by MariNAOMI

I Thought You Loved Me

MariNAOMI | MAY 2023 | Issue 23

I’ve been making comics for more than 26 years, so the language of sequential art is what I feel I’m most fluent in. Collage is something I’ve dabbled with over the years, and it felt time to use it narratively, given the access digital art has given me over the past several years.

Each book I’ve made has a different process, so there is no one way. This keeps it interesting for me, and truly, the work decides how I will express it. Sometimes I start with a script, sometimes just a general idea. I Thought You Loved Me was begun on sticky notes on cork boards, where I wrote down memories and ideas and pieced them together like a puzzle. This is the first book I went into without knowing what I wanted the outcome to look like.

I Thought You Loved Me was inspired by the need for catharsis. Usually I discourage using public art to work out one’s feelings, but maybe I’ve been wrong all this time?

In the future, I want to make more narrative collage art! And combine more genres and mediums. I want to keep emotionally spelunking, exploring new territories, and playing with form. I want to keep having fun!

MariNaomi (they/them) is the award-winning author and illustrator of Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), Turning Japanese (2dcloud, 2016; Extended edition Oni Press, 2023), I Thought YOU Hated ME (Retrofit Comics, 2016), the Life on Earth trilogy (Graphic Universe, 2018-2020), Dirty Produce (Workman Publishing, 2021), and I Thought You Loved Me (Fieldmouse Press, 2023). Their work has appeared in nearly 100 print publications and has been featured on websites such as The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, The Washington Post, LA Times, The Rumpus, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, SF Examiner, and BuzzFeed. Their comics have been translated into French (Devenir Japonaise, Editions IMHO, 2021), German, and Russian.

MariNaomi’s comics and paintings have been featured in the Smithsonian, the de Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American National Museum.

In 2011 and 2018, Mari toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. They are the founder and administrator of the Cartoonists of Color Database, the Queer Cartoonists Database, and the Disabled Cartoonists Database. They have taught classes for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA program, and was a guest editor for PEN Illustrated. They were cohost of the Ask Bi Grlz podcast with author Myriam Gurba.

MariNaomi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with their partner and a menagerie of beloved rescue animals.