Liz Yerby illustrates India’s story and encourages readers to see the ‘full narrative’ of peoples lives
The Portland State University Collaborative Comics Project aims to change the narrative around homelessness through ethnographic cartooning based on the experiences of PSU students. The project will culminate into the 10 comics published as a booklet and sold by Street Roots vendors. Street Roots spoke with 8 of the artists to learn more about their process. Read all the interviews here.
Liz Yerby, a Portland-based cartoonist, wasn’t always a fan of comics. But they believed “a good or interesting drawing tells a story,” and eventually that — along with learning about independent comics — led them to explore comics as a medium for their art. In 2021 they published “Big Cats,” a graphic non-fiction book that interweaves queer histories with big cats and their interactions with humans. They have been creating and self-publishing comics for about seven years, and have been an organizer of the Portland Zine Symposium since 2017. Their comic for the Portland State University Collaborative Comics project, “Answering the Call,” tells the story of India, an Indigenous two-spirit person.
Sarah Hansell: Do you usually explore topics and themes that are personal to you in your comics?
Liz Yerby: In my personal work, I just finished a book that’s called “Big Cats.” It’s about my own experience being around tigers and big cats, and then it also talks about queer people in history who had big cats. There are a lot of people who’ve had big cats, and they’re all kind of weird characters, but I did my research on Siegfried and Roy, and Josephine Baker, and this guy Reed Erickson, who was a really early transgender activist who had a pet leopard.
Hansell: Do you focus a lot on queer history?
Yerby: Yeah, that’s something that I get really into reading about it, and also queer histories tend to get lost. You know, there are so many instances where they’re talking about somebody’s close friend, and you’re like, I bet they were sleeping together. So it’s fun to do that research, and I think sometimes you have to let yourself jump to conclusions just to see any queer people in history. It’s exciting for me to read about, and it’s something that’s fun for me to write about and tell other people about.
Hansell: Have you ever written or created comics about houselessness before?
Yerby: I have not. Well, I did a comic with friends about ‘Working Kirk.’ If you remember Kirk Reeves, he was a street performer … who was housing unstable. He was a big presence, he was always on the Hawthorne Bridge onramp, and then he died by suicide, I think in 2012. I think it’s nice to write about him. I did it with friends where we split up parts of his life, just because he was making a lot of art, and a very creative person. And sometimes when it’s somebody who’s kind of on the margins, we miss out and don’t see them as a whole person, (like Kirk,) who has written books, and has a local cable access show. That was a really fun project. There were only a few sources about him, but one of them is a Street Roots article.
Hansell: What inspired you to be part of this project?
Yerby: As someone who is really into non-fiction comics, I think it was just exciting to see an academic form of it, and also connecting with the community. I think the two parts, it’s rare to see those at the same time. And I think PSU was really progressive in even noting that their students have experienced houselessness, or have experienced houselessness while being enrolled. I think that’s very cool.
Hansell: Were you able to find any personal connection in India’s story to help you figure out how you wanted to put it together or what parts of it felt important?
Yerby: I think kind of the internal struggle of accepting yourself, and how your workplace or your family is dealing with it, and how that affects you I definitely … could relate to. I’m a big fan of abstract forms and just setting an emotional tone with comics. It was tricky to figure out India’s emotional tone, but just saying like ‘hey, what was the hard part of this?’ I think those emotional themes of going through hardship, getting support, finding out how you support others. That feels like a simplification, but those are also key things you can relate to. Most people have those stories in their lives.
Hansell: Something that India emphasizes in telling their story that you included at the end was how they measure success through personal growth and community support, rather than more normative ideas of success in U.S. society, like education. I found that really profound. Do you want to speak on that a little bit?
Yerby: I was really taken by India realizing how much they enjoyed helping people and how much that focus really helped them. And how overcoming homelessness or addiction is a thing that they did, but it doesn’t have to be their whole story. I think that’s really important. I have friends who have written about big ticket topics like that in their personal lives, and a lot of times readers don’t see the rest of the story. It’ll be like, ‘talk about the homeless character.’ And it’s like, oh that’s actually, you know, a person. I wouldn’t say their main feature is that they’re homeless or that they’re an addict. I think it’s just nice to shift that mentality.
Hansell: What impact would you say that the experience of doing this project has had on you?
Yerby: It was a challenge to deal with this personal story from someone else. It was very daunting and I’m just proud I got through it, and that we were both happy with the comic. I was thinking when I did it that it would have been really hard early in my career to have done it, like even a few years ago. I think I have kind of a unique stylistic approach, so it’s hard to work within my toolkit and have someone else give me visual ideas. But I think we did end up finding a really good compromise. I think for me it was a challenge and it was really daunting but it feels good that we came out with something really good at the end.
Hansell: Did this project affect your mindset of houseless folks’ experience at all? And how do you think it’ll affect readers’ understanding of houseless folks’ experience?
Yerby: There’s so much depth to all the stories. Everyone has such a big narrative, and I feel really honored that I got to hear so much of India’s narrative. It is really daunting and scary to break up your life into two or three pieces ... But it’s a really good reflection. I think especially because a lot of India’s comic is about trauma and really hard things that happen. You’re doing a little bit of compartmentalizing of, ‘these are hard things that happened, this is how we got through it after.’ I think seeing that full narrative really helps, when we tend to see people at their worst and don’t get to see how they struggled before or who supported them after.
Hansell: How did you decide how you wanted to tell India’s story? You mentioned having to pare things down. How did you make those decisions, or how did you figure out your focus for the story?
Yerby: I think queerness as a focus was something I felt comfortable talking about and asking questions around. We’re both nonbinary. I’m from the South, so I have a little bit of a repressed childhood. So that was relatable … In the story that we get in the comic, being queer is what makes issues in the army. And it’s a broader cultural community issue of finding acceptance. And that just felt personally relatable to me, so it was an easy aspect to get more into and write more about.
Hansell: Another thing I wanted to ask about - we know that both Indigenous folks and queer folks are overrepresented in the houseless population. How do you see this comic, or maybe this project overall, contributing to awareness and understanding around that?
Yerby: I feel weird talking about Indigenous peoples’ identity as a white person, but I know for a lot of people they start out kind of ripped away from that culture. And coming back to it is really affirming, but a process they have to go through. And I think that’s something that’s shown in this comic. There’s a lot of different layers to how people learn who they are as a person. It’s nice that (India) found a cultural identity that also matched with their desire and realization that helping other people is an important life goal for them.
Editor’s note: Street Roots has partnered with Kacy McKinney and her team at PSU to publish the PSU Collaborative Comics project. Street Roots’ vendors will sell the publication alongside the newspaper beginning Feb. 2.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2022 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
