes on Patreon.
Before we start
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okay it's the second episode of 2024 but actually is the first one i'm recording because the other one i was i i did record it like on at the end of december and if you didn't listen to it it was all about
the graphic journaling practice and I did the class I was talking about and now I found the way like Patreon is the platform where I that I use to to gather the students and we meet there and from there you can pay your subscription and watch your replay and have the infos about the
the Zoom link from which we do the class each month and now they add a feature so that you can sell digital products and so what's happening is that last class we did last Sunday the class to start in a cool way and setting the intention for the new year
now it's available to purchase even if you are not a subscriber and it's like 15 bucks and if you are a subscriber it's free but if you don't want to subscribe because you don't want to catch the replay you don't want the community you don't want to you know you don't want to come to the live class you just want to cherry pick
once in a while and yeah come on patreon.com slash graphic journal club and just on in the shop section you can just take this class
thank you for listening this was a little ad sponsored by me for myself if you are listening this because you are a Substack subscriber and you received my newsletter
you already know that I am in the process of starting my new book I already talked about my previous book I'm not going to do it again because I don't want to bore you but if you have some doubt about things I'm talking about you can probably just go to my website www.nicosbalboastudio.com and there you can check my previous book
Anyway, I do graphic novels, I often do some sort of auto-fictions,
my last book Transformer also had this cool and prestigious prize of book of the year to a big comic festival in Italy the Luca Comics and it's some kind of big deal even if I didn't realize it but even still now sometimes I have people
oh you got the prize how is it going how your life has changed do you have so much book proposal and much work and no it's not I had yes few
proposal for podcast even in mainstream media in in Italy the thing is like it doesn't change because they are not paid gig I guess nothing has changed but I was I am
happy because it's cool when you work so much on something and then you got a prize I didn't think that it would make me happy but actually it's cool it's a cool sensation it's like oh cool you you actually read my book and enjoyed at the point that you give me a prize oh this is cool but
this this Christmas holiday this season holiday I
So I spent the Christmas with my mom.
She came all the way from Italy And we went in Lesignac-du-Rhin, which is a very small village in the west of France where my partner lived half of the time with their best friend and it's a very cool place and we went there for
for the Christmas, the Christmas Eve and it was a mix of friends and family and it was cool but it was like when I then I came back in La Rochelle with my mother and my daughter and we had a week of wandering around, touristing around
around La Rochelle and Ile de Ré, Ile de Ré is an island just in front of La Rochelle you can go there by a bus because there is a bridge now and it's some kind of another it's like
La Rochelle and L'Ile de Ré are like two different neighbors but they are very you can go there by bike for example biking and it was a cool week but very exhausting because I realized I love I love too much I always talk about this in the podcast if you read if you listen it you already know I love to be alone and also I had
I've been taking notes for my next book for maybe more than a year now and the more the weeks and the days pass I was gathering ideas in the same I took ideas in the notes of my telephone like even for the podcast everything I have in my notes of the telephone I have so many notes with all different kind of
memos and ideas it's a very old school way to take ideas now that we have all kind of app and artificial intelligence all kind of things but
the I'm going like this so I just needed to have the perfect time to just go into myself into my mind I don't know how to say and and start giving a structure to the idea of the book
the thing is that despite my price despite the fact that I do this since forever and I do comics and zine and now I'm publishing in Italy and my book is translated in France I'm still not a full-time author I don't know if it's my problem if it's a block in my mind or if it's economy or if it's
the way I used to drive my career.
Actually, I don't know for now.
Maybe I will discover later in therapy, but for now, I just never give enough credit to the fact that I actually can do graphic novels and I never put anything in place in order to make it my full-time job.
and so for a long time my full-time job has been tattooing and it's cool I like it but in this period of time post-COVID I don't know if it's my generation my age I don't know if it's post-COVID if it's war and the stress we are in with the conflict we can see in the news and it's like
Tattooing I tattoo a lot when I go to Paris.
I already talked about it in a Previous episode and we stop saying this about the previous episode if you listen you ever listen it and if not, it's okay But in La Rochelle, I don't work so much.
I have some work but I
I don't know, maybe I don't want, I'm still not sure what's happening
and so the job was supposed to be my full-time and alimentary I don't know say gaining money for the house job it's very slow those days and also like I have this driven like sometimes I have spare time and instead of
for example drawing tattoo flash or I don't know communicating around my tattoo I like to dig into the graphic journaling rabbit hole I'm all about this those days I love doing this I love doing the class with the person the people who come on zoom or also at strangeland and I like doing this
I took this class this summer of graphic journal, no sorry, art therapy counselor and I'm all about this so I'm spinning on my plate keeping up my tattoo career but while nurturing this idea I have of having also this career in art therapy with the graphic journaling but in the meantime
those are two gaining money careers and in the meantime that are freelance careers so they take a lot of space and like entrepreneur brain is something and I don't like to have it but sometimes you must have it and in the middle of all this I have my drive to do my books and I love doing this so those I was
trying to make it in my brain to plan how to start, how to have the time and so just right after New Year's Eve my mother left on December 30 or 31 and then I had New Year's Eve with my friend Nini in La Rochelle it was very quiet and then my daughter was at the party and then I spent the
the January 1st with my daughter in a chill way but then my daughter went to her father and so I had the whole week all alone my partner and my dog and my dog were in Lesignac my daughter were at the other parent no family no tattoo shop because the tattoo shop was closed until yesterday for the Christmas time
and so I enjoyed this moment of being all alone and just being able to concentrate on what I like to do it's like drawing and telling stories this is no mystery that seems forever I like blogging I like newsletter I like
comics, doing graphic journals and also even the podcast now.
I like telling things, telling stories.
And so I was like, yes, I can start my book.
I have this week, which is, of course, it's not enough.
For example, my last book, Transformer, took me more than one year to finish.
And also maybe because I have to make big session, maybe I have one week.
maybe once a month in which I only do this the whole day from 7 in the morning to 1 a.m.
and then I have to go back to my paying bills and jobs.
Yesterday I was in therapy and I was saying if I have a magic wand maybe what I would like to do is like having nothing practical to do
no paying bills no doing the dishes or cooking the meals just drawing and I have all sorts of people around me who do all the things and but it was a fun statement to say but luckily it's something I would think about me but likely therapy is there to go dig a little bit deeper and I also realized that
it's not really true because I also like to have the how do you call it the balance between being all alone and being like like the queen of England no now it's like the king like you know some someone who you don't have to to do anything only you can all people do things for you
and actually it's not Queen or King of England, but of Great Britain, I don't know what to say.
But the more I dig in the therapy and I realized, no, because I also like those moments in which I had this vision for Strangeland, which is my tattoo shop, but I would like it to be a place
when we can create, when we can sell zine, when we can do workshops and this is a whole other episode today I came here to talk about the creative process of starting my book I took so many turns while telling this thanks to the ADHD brain and if you read the newsletter
letter letter how do you pronounce it newsletter no letter i don't know you already seen some of the videos and i wanted to use this this episode to talk about how i realize i approach doing my graphic novels what do i do i didn't know i had a process the first time the first time my born to lose book
which is only available now through my website because it's out of catalogue in Italy because it's like a book, it's like my graphic journal selected and turned into a book.
It's cool, rights with my old publisher were about to expire and I didn't want to continue letting them the rights to my book.
I have nothing against my first publisher it's just like that we didn't connect very much and I wasn't there were no human interaction with them and so I take back the rights
and also I feel comfortable this book to don't be in bookstore anymore and I have the last few copies if you want in my e-shop on my website.
Anyway, so there were no writing process in there.
The writing process was keeping a graphic journal every day for three years and then select the pages.
But then, for PLAY WITH FIRE, it was the first time I had this... I wanted to tell this story and I couldn't manage to just start a drawing and then see where the storytelling of the drawing will take me.
It was the first time I realized that just drawing as I experienced the narration, it couldn't be...
something I related anymore because I can't draw fast enough and I needed to to pick up my brain and write down all the old ideas before starting drawing so what I did it was like I started writing and writing in the note of my telephone of course I started writing it when I was at the airport because I had this
I saw this exhibition and I wanted about maybe you already know the stories but I was closeted, a closeted trans man and there were so much things going on in my heart, in my belly, in my brain and then I was in Bologna and I went to this exhibition called the Transitional States organized by
professor Chiara Beccalossi which is also the instigator for LGBT plus history month in Italy and she also has a podcast about the LGBT plus history in Italy anyway she organized this exhibition called transitional states and
I already, no I didn't see it already in England, I don't remember I see it twice, I guess first time in England in London and second time in Bologna or viceversa I don't remember but the time I was in Bologna
and I saw it and there was a video from the two trans activists and artists, Fox Fisher and Howell, that, I don't know, struck a chord inside of me and I
and I feel I am so trans and I need to write this down I need to tell this story to understand who I am and also to create something that exists also for people who come after me and so I started writing writing writing in my notes when I came back in La Rochelle I was traveling and the travel Bologna La Rochelle it was like I guess I took
So CO2 imprint, it's very big at the time, but I guess I took a plane and then a train.
Anyway, it was when I write at night, I started from the morning and I had to write all the ideas of the book.
And then I started, then I printed the text.
and then I had this on those pages and then I started highlighting and see what what did I have and I have those print papers and I started
sketching the layouts of the pages and at the time I put all together and I remember having those you know those plastic sheets in which you you put your paper sheet inside and then you have little holes and you can put it in a in a big in a big folder
And so I could actually see pages being sketched in the layout and I put them in the plastic sheets and then in the folder and so on.
And then I have this folder full of all the sketches in the order, you know, all the book.
And then I was, okay, I have a book.
And so I wrote to my publisher, my new publisher,
um at the time it was the this my my publisher it's Igor and he was the director of the whole publishing where I did my book playing Born To Lose and he was the person who wanted Born TO Lose to be published and when my book Born To Lose came out he went away as a director of this creative director of this publishing and then opened another
publisher and he said to me when are you doing the second book and so I already have this insurance and this I get gave me I felt so secure in creating because I knew that I was creating also because then it will be a publisher waiting for me and supporting me and believing in my work
almost like blindly because I guess he knows what he likes but at the time I just did this first book and so I remember at the time sketching all the sketches the layout and then writing to him okay I have the second book I'm ready I have this is the story and all this and he said okay and it took me like
say maybe one year to finish because then what I did I started cleaning up my my sketches my layouts and so what I did is I went back to page one and each page I took it and then I trace it on nice watercolor paper and
cleaning it and coloring it I guess that I remember working for Play With Fire like cleaning a page and then put it aside and maybe waiting to arrive to something like five to ten pages of inking and then starting the coloring because since I work in watercolor but I don't use the air dryer some of
people who draw, artists who draw with watercolor use a nail dryer to dry the watercolor and I also, I only, what I like to do is like doing multiple drawings and coloring at the time so that the color has the time to dry on his own
and I like this because I like errors that this can bring because sometimes you do a colors and then the colors maybe make your the inking stain or they mix together in a weird way and I like this I like the error and so I went on
drawing and drawing and coloring and inking.
And in a moment I find myself with so many drawings that I needed to go buy another folder.
And I remember the first folder I used, it was a yellow one.
I guess I had it at home, I don't remember.
And so I went and buy another yellow folder.
and then while I was drawing I realized I needed another folder you know the big folder with iron rings
they are often used for when for your accounting when you do your taxes then you fold all your receipts in there so they are very big at the end of the making of my book PLAY WITH FIRE I had three of these full one with the sketches with the layouts and two with the finishing of the book and I also
I remember I guess at the moment I have to put two pages in each plastic sheet because I didn't have enough space and yeah I didn't know it was a method of mine I just did this and then I put it back back two years ago during the Christmas holiday between 2021 and 2022
I my daughter was spending the whole Christmas at her father and I was with my dog and I I didn't want to go in Italy without my daughter and I just had this dog and I didn't want to scare him to leaving him and I don't remember my partner where I don't remember at their family and
I spent for the first time in my life Christmas all alone by choice and I loved it.
I guess that I could have the privilege to love it because I had the choice of being alone on Christmas.
Maybe it's not the same for people who are
alone, not by choice.
Anyway, I remember spending it, these two weeks, one week, one full week, writing, taking back my notes, because I was, of course, after Play With Fire, so I'm talking about then Transformer, I did the same.
Every time I had an idea, I started writing in my notes.
like I did the first time I did after this exhibition you know this transitional exhibition trans-oriented exhibition back then I didn't have a method I just pick up the notes and
I liked it so much that then I never stopped doing this so I took notes for my book Transformer in my telephone and what I also had as notes for this particular book was the graphic journal about my transition I was drawing for
for my patreon and for my instagram follower especially the follower of the instagram mom skin because it's a more small and graphic journaling related um how do you call related um
content uh and so there I graphic journaled all my transition or at the beginning of my transition so even if you are curious about my book transformer you can find
the proto-ideas, the proto-drawings about this because the book is not translated in English but the graphic journal about the sketch and the comic that I used them as an inspiration to do the book are actually in English so you can go to instagram.com and at this momeskine is like a mom, like a mom, a mother and
but like moleskin you know moleskine the journals and so it's like a funny way of it's like because I started this you know I have a teen daughter and
she calls me mom and so this was the the moleskin of the mom the momeskine you can read it there anyway I so I took the notes I took the this and I remember how I did it for play with fire so I went back to the store
like four years later I went back to the to the store and I bought a folder and I bought plastic sheets and I bought paper and this time I changed the color in the folder and I bought some kind of like greenish Tiffany green and I drew and in the same process my book my
transformer book the one who's won even the award even though I don't know why I can't manage to have it none of my book translated in English it's it's not my job to do it's my publisher but I guess they try and it would be so cool to have my book translate in English but
for now if you want to read mini english it's on substack and on instagram and on patreon do it yourself best way to do it anyway so flash forward to today and to last week when i happened to have again one week of solitude
and so I was like I feel so ready to start my next book two years later okay and so I did two things like printing my the notes that were in my telephone about the ideas of the next book
and went to the store and buy a folder, buy the plastic sheets, buy the paper and all the things that you already know.
This time I have chosen a blue folder because then I realized, okay, there is a pattern here.
I have a book with a yellow folder,
folders and then I write the after the other book transformer and I bought this tile Tiffany green folders so maybe I can manage to make it like a chromatic scale you know the it will be an evolution in time
and in color, I don't know if it's some... So yeah, for now I have yellow and greenish and blue, and then I will see how many books I will do in my life.
It will all depend if one day I will become a full-time author or not.
For now, as I was talking at the beginning,
I can only manage, my book takes me one year to make and then also I have one year to focus back on my job to gain money because I often accumulate a lot of debt while I'm doing my book I always do this because I take this time off to do my book but actually when you are a freelance
or self-entrepreneur when you take your time off but you don't get money and so that he always cost me a lot of debt when I go into
those moments this year in which I do my book I hope that this year will not be this way maybe I should apply for a grant or things like this but I can't manage to do this I can't observe and notice and work on my creative process of my inner space and all the emotion
but I probably need to focus also more on the practical things because for now it's very difficult for me to have this maybe I will need an assistant somebody that tell me don't worry work and I can do the admin stuff
Maybe I should find an assistant with whom I can trade tattoos.
If you want to get a tattoo and you want to become my assistant to do my grants, please reach out to me.
I'm joking, maybe not, I don't know.
Anyway, so this was the starting of my book journey.
I still haven't disclosed the title because I'm not sure if it's cool, if it's a genius title or if it's cringe.
I still have not... I don't know, I'm just at the beginning.
But anyway, I bought the folders, I bought the papers, I bought the plastic sheets and all the things that I've spent last week.
sketching but there is a new novelty how do you say in English there is a new thing that is happening I will always be writing like even this book is some sort of auto fiction but I'm doing two things that I didn't do before and one is
having a part in which I have a research work in which every statement I'm talking about are supported by quoting books
it's something I never did because I before it was maybe more personal and now I want to mix the personal but also some kind of info I don't want to say political but I want to anyway I want to having other out or another intellectuals another experience to back up my experience and I also doing another things that I never did
it's like having two parallel stories and one is mine and one is another figure some author that I love that is dead now and I'm using their journal and their info to make it a parallel stories with mine
I'm not sure if I have the right to do this and I'm not sure if I will have the capacity to do this because it's
I don't know.
I will talk about this, of course, in the future.
So this week was about starting sketching but in a moment, I stopped in a moment because then I needed to continue start sketching the story which is not my story and so I don't have the notes on the telephone to have the experience.
What I'm doing is I'm taking this book
and I'm re-reading it I have actually another edition of the book I read I needed one other so that I can take notes directly on the book and then once I've gathered all the information I need at least for this first part I will probably
start sketching and in the same way I don't know it's a very new thing so I will keep you posted if you are interested in this I guess it's all for today if you
didn't catch this episode arriving from my newsletter or from Substack I invite you to go to Substack and subscribe because there I'm also maybe posting not maybe I'm also posting like videos and photos of my work in progress and
I guess it will be fun and at least I need it I need to do it this in order to understand what I'm doing I need to talk about this about this so and if you maybe it's something you want to do starting your own book your own graphic novel maybe we can
talk about this you can come and read it and leave me comments and I can maybe try to to answer your question okay and don't forget I was saying in the beginning to subscribe and to share this this podcast this episode with somebody you know it will love it and
all the info you need are on my website anyway nicozbalboastudio.com and take care and talk to you very soon bye bye
show corrections:
I say episode 14 but it’s episode 15!
I say “folder” but I actually meant “binder”.
show notes:
momeskine: https://www.instagram.com/momeskine/
my friend Nini: https://www.instagram.com/virginie_rvr/
born to lose: https://www.nicozbalboastudio.com/borntolose-2/
play with fire: https://www.nicozbalboastudio.com/playwithfire/
transformer: https://www.nicozbalboastudio.com/transformer/
Igort:
https://www.igort.com/
graphic journal club: https://www.patreon.com/graphicjournalclub
my website: https://www.nicozbalboastudio.com/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicozbalboa.substack.com
