Author-Illustrator Interview: Gani Riel Cabezas (1 of 2)

I was thrilled to have met my former student, Gani Riel Cabezas at the Philippine Book Festival. His comic books were on sale and he won a grant with "Team Kahel Press". It was a publishing grant from the National Book Development Board for their children's book on autism. 

He was on campus last Tuesday for a talk in the Anthropology class of our garde 12s. He gladly agreed to be interviewed for the blog. Here now is Part 1 of my interview with Gani.

How did it start for you–illustrating a book for children?

Illustrating for kidlit was something I was always curious about pursuing but did not know how to begin. I’ve already made komiks for middle grade (MG) and young adult (YA) readers but nothing for early readers in the picture book format. When Kahel Press opened up applications seeking an illustrator for an upcoming project about music and autism, the writer, Ma’am Bambi, forwarded the application to me. We already knew each other from working in komiks and I had pitched a YA comic about ADHD and autism in the past, but we’d never collaborated together before. I wasn’t expecting to qualify for the application, having no prior kidlit experience, but I organized as best of a portfolio as I could using my MG work. I also shared that I would love to work on a children’s book about autism as I am autistic myself, so I was really excited when I got a response from Kahel that I was chosen as illustrator.

There was a bit of a learning curve when it came to understanding the differences in the medium and genre between books for early readers as opposed to MG and YA projects. We always had to be very conscious of how we were portraying the child characters with regards to child safety, disruptive behaviors, etc. so that we were setting good examples for kids, parents, and teachers. We also had to ensure our writing and layouts were accessible and easy to read in sequence. It’s different from, for example, one of my MG comics where we’ve worked with showing older kids making bad decisions, displaying immature behaviors, disagreeing with adults, etc. It was a “culture shock” of a start but I liked learning the differences of what various publishers look for in books for different age groups.

You have a background in music and performing. How did these artistic endeavors factor in your creative process for Too Loud: Soothing Sensory Overload with Music?

I used the aesthetic of sheet music to loosely inspire the shape motifs used in Too Loud, using wavy lines combined with actual musical notes (keeping to the simple ones). However, most of my art style inspiration for Too Loud was a combination of looking at some surrealist art (as I’d discussed current picture book art style trends locally and abroad with our editor, Wowie Catabijan) as well as trying to imitate the motion of the infinity symbol, the new representation for autism to replace the old puzzle piece symbol.

My own experience with music as an autistic person helped me understand the story for Too Loud as presented from Ma’am Bambi’s manuscript–as in, what we were portraying with showing music as a creative and stimulating outlet for autistic kids was something I could relate to. I was able to compare my own experiences with auditory sensitivities to those of Ma’am Bambi’s son who has autism as well, and our discussions were our references for the depictions of our main character, Elmo, and how we would explain autism to young readers in an accessible manner.

What is next after Too Loud?

I’m currently developing a YA webcomic titled “Arrows To Their Heaven.” I initially launched it as a Kumu Penlab Original in 2022, though I’m now working on it independently and hope to re-release the title by the end of 2023. It’s a dark mecha fantasy concept about a trans boy seeking revenge against his religious order of godslaying mech pilots. Arrows is the most mature YA project I’ve ever worked on, so it’s a massive whiplash to shift to this project in my free time while working on Too Loud. Music and disability are two common threads between the two projects, though, with the main characters of Arrows being disabled musicians as well (one of them is an autistic drummer!)

I also have some projects with Fil-Am comics group Diwata Komiks coming soon, mainly a new queer YA comic series “The Hidden World of Anton Jimenez,” which will be written by Mark Nazal. My fellow creators and I at Penlab are also preparing “Silakbo,” a new GL anthology to celebrate narratives of young Filipino sapphics.

Gani Riel Cabezas is a sci-fi/fantasy illustrator and comic artist from Laguna, where he learned to draw the fury of the old gods and the queer kids they raised. He released his first comics “Tao Po!” (Kwento Monster #1, 2021) and “Sol Dalusung” (Penlab Sprint, 2023) under the Kumu Penlab platform, and he now develops comics independently with the collective Kalabaw Studios. He is also a comic artist for Diwata Komiks, illustrating “The Hidden World of Anton Jimenez” with writer Mark Nazal. His upcoming picture book, “Too Loud!” (Kahel Press, 2023) is his illustration debut in children’s literature together with writer Bambi Eloriaga-Amago. Gani is currently finishing his undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Art history at University of Toronto Mississauga, where he is seeking work as an archaeologist. You can find him online @tidalbronze on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.