Kengo Kurimoto Discusses Wildful, His Magisterial New Graphic Novel about Rediscovering Nature
While you were checking your phone, you may not have noticed the hundreds of scientific studies confirming the health benefits of nature. Old news, right? Well, isn’t it about time our healthcare system did something about it? Like encourage doctors to write nature prescriptions, for example.
Dear readers, that’s happening. Numerous nature prescription programs like Park Rx America are currently providing healthcare providers with nature-based activities, lists of participating parks and outdoor areas, and other resources to help them write actual prescriptions for their patients. Park Rx cites dozens of studies showing the benefits of outdoor activity in treating obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, ADHD, depression, and anxiety, and more doctors are prescribing daily walks in parks, quiet times on park benches, or simply the mindful act of staring at trees and birds out the kitchen window.
This buy-in from the professionals is a hugely important step because, as the National Institute of Health says, “Medical providers are the fundamental institution involved in maintaining the health and well-being of society at large, and could pave the road toward wide-scale re-involvement of natural amenities in health care.”
Psychologists and mental health counselors are embracing a similar ecotherapy movement; dozens of universities and reputable organizations are offering certification and even graduate programs in ecotherapy.
It’s all very unexpected and exciting. Especially because our healthcare system is so driven by profit-seeking big pharma. Indeed, without any money to gain, it’s not likely Pfizer is researching a pill that’s the equivalent of listening to birdsong.
Today’s interview spotlights a spectacular new graphic novel Peter Dabbene reviewed in Foreword‘s January/February 2024 issue: Kengo Kurimoto’s Wildful. We just had to get the two a’talking.
Wildful is a beautiful story of rediscovering nature in the midst of an urban landscape. Was there any particular experience or understanding of nature that inspired the story? If not, what did?
Wildful was inspired by many experiences in my life; as a child, we used to slip under a metal gate, just like the one in the story, and out into the woods. Looking back, it was just a thin sliver of neglected land at the edge of a housing estate, but to us it was another world.
But it was a more recent encounter that started me drawing. I was walking in the woods at dusk when I saw a small, white blur in the path ahead. It was moving towards me, fast. A badger, it hadn’t seen me. Just as it was about to crash into my legs, it stopped, showed its white fangs and let out a hiss before disappearing into the undergrowth. A moment later, I saw it with a cub trailing closely behind. I was stunned.
The book keeps the dialogue to a minimum, and the effect is stunning, bringing the reader closer and more intimately into the world that’s portrayed. Was the ratio of text to art something that you thought about before starting this project, or did it just turn out the way it did? Did you consider writing the story with no dialogue at all?
The amount of dialogue in the book changed a lot while I figured out what the story was about. As my first book, there was always the temptation to fill it full of ideas, characters, and nature facts. But I remember flicking through early drafts and noticing there were more pictures of people talking than of the forest. I didn’t think I was making the best of the medium either, since it was too easy to skip from line to line without taking in the drawings.
At this point I decided to rewrite from scratch, this time asking myself: if the book was about a single thing, what would it be? I realised it had been there from the beginning; experiencing the magic of Nature. Not just for the characters in the book, but for the reader too. This began the process of stripping out the dialogue, moving instead into the senses.
I did consider taking out the dialogue altogether, but I felt it important to explore why experiencing Nature matters through the relationships between the characters.
Your drawings of plants, birds, and other animals are simply stunning in their detail and anatomical accuracy. What’s your method for achieving such realistic depictions?
Thank you! I’m flattered! :)
I used to draw a lot as a child but less so since my teens when I discovered computer graphics. Wildful was an opportunity to get back to the simplicity of pen to paper, but it was challenging in a different way.
My drawing did improve over the years working on the book. Aside from lots of practice, I think the biggest benefit came from the amount of time I spent observing.
One time I became intrigued by how chestnuts form and over the course of a year I drew each stage; starting from a bud, bursting into leaves and flowers, then from flowers into the nut. When you really look, each transformation is nothing short of miraculous, and when you learn to see it in all plants, you see the whole forest in a new way.
For the animals I used a lot of photographic reference, though their personalities came from real life experience. That’s the great thing about graphic novels as a medium; I could also capture how they move.
As much as Wildful centers on nature, it’s also very much about human relationships, including the one between the main character, Poppy, and her mother, who’s depressed after the death of her own mother. Your treatment of grief in the story is both moving and true to the characters, an impressive feat for a debut graphic novel. Were aspects of these characters and their situations influenced by events from your own life, or were they completely imagined?
Both Poppy’s mum and her gran are both loosely inspired by my own mother. As a child, I remember she collected beautiful rocks and twisted branches and laid them out as proudly as any ornament. She revelled in the softness of moss and the silhouette of trees in winter. It was infectious and seeded my own love of Nature.
But she suffered terribly from long bouts of depression. It was very difficult for us all. Over time, we realised that taking her out into the garden or local woods helped; sitting quietly, pointing out a passing bird, or a colourful mushroom. There was always an improvement, no matter how small, and eventually her joy would return.
Later in life, she was diagnosed with dementia. Again we made sure to go out into the woods. She would ask me the name of the same plant over and over which was tough at first until I realised she was experiencing it like new every time. Those were some of the best times I had with mum, sitting quietly, enjoying the sound of the birds together. She passed away last year.
According to the biography on your web page (www.studiokengo.com), you’ve worked at an architectural firm, studied eco-building, and earned a masters degree in Deep Ecology. Did you study art or design formally, and if not, how did your art style develop? Who or what would you say were your major influences?
I have been making things since I can remember; my mother would give me tools rather than toys to play with and I would sit for hours making my own worlds. I guess I never stopped. I love learning and trying out new things and there are so many amazing resources now for free.
One of the best things about having worked in many domains is that they help inform each other. For example, when I worked in the games industry, where you can create fantastical worlds, it benefitted from the real world rigours I learned in architecture. I think it is always good to pull in inspiration from outside the domain you are working in, it makes fresher, more grounded work. My influences are too many to mention, from across fields and throughout history, but if I were to choose one, it would be Hayao Miyazaki since he brings things together so well.
Ultimately, whether architecture, video games, or a graphic novel, they are all about communicating a feeling to another person. Bridging the gap between your imagination and the experience of someone else is the toughest and most compelling challenge for me.
The final scene in Wildful is a two-page spread that depicts a grand chorus of birdsong, visualizing the acoustic differences among different species, while conveying the overwhelming experience of hearing them all together. How did you decide on how best to illustrate such a non-visual concept?
I have always liked the idea of depicting sounds visually and it made sense for the birdsong. I started off almost like a spectrum analyser, left to right with high notes shown high and low notes low. But the more I listened, there was an incredible variety of textures, like sharp, staccato, meandering, or vibrating sounds. The robin’s song is just incredible in its complexity with a cascade of notes rivalling even the most experimental of jazz saxophonists.
I wanted to record it as accurately as possible whilst keeping in mind it needed to look nice on the page. For this, I was very much inspired by the elegance and articulation of Islamic script.
For the crescendo, I spent a number of mornings out at 4am listening to the Dawn Chorus. It is spectacular; the way it builds into a continuous soundscape where every moment is filled by the song of a bird, possibly miles away. I imagined it almost like a net of scripts, spreading far into the distance.
Given your somewhat eclectic background, it’s hard to imagine what your next project might be. Will you be looking to do another graphic novel, or do you have something else in mind?
I already have the first draft of my next book. It is about an ancient Temple of Song and asks the question, “what is sacred?” It was nice to apply the many lessons I have learned from Wildful and I’m really starting to love the writing process. I am pushing forward with the story first and have not yet decided the format, though I do think it would work well as an animated feature. In the meantime, I am also working on a pitch for a new game. What happens next will largely be defined by the pragmatics of funding, but I am always working on things regardless. If you are interested in [my] new projects, the best way [to follow] is to subscribe to my website.
Thanks for the great questions, it was really good to reflect about the making of Wildful, I do feel changed by the process.
Peter Dabbene
