This episode will contain spoilers for very old movies and maybe some newer movies, so don't worry, we'll give you a heads up.

Plus, after our Winter Gothic deep dive, I interview illustrator and cartoonist Lee Lai, author of Stone Fruit and the upcoming Fantastic graphic novel Fans of the Bear Cannon.

Hello, my name is Rosy Night, and today we're talking about Winter Gothic.

I'm Carmen thelonng Nick and where the Scone Crans.

Welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where.

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In today's episode, we are breaking down another subgenre of horror and maybe some other genres as we have begun to realize while we dig in Winter Gothic.

So we're gonna start what is Winter Gothic.

We're gonna lay out our rules and the movies that we think fit into them.

Then we're gonna do the scream Queen pics, recommend you some great Winter Gothics to watch, and then we're gonna ask is Stephen King, the king of this subgenre.

But first a quick discussion, Colm, and let's begin with you.

Yeah, so, I thought it'd be great to start this conversation by, just like we did with her Sci Fi debate, by talking about how we define this subgenre of winter Gothic.

I'll start with myself.

For me, I was thinking about this.

I'm really excited about this topic.

Actually, I've been thinking about it all night.

But for me, the season winter has to feel almost like a character in the movie.

It has to.

Feel like it is.

I have to imagine, like, can I imagine this story taking place in the summer?

Could I imagine this story taking place in the spring.

No, So winter becomes an integral part of that storytelling.

I think that is an important part.

And then, of course it has to be dark.

It has to be dealing with dark, depressing themes as we love during the wintertime.

Definitely.

What about you, Joel, Yeah, so this is interesting.

You guys were like, what if we talked about winter Gothic?

I said, the hell are you talking about?

I don't know what that means.

Yeah, but the first thing I thought of was like blood on snow.

So then I was like, Okay, let me be in neerd and get my research bag, and it led me to read it exactly.

That was it.

That was like the only place I was really talking in depth about what when a God?

I was like, these girls are too cool for me.

They're so far ahead of the times.

There's not an Internet search for it.

That's crazy.

So when we started trying to figure out, like what does a genre mean, it was like, well, let me take it back to the Gothic elements and like, let me make sure my understanding is fully immersed in like what is it to be like gothic and genre?

Right?

Okay, so you're dealing with themes of death and decay, You're dealing with isolation, but also with romance.

You're dealing with thoughts of.

The ends of things.

Right, all of these are very coincide with winter, like just the thematic like pagan winter ideals like highly fit into the deals of like the Gothic tenants, right, And so I was like, oh, and too, if you think like Gothic literature tends to lack subtlety, it is very on the nose about like it's so awful.

So when you're leaning into that and you're leaning into something that is like very black and white, stark in your face.

To sort of add winter as a backdrop to that, we're talking early nights that last longer.

We're talking like the cream Christmas of snow with the like madness of the city and or blood and or like whatever you mixed on top of it is going to really stand out visually.

And so by then I totally understand like why as a culture we started to gravitate towards films that highlight this And if you think even like more about it, I was like, man, every werewolf movie probably fits under the Pretty much ninety percent of werewolf movies would be considered a winter Gothic.

You've got to Carmen's point, winter is practically a character in there.

You've got your romance and death because werewolves, it's all right there.

I really like the idea of this genre because it brought to mind some of my favorite films, which we'll talk about in a minute.

But Rose, I'm curious, like when do you stumble upon the idea of winter Gothic and like what does the genre mean for you?

I think that as a naming convention, I have found the same thing, like relatively new.

Honestly, when we were talking about it in our group chat, we were kind of like, yeah, what does this mean to us?

Like what movies would this look like.

I think it works because actually.

When you go back, this encompasses throughout cinematic history, just like hundreds of movies.

And it's kind of this idea of like the bleak midwinter, the kind of dark evenings when things start to look strange and shadows everything.

I'm dead.

There's movies going back as everything's dead, right, it's the representation this is winter before before the you know, some of these movies will end up, you know, a Thirty Days of Night or something.

At the end you get the sunrise.

That's your representation of spring.

But there are some really old movies I saw when I was a teenager that I think fit into this, like the there's this finish movie called The White reind It's from the fifties and that's about like she goes to a shaman to like spice up kind of like her appeal as a woman, very practical, magic coded, and but ends up becoming like a vampire.

And it's all set in this crazy snow place.

Another movie they show all the time here that I think is an early example of this is the Curse of the Cat People, which is like a forties kind of.

Nah movie long right.

And get that iconic image of her in the cloak.

I mean, even like I think one of the most famous and this is definitely like a Reddit pic.

You'll definitely see this in folk horror communities talking about this, which I think folk corra is one of my favorite genres, and this.

Is very folk horror coded.

But the Japanese horror movie Kwi Dan, which is kind of this collection of Japanese horror movies from the sixties.

It's on Criterion.

There's some really great examples in there.

Also, another reason I think this is so connected to the horror genre is because if you think a lot about old like vampire movies, fearless vampire killer, stuff like that Dracula, often when you get to the gothic mansion, it's snowing.

It's isolating snow.

As you said common about it becoming a character.

The snow is something that adds to the quiet, to the isolation, to the loneliness because all you can see is this white, blank canvas, and also it numbs the sounds it softens that.

I think there's this fear of winter, of being alone.

Maybe it speaks to something very feral and old, you know, that fear of what is outside.

I think that's why you Diesel also kind of get tied into like a lot of horror, a lot of monster movies, those old troll movies from like the Zeros, the Swedish movies I think about, though I would not say necessarily those are Gothic, but I do think this idea of a of a scary landscape that is going to kill you even if you survive the bad thing makes these stories way scarier, Like can you escape the snow?

Yeah?

Yes, to that point, like winter is an endurance test, particularly before things like supermarkets where you just go buy your food like you did you preserve and take socca and backload and everything goes to crap.

Do you have the skills to sort of navigate these really difficult terrain and long season I think, yeah, we okay, So let's let's really bullet point our tenants here.

So I think the main one in order to apply to being a winter Gothic, you need to have Winter as a character.

I need visuals, I need the sounds of Winter.

It needs to be an overwhelming force driving the direction of the film.

Okay, great, then yes, I think to me, if we're going gothic death and romance, and they to some degree go hand in hand, absolutely, Okay, what else do we need for winter Gothic?

I think for me, definitely that idea of like the winter comes and then you are more trapped than you are isolation.

You know, a lot of times these these movies are about isolation.

They're about the.

Way that winter stops you from being able to interact, They're about they kind of tie into those old historical adventures.

Too, of like you know, the men exploring the Antarctic and dying.

You know, I feel like it.

Taps into a lot of those historical so, like, you know, I would say there's an argument that you could make that Giamma del Toro's the first act is especially Yeah, fits into a winter Gothic right his Frankenstein.

So yeah, I'm very interested.

I think, Yeah, definitely, Howling Winds.

I don't think it needs to be a horror because, like when I was looking on Reddit, when I was kind of looking through these different articles where people have talked about Winter movies, I will say I think something like.

Winter's Bone comes.

Up a lot, probably a because it's got the name Winter in the Time, yeah, but B because of Jennifer Lawrence and that performance.

That is a movie about.

Being isolated, being alone and having to survive a winter where your patriarchal figure has like abandoned you, you know, in a space.

So I think this kind of notion of isolation and winter and how that adds challenges to what you're already facing.

I love it.

And then two would we say, if this is a dark Knight of the soul type genre, is the discovery of self also essential?

I would say yes, in general, you're going to come to a point within these movies where something true is discovered about yourself.

Now that is not always going to be something positive, right we.

Dive into the pictures, some of min are like bleak as out, Like the discovery is like, oh, you're fucking crazy, Like this is the craziness is erupted within you and this is all you can do.

And I gives it takes.

We're gonna give you the coziness of Santa's We're gonna take you to the depths of winter.

But now before we go to break.

We'll be right back after these messages and we're back, let's talk about some of our picks.

We want a round Robinham, Yeah, the one, yeah after the other me start.

Okay, I'm gonna start with my most controversial I thought I had while we were while we were talking about what it is, and it was an image that was like, what movie am I thinking of blood on the snow?

It's fucking killed Bill.

You guys, love and death and equal measure connected isolation.

Okay, great Winter as a character, not throughout the whole movie, maybe just to the seed, but she's there and she's making things chalired.

By you know, a Japanese film.

Yeah.

I was actually that that Lady Snowblood was actually gonna be one of my picks because so much of it is taken from that.

So I think you'll I think if a.

Movie is so has such an iconic sequence like that sequence with Lucy in, I think you can make that argument.

Now, look, is it is some of kill Bill set and like you know California and Sonny.

Yes, but I love that you bought this outrageous pick.

And I do think especially because it's based on Lady snowblood.

Yeah, I was kind of blown away.

I love that you're both like, yeah, we'll let this ride.

Thank you for indulging the craziness.

Carmen, what's your first pick?

I okay, my first pick is one that came to me this morning and I was so excited, right, I remembered it.

But Mothman Prophecies is.

I love this.

This is a great pick.

Because look, not necessarily a lot of snow in the way that we think, but very like missed the rainy depressing as correct.

Yes, and his wife dies at the beginning of the movie.

She gets a brain tumor, and so it's kind of a The movie is about him trying to figure out what entity his wife was obsessed with before she died that he thinks had taken her, and it's this entity called the moth Man.

And yeah, it has one of the creepiest scenes in all of cinema history in my opinion, which is the hotel scene where he gets a phone call.

Richard Gear gets a phone call from the injured cold character and that voice when I hear that, it sends chillsning fine, I watched it when I was a kid in the winter.

I think and for me, it's like a very wintery definitely lots of themes of winter, and it will it'll make you obsessed with the moth Man and just really start to think, like, here's the moth Man real?

I love again, back to that folkloric folk horror.

I think there's something about winter that sends us back.

We are going back to pagan traditions anyway, with like the Christmas tree and stuff like that, and the celebration of like sitting around the fire.

So maybe there's something about winter.

The your logue this kind of there's something about it that sends us back to those kind of feral times and those feral kind of human behaviors.

So that's why I am in a pick for my first pick one of the best most underrated movies directed by a woman as well.

This is ravenous.

This movie is a.

Absolutely crazy horror western from nineteen ninety nine directed by Antonio Bird and it is basically set in the California Sierra Nevada in the eighteen forty and it is about a group of soldiers who are out an isolated ice outpost when they come across cannibals and it's kind of very interesting because while it is based on real life and like it's inspired by the Donna Party, and it's inspired by a real Colorado cannibal that they called Alfred Packer, who survived after eating people becoming snowbound.

It is actually and I think.

This is the reason why it's had such a long history and has become such a cult classic.

It's really like a movie critiquing American imperialism and the ideas of like manifest destiny and the ideas of like consumption.

And it's really good.

It's really scary, and it is also just like really again, feels like that Donna train kind of you're exploring and you become trapped that existential fear of the nature of the earth and winter and all this kind of horror that you have to survive already, and then you add in this extra thing, which is this cannibalism aspect, And yeah, such a good movie, and the ending.

Is crazy, and yeah, it's it's just really good.

It's got Guy Peace, it's got David Arquette, it's got Jeffrey Jones, it's a lot of Neil mcdonnaugh.

It's it's really good.

It's a low key kind of like it was an indie mooe.

It didn't make a ton of money.

It cost twelve million, made two million, But it's so good and I think that definitely earns its place in the winter gothic space and leans into that kind of like crazy.

And also, I'm going again, this is a bleak one, so I would say you two did some kind of funnish ones that are still spooky.

So that's my first true bleak take Joelle, what is your second?

Well to bring us to a slightly less bleak but still dark place.

It's winter gothic, guys, We're not going to leave the darkness.

It's thirty Days of Night now listen.

Is it.

Performance Josh Harten has ever given?

No, it's not for that.

Please go see Penny Dreadful.

Is it the best vampire movie of all time?

It's it's not only Lovers Left Alive exists, and we can't take that exactly.

But it has some of the coolest looking vampires.

They have flam dress so regular they feel like Russian mob.

You're like, I would not fuck with these guys.

And on top of that, just like this is an absolute just vibes movie.

It's like it's a little bit slasher movie.

If you haven't seen it, it's a little bit slashery.

You do have a final girl.

You've got police dudes who are sort of forced into different types of hector roles, which I find really interesting.

But mostly I'm here for these damn cool looking vampires and they're damn cool killing methods.

I think Three Days of Night is one of the most fun horror movies of all time.

Just great show.

It's so much fun to show people, just from a conceptual standpoint of Like, you're up in Alaska, it's going to be dark for a full month, which sunset the last sunset.

It's a horrifying premise.

And then you have a killer who is more expertise than the dark, more expertise in the cold.

You can't truly beat them.

You can only hope to outrun them.

Oh it's thrilling and fun.

Again.

I just cannot emphasize enough how much the acting is not great.

Just don't that's not why you're here.

You came, it's for visual it's mint.

Era, it's mid Ara Josh and now he's back in his bag, like this is post you know, faculty and a.

Lot is happening in the world.

Yeah, a lot was happening also as well.

Like you said, Joelle, I mean this is based on a comic book.

It's set over thirty days.

It's a really great simple conceit, which I also think a lot of these movies have.

Or it's basically like what if you were in an already scary, unsettling situation.

You're a new coop in town, it's about to be thirty days of night, Like, how do you protect your town?

Is everyone just going to be chilling?

Oh wait, there's vampires here, because of course where else would they live?

So I love that pick.

And again, guys, yeah, great, great comic book, and they I think they have a new series coming out as well as part of the IDW Dark Range.

Common What is your second.

I think my second pick is probably, out of all the ones we've talked about to support, the one that probably fits our category the most, and that is Crimson Peak.

It is definitely Gothic.

It is definitely winter it's wintery, and it is definitely dealing with the dark, you know, subjects and the romance and all of that.

Absolutely love it.

I personally, I was literally I haven't watched this movie in a few years, but I have seen it like four times and it is is one of my favorite Garamel del Tora movies.

I can't tell you what the movie's about, but I do know that it's a.

Very visually which we offer.

I would say feeling that Gothic movies.

Visually stunning movie and your eyes are eating in every freaking shot of the movie.

Amazing.

You know, costume acting from Doug Jones in that horrifying red ghost, like just some of the best like costuming and makeup, and and just like set designs in Winter Gothic.

You know what else this movie has that I think goes well in the gothic category of our Winter Gothic It as men who long they want, they want to love them, They're not sure of themselves.

It's damn sexy.

There's no certainty there, there's no fire in the yearning.

This is cool gothic yearning where you feel like can you never be able to achieve what you need?

I love this pitcommon.

I think if there is a Winter Gothic movie, it is likely this.

If there is a singular one, I think it has a lot of the hallmarks of what we want from Gothic storytelling, like it's very turn of the Screw.

You are a woman, you turn up at this new house.

Oh but you're married, so that's very blue Beard, that's very Rebecca.

And suddenly your husband has secrets in the house is wanted, like, it's such a the house is so winter.

How is it to say, let's add that.

Let's add that retroactively.

I do think that some of the best horror movies like this are set in one location or have one primary scary location.

You appear in.

Even even in kill Bill, the winter gothic of it all comes when she goes to Lucy Lou.

You know, I would say, so my next pick does fit in really well with that.

Another incredibly bleak one.

This is a very controversial movie, guys, because it is essentially like a gaslight in.

Horror movie and it is about evil kids.

But I think it's legit one of the scariest best winter horror movies ever made.

I think it's so bleak that a lot of people couldn't take it.

It has a crazy cast.

Riley Keog Jada Martel as the kid, Leah mceu as the other kid, Alice She a Silverstone by the way and hermitage and it is.

A so this is the story.

Yeah, she is the mom, Alicia Silverstone is the mom, but Riley Keog is.

The step mom, the evil and horrible.

A horrible tragedy happens early on, and we and the kids decide that.

The dad decides he's going to take the kids to this lodge out in the winter, and played by Richard Armitage really great career performance where you just can't really tell whether you can trust him or not.

He sends her there, the young stepmother with his two kids, and strange things start to happen.

She starts to have flashbacks to a cult she was saved from.

There, starts to appear to be supernatural elements happening in the house.

Things start going really really badly and getting very bleak, and as the story unfolds, you realize there is kind of an ulterior motive that is driving this, but it's all centered around Riley Kyog in this new place in like you can't see anything but snow, basically being terrorized by these two kids, but she can't trust that that is what's happening.

It's so bleak and so good, and the ending is horrific.

It's the kind of this is from twenty nineteen.

This is the kind of ending that I just feel like you don't really get anymore.

This is by the guys who also it's Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala.

They made that movie that I believe was called like Good Year.

I love that movie.

It was a foreign.

Movie about the two kids with the mom who had had the plastic surgery.

This was an American movie that the American language movie The Paradem made.

Yeah, it's it's really good, guys.

It's so bleak, but it's it's really really good.

And I think it's pure winter Gothic.

There is no it's relentless, there's no hope, there's nothing, nothing good is coming out of this winter.

This is the kind of winter that will drive you crazy.

And that is about, you know, taking you from your experiences as a young person and how if you do not deal with them.

This is the kind of winter that can like crack you open.

It's it's so good.

It's so good, guys, got so good from this very deep, rich text, uh dark movie.

I'm going to give you the Disney version of.

A Yes we need this, let's end with something a little cheerier.

Timmy be made one final good movie.

Many as well.

It's the epitome of a winter gothic or a detective.

Let's travel to a town far of state, New York to discover who has been chopping off the heads of the locals.

It's sleepy, hollow, problematic.

Johnny Depp, I'm so sorry to have to ride the Johnny an iconic, possibly too young to be sorry off as a Johnny Depp at this point in time, Christy listen, is it a problematic favor?

It is?

It was ninety nine.

I was ten years old, and I was like, this is what love is.

Look at these two people falling for each other.

I was really, really, really.

Into like boundly important movie for me as a kid first save time.

It truly was as somebody who was very obsessed with death and death practices at the time, as somebody who was really intrigued by just like woods and old horror stories, like it's really firing on all angles.

It is perhaps one of the most beautifully shot films of all time too.

I mean, when you talk about the contrast of blood on snow, when you're talking about your general costume design, like I was completely blown away.

The cinematographers Emmanuel Lebetski, who if you're not like a film person to lave probably a name that you're like not as familiar with.

But his catalog is deep.

Guys like he did.

Hold on.

I'm sorry.

I've tried to pull it up, so I don't fuck it up.

Here go the Revenue, Birdman, Tree of Life, Gravity, Children of Men, those guys, okay, Like it goes on forever, and so if you want to really luxuriate just in his visuals, you can do that.

If you have like a fun twist, you can get that.

If you want beautiful costumes, you've got that.

The acting is great, listen, it's probably again.

I do think this is Timberton's last great film.

This could potentially be Johnny Depp's last great film too, if you're really for the like when he's stretching himself and trying to act and not really just falling into the Jack Spherau of it all.

He's a different person here and it looks so good.

I just love this film.

I can almost quote everybody, and it's wonderful.

Christopher Walken is in this movie.

The funnest craziest roles?

How did we forget?

I love this pic.

I think it's so it was so vibrant and different for people our age and even look, I'm from England, but the story of Igobo Crane and the Headless Wantsman that does culturally make it to England.

I loved watching the Disney version of that when I was a kid on the you know, Mister Toad kind of double bill that they did back in the day.

And yeah, great, great pick Joelle Calm and WA's your what's your final win?

I want to say that movie Sleepy Hollow is made Christopher Walkin a very scary, scary person.

To me, I was like, Christopher Walking is scary, sharp teeth and weird eyes.

Okay, yeah, but no, yeah, my honorable mention before I get to my final pick.

But honorable mention is the Christmas scene for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which I.

Oh, great pick.

Southern Gothics, I absolutely love hate.

I'm sorry to recommend a Kevin Spacey movie, but watch it for the lady Chabblee.

Okay, she plays herself, a trans woman plays hers, a black trans woman plays herself In Savannah Georgia.

Come on, I mean, you can't.

You can't beat that.

Then my actual all time favorite is it's my favorite Christmas movie.

It is also a winter Gothic.

It is Batman Returns, and it's another Tim Burton.

It is a really good uh my guy was like twenty eight at that point.

He hadn't done any.

Folks I know of by that point, like Batman one and Batman two, like the best movies ever made in my opinion, Yeah, untouchable.

What is it about that movie common that makes it such a perfect Winter Gothic?

Well, I mean, it's of course set around the Christmas season, but it's about the bleakness of Christmas, I think, And it's about the kind of like loneliness and depressing nature of Christmas that comes when people who don't have a family or loved ones, you know, have Christmas time.

And for me, I.

Mean, it's just it's got.

It's got the imagery, it's got the penguin, it's got.

I mean, it's the tragedy tragic they push in the between Carat Woman and Batman and that and that amazing Susie and the Banshees song when they finally meet each other face to face on the dance floor, I realize.

Yeah, I also love that pick because I do think that I've written about extensively.

I do think it's just one of the most inventive, unique Christmas movies.

I think it's really creepy, it's really fun.

If I'm not mistaken, I think this was a gremlin style release where it came out and why so it didn't necessarily immediately hit as a huge successful Christmas movie, but obviously we do see it that way now.

I love your pull on the loneliness too, because I do think a lot of this movie is about the loneliness of Bruce Wayne in his big mansion by himself, where he can't share himself with anyone, where he can't share his trump.

The penguins Selena, who is.

Like an abbused by her boss, you know, and then has an unbelievable experience that you know, nobody she can't tell anybody about, which is very analogous to like being assaulted by your boss or someone higher up by than you.

And then you know, it has that gothic.

Tragedy of they find each other, but they can't come together.

Because yeah, their enemies.

Yeah, I love that movie, great, Paul.

My final poll, I'm also going to go for something a little bit less bleak, a little bit more in the fun Realm, which is we talked about this recently.

It was one of Jason's The first movie was one of Jason's Rex when we were.

Doing like, uh, queer horror.

But the third Ginger Snaps movie Ginger Snaps Back at the beginning two thousand and four Ginger Snaps Back, which is kind of funny because it's like a pun because it's Catherine, Isabel Emily Perkins again, but they are now in nineteenth century Canada and they are the ancestors of their own characters, and it explains about the it's a winter set movie.

They explain about kind.

Of the the legend of this curse, and also this idea of like one of the sisters have to kill a boy so they don't kill each other, which I really love.

There's also some very interesting Native American like North American kind of cre representation of trying to kind of bring a little bit of that lore in and a little bit of the understanding and folkloric kind of explanation behind were wolfs.

So yeah, that one again actually ends with a good ending, very feminist, very fun, and yeah, just like just good, good, snowy horror.

And it is still in that Gothic tradition because we're back in that time where it was about survival, about the way that you could endure a winter season and what happens when as a woman there are obstacles to that, but also you may find power in some of those obstacles.

So yeah, I love that one.

Thank you Joellen Carmen for joining me on this chilly adventure through winter Gothic And after this break my interview with the incredible Knee Live.

Yeah, Hi, Lee, thank you so much for joining us on Xtra Vision.

How's it going.

It's a pleasure.

It's nice to meet you.

Yeah, I appreciate you being here.

I was such a huge fan of Stone Fruit and I really wanted to have you on to kind of get people in the mindset, get them ready for Canon.

So could you talk a little bit about Cannon, which is your newest graphic novel.

Sure.

So.

Canon is probably a little bit longer than.

Stone Fruit, and it's set in Montreal, which is where I've lived for the past ten years nearly, which makes me feel quite old.

And it follows the story of a kind of late twenties millennial queer Chinese Canadian woman called Lucy who's nicknamed Canon.

And the story starts out.

In a very hot Montreal heat wave summer where Lucy has trashed the restaurant that she works in, like absolutely smashed to pieces and it then so the story is the three months prior to that incident, kind of leading us through what motivated her to do that.

As as quite an unflappable and stoic person.

Normally, yeah, I feel like a very relatable book as somebody who has worked for a long time in restaurants and kitchens.

Oh that was my life, but like when I was fifteen to when I was twenty seven.

It was just all shops and comic shops and bars and restaurants.

So yeah, this one is wonderful and it is available to pre order now.

Guys.

I also can't recommend enough these incredible stone Fruit which I love.

That was how I got into your work.

What was it like for you your journey to becoming a cartoonist.

Was it just something you'd always done or was it something that you felt like you were always going to do from when you were a kid, did littlely think she was going to do that.

Literally wanted to make children's books And I made a lot of really pervy, rude, ridiculous children's books on computer paper when I was a kid.

I think I think my parents still have a few of those, and liked to bring them out to bluff about them every now and then, exactly the parties and then, like you know, I was very classically of the like nineties Australian children.

I read a lot of British books, so and like you know, the Brits at that time were allowed to publish just the most foul shit, like.

I mean, I don't know if that's still the case.

I think it's not quiet.

I wish I have to say.

I think it is because one of our producers common when she joins, she's going to think this is so funny.

She's obsessed with this fact because she's like, how come books like it's like it was like the Man who Ate Poe, Like everything is like the most wild.

Yeah, she's been thinking about it a lot recently.

So I'm glad you born as someone who grew up in London.

Yes filthy, yes, filthy.

And I think there's also a real trend towards that in Australian publishing at the time.

I don't know if he never really made it out of the continent, but Paul Jennings a really big, really celebrated author of my generation.

Oh, I was a huge Paul Jennings fan.

He did twist it right.

It was around the twist that was a big TV show in the UK too.

I don't think the current marketing world would accept.

Like, you know, there's one story where one of the main characters, as a teenage boy, swallows a fish accidentally that makes his penis whirl really fast, and so he suddenly becomes an excellent swimmer.

Yeah, and I just don't know if that would work as a story now.

But I found that extremely inspiring when I was a kid.

So I made really wretched stories in that vein.

And then I went to art school, like I drew all my childhood, enjoyed it very much, found it very a wonderful form of escapism, etc.

There's a lot of kids do.

And then, you know, tried to reach the end of high school and thought, well, I'm not really going to do anything else except keep drawing.

I had a brief moment of thinking, maybe I wanted to do film because all visual storytelling is wonderful and fascinating, but it involved too much business skills.

I think the production of film requires lots of.

Other people too.

It group dynamics and financial literacy in ways that I don't find either of those things particularly interesting to me.

And so I went to art school and had a terrible time trying to be groomed into you know, the kind of it's like commercial artists that I just am not.

Yes, they love I didn't go to college, but I've heard from all my friends and other people who make comments like us like yeah, they'll really they want you to be a commercial artist more than anything else.

They want you to be a graphic artist.

That's just like you got to make the money, Lee, you got to make the money.

Yeah, And it was you know, it's very serious, you know, Like I think the kind of training I got was how to be academic and justify you know, the bronze casting of a state cleaning against a wall.

That was the vibe, which you.

Know is perfectly valid for other types of creators and certainly not for me.

The real education I got as a cartoonist was that I just by luck knew in Melbourne, where I was living at the time, a bunch of cartoonists around my age, a bit older, and we all just hung out often and that was you know, the Hey, this is like two thousand and twelve, which was a real renaissance moment in Melbourne, and I think all over the world for zine culture and so independent publishing in the form of you know, photocopiers was a really big currency.

Would all just trade and collaborate on zines.

And I think I got my first kind of skills cut just practicing with other people who are also practicing and making little anthologies.

And I think over the next like twelve to fifteen years, just kind of slowly up the stakes publishing in journals and then trying to get into more journals and doing little web comics and just learning on the fly.

Like now there you can do a BFA now and study comics, which is very cool and very strange to me.

Yes, very different from when we were growing for sure.

Yeah, yeah, but I love that because also I would say, like that is basically we say this all the time on the podcast, but like the number one thing you have to do is just make it, yes, And the best thing is just make it with your friends, like make some scenes, make and that's how you start expanding out into like, well, can I tell a whole sequential story?

Like everybody wants to do a three hundred page graphic novel first, because who doesn't want to do that?

But actually making zines and.

Learning how to create with other people and learning how to produce comics and do the production and stuff is such an important journey.

So I'm glad you're able to find out.

I think every time someone who's just embarking on the first graphic novel project or the first time they've ever made a comic, I just try and stress how much it's important to make bad work a lot until it becomes.

Yes, lots of bad, lots of bad work is very important.

But now, just before before we finish this lovely stocking stuff a chat, I would like to hear some of your recommendations that you will would recommend for people to buy this year when it comes to books and comics and things you're excited about.

Absolutely.

I mean I'll start with the comics because I guess it's on theme.

I am lucky enough to be published with Drawn and Quarterly.

These days, Oh, I love them.

I get to read a lot of John and Quarterly books as a result, and so the ones that I have really enjoyed that more or less have been coming out at the same time as Cannon the Weight by Melissa Mendez's.

It's a huge book.

It took her ten years to make, I think, and it shows like it's just it's a it's a real magnum opus.

But it reads so fast.

I read it in one sitting, which I think is often the greatest compliment that you can give a cartoonist is that you just sit there and become completely spell around.

It's got incredible visual flow.

It really will.

It's a real sucker punch in the heart, though it's so sad.

And the other one also that's very sad.

I think I'm drawn towards these kinds of books.

Is Black Cohosh by Eagle Valiant BROSI.

I loved that book.

I also read it in one sitting, and then you know, I can.

I mean Michael Deforge.

He's a Toronto cartoonist who is just an absolute power house of productivity.

He puts out a book every year and I still don't understand how he sleeps and eats and things.

But the last book I read of his Familiar Face, and I loved it.

It's creepy and it's also very touching.

I think he has this way of doing what maybe counts as sci fi.

That yeah, abstract sci fi, Like yeah, he's one of the best work under cartoonists for sure, like such a crazy cool And I love that you're at DNQ because I feel like it's a great fit for you.

I feel like they are putting out the most subversive, transgressive, cool shit, and they're also finding old like eighties female Japanese mangakas to archive and stuff.

Like they're doing the work I think comics needs.

So I'm glad that you're enjoying being there.

In the books they're putting out any more good res.

Yes, this one is a fanographics one actually, which was my previous publisher, and it's a very dear friend of mine.

It's putting out a kind of retrospective collection of the older cartoons.

And they were one of the Melbourne cartoonists that you know, I practiced with closely for you know, the last ten to fifteen years, and so I've learnt so much from them.

I've shared a studio with them.

Their name is Tommy Parrish and the book that's coming out now is called The Past is a Grotesque Animal, which I think is a fabulous title.

And I feel very nostalgic about these comics in this collection, particularly because we've talked about so many of them, and I feel like they're kind of, you know, in my morbid Love of Horrible Things.

There's lots of really sticky, heavy, juicy content love writing about sex and death and angst.

I that very fad graphics of them.

I was going to say, that's what we go there for, right, We come to this place for depression.

In the best way.

Late any final recommendations before I let you go.

I'll rattle the matter as quickly as I can.

These are non comics and they're wonderful.

As someone who has a short attention span, I just blasted through them, so I've got personal attention.

Role play by Felix Child Bradley.

It's a it's a local author for me in Montreal, The Queer.

They are one of the best writers of like clever weird fiction, what you could call it magical surrealism, just a collection of short stories that have all some of the most clever, charming, strange stories I've read in a long time.

And but a Honey Pig Bread by Francesca E Kuiarci, who is also a Montreal author.

These days, we've claimed her and that book is just pure, like deep and touching and profound, but also just pure hedonism.

There are such incredible descriptions of food and sex in this book and me too, and she loves food more than most people I know and is an incredible cook, and I you know, selfishly I recommend both of those two authors because I admire them greatly, but also I'm planning on doing collaborative short stories with both of them in the next little while.

I also did pitch this to everyone, like whether it's Julia at dan Q or some of the other authors.

I basically was like, just tell them they can come and show out with their friends.

So you achieved this perfectly.

It was wonderful to have you.

We please feel free to come back anytime and talk more about your cool work or just stuff you're excited about.

And yeah, guys, you can pre order Canon right now from Drawn and Quarterly by Lee Lai.

Thank you so much, Lee for joining us.

Thanks It's a pleasure.

Special thanks to Lee for joining me to talk canon, and thanks to our super producer, Scream Queens, Common and Joel for sharing their favorite winter gothic films as we head into New Yen.

Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason steps Young and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.

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