Transcript: Imagining Turkey through cartoons: Ozge Samanci and her graphic novels

[00:00:00] Welcome to today's episode, everyone. My name is Hazal Aydin, and I'm thrilled to introduce you to our guest, Dr. Özge Samancı. Dr. Samancı is a fascinating artist who wears many hats. She's a graphic novelist, media artist, and academic. She is currently an associate professor at Northwestern University's School of Communication.

Her work is pretty diverse, ranging from installation pieces to virtual reality storytelling and graphic novels. She's gained quite a reputation internationally with her work being featured in galleries and festivals around the world. You might know her from her autobiographical graphic novel, Bare to Disappoint, which has been translated into several languages and received praise from major publications.

And, exciting news for our fans, her new graphic novel Evil Eyes Sea is now out. We are delighted to host her in our Imagining Turkey podcast series. Again, welcome. 

Thank you for having me. [00:01:00] 

We can just start with our first question then. What made you decide to go with a graphic novel? You kind of talk about this in your first novel, but we want to hear it from you. 

Those type of decisions like don't happen that you sit on a table and say, Hmm, like I'll make a graphic novel. Life kind of brings it smoothly. Or in a bumpy way to you and that I grew up reading humor magazines in Turkey like for my generation.

It was good good lemon and I drew for the lemon magazine when I was a student at Boston University. And from there, like drawing came into my life and this is like 25 years ago. So that drawing became my way of expression. If I was going to tell something in the long story form, [00:02:00] the medium that I felt confident was drawing.

But then how I came to graphic novel from like single panel humor magazine cartoons that happened in a kind of interesting way. I had a friend and she had a birthday and I wanted to give her a like special present. So she formerly gifted me an empty notebook. I feel the notebook about anecdotes about me and my mom because the mother was.

And it's the childhood anecdotes, uh, told not like single frame, but a storytelling form. So I filled the notebook with anecdotes. I gave it to her. She loved it. And our friends loved it. And then people loved it so much. They started photocopying this notebook and just giving each other. So like a zine, it started spreading.

And I go to a [00:03:00] party in Istanbul. Um, but when I was living there, someone I don't know comes to the party and that runs me and says, I read your notebook and gives me a hug. Then like I realized, wow, like this leaf stories have so much power and. And at that point, I wasn't exposed to memoir type of graphic novels, and that genre wasn't that big.

In the back of my mind, I always thought like I should make a long form storytelling piece with drawings. The entire thing came from that experience, actually. Long answer. Did you take any of these, um, I think Galip Tekin was giving some cartoon, um, Did you take any of those at Boğaziçi where you were there?

I am so glad you asked that. Yes, and um, that actually that experience going to meeting with him, taking his classes, it's part of the new [00:04:00] book Evil Eyes Sea. Evil Eyes Sea is a fictional book, but it comes from lived experiences. So like people may recognize some things, but they are not. Not exactly what it is in life, but that Galip Tekin's classes.

took its part in Evil Eyes Sea. That's fantastic. And like the way I met with him was I didn't know actually he was teaching at Boğaziçi University. He had a small room at Kemancı Bar at the time. He used to be manager of that bar. He would draw in this tiny room. And I took my drawings to him and he said, Come here and show me anytime.

And I went there for months and he just sat with me and taught me. And then after that, I started taking his course at Boston University. I was a math student and they didn't [00:05:00] allow us to take fun courses. So I had to like jump a lot of hoops to be able to officially take his course. Thank you. That's a good one.

I want to ask you use some like. different types of, um, techniques in your art. How do you find the right mix of visuals and words in your art in general, and especially in Evil Eyes Sea? You know what, that is kind of a, has a story too. When I first came to United States, um, like 2003, I think, before then I was drawing for the humor magazines in Turkey.

I had this habit of like making bunch of drawings every week. And then I came here, my connection with the magazine like weakened, and the magazine divided became something else. I wanted to draw, and at that time, instead of sending emails to my friends in Turkey, I started making [00:06:00] one image about my life, like whatever was important to me that day, and I started posting them online to my webcomic journal, Ordinary Comics.

There, like these letters to friends kind of things, little anecdotes. I also thought, like, I have this book idea in my head. I feel like if I can come up with a unique aesthetic while I am doing these things, And when publishers look at my work, they would say, wow, like we have never seen something like that.

That would be good. So I started using that webcomic environment, like my lab. And I just didn't care what other people think. It was my experimentation place. It was my play space. And so I played like whatever comes to me. And my friends liked it and more people liked it and then like at that time I would receive emails from [00:07:00] When the web comics were like big thing, someone from Brazil, someone from Portugal, like I saw something like that, they would send me and I realized the community is building and that gave me more motivation to do my own thing.

And in time, I created that aesthetic that, uh, you are talking about, like bringing drawings and collage and unexpected materials together. The other part of that thing is. I'm a media artist, like my academic job is working with emerging technologies and telling stories with those. So in media arts, we use any material on the earth as an art material.

So that thinking also came into the comics. And then I realized there are other comics artists doing that. Like Linda Barry does that collage comic combination so beautifully. So that kind of expanded. Um, Thank you. You already kind of mentioned that, [00:08:00] but we are also curious about, like, how do you see the relationship between the illustrations and the story in your book?

Like, we can combine this with key moments in your personal life that's connected to your artwork. When you have a certain way of speaking, you speak with that tone and you tell like what whatever you are telling with that tone, right? Like, uh, it's like handwriting or it's like how our voice is coming out.

So since it turned into a method of expression for me, to be honest, like it can be told in completely different form too. Like if you perhaps just do black and white drawings and don't use collage, it you can convey same story. Maybe like that tactile images and the colors are bringing a sense of like world story world and atmosphere and making people feel the [00:09:00] world I am building in different way, because different than drawings, those images have like giving you sense of touch or kind of being there.

Maybe that kind of feeling is coming, but what I do is more instinctive. Like I don't do it by analyzing it. Thank you very much. I am, I have this one burning question. So I'm an anthropologist and every time I read a novel about Turkey, I find myself questioning whether we as an ethnographer are doing any good job.

And this part is speaking a little bit to my conceptual framework on imagination, right? Kind of, we use the word tahayyul to refer to it because it includes comprehension. So what I'm thinking is this in my head. I even had an idea of creating a debate between a novelist and an ethnographer of Turkey and have a conversation who Who tells an ethnography from Turkey better and conveys this, this kind of [00:10:00] depth and taste and, and diversity and the pain and all the emotions better, an ethnographer or a novelist?

So, I want to ask this question to you. What do you bring into the table as a graphic artist, actually? What do you feel like you are bringing more to the table when you are sharing anything personal and historical and political, which you do very beautifully, that you don't think you might be able to have done if you were writing a boring anthropological piece perhaps, or even a novel through just words?

I haven't You know, I've had conversations with like friends who are in humanities on this. I think both approaches are necessary, and they are satisfying different needs. The when you do a graphic novel or a novel, you cannot like explain the connections, the [00:11:00] mechanisms. Reasons in a detailed way, because if you do that, the novel becomes didactic.

So that I think an academic article offers all the branches, all the connections. All the like complex structure behind it, and by definition, it becomes boring because it has to cover so much information. And in sometimes there are no stories. Sometimes there are no like characters in parts of in paragraph, maybe it appears, but it's not like continuing storytelling piece, but it has this load of information and load of analytic synthesis.

of that information. In graphic novel, we create more of identification, taking one person from this time and carrying them to another time. And [00:12:00] also the story I am telling there is from my point of view, And from my friend's point of view, that's all I can cover. It's not like an academic person doing interviews and talking a range of people.

That can be a graphic novel using anthropological lens, that's completely possible. But what I do is, Mostly, very much how I do see the world, like my voice, the narrator, right? And then in my work, there is not academic jargon, so it's accessible to large readership. Especially the first book was able to address, like, children above 10 to adults.

Mostly adults paid attention to that book, actually. But, like, one obstacle with the academic writing is We use terms, we use concepts, and then, then it only becomes available to people who are familiar [00:13:00] with that language. I think, I think both approaches are doing something substantial for different audiences.

I think an academic article cannot say, It does cover a general readership in general. I was also thinking the following, the way you are talking about that kind of very recent Turkish history and the social analysis you are putting together, you are at the center as you said. But it's not just your voice.

We have the full feeling of your entire vulnerability. I love the way you draw yourself with the messy hair too. And the title is even, uh, there to disappoint. I feel like we are not given because anthropological and ethnographic writing is so Western and Eurocentric and is a very particular genre. We are not left with much space to make ourselves that, that vulnerable.

And that vulnerability is the key to convey the what I said, taste, I think about [00:14:00] the Turkish social life that carries all the kind of everyday politics and all of these layers was one of the things I was saying, the kind of this power of vulnerability is so palpable, at least in, in there to disappoint.

That's a good, good point. And also, I don't think I would be able to write something like make something like there to if I would have lived my life. all of my life in Turkey. It, it allowed me to look at what we lived. How was it with the distance, like moving from moving away from Turkey and looking back after like gaining the perspective of another culture that enabled me to see absurdities in our own culture.

And the beauty of our culture too, like what is absurd and what is beautiful is sometimes the same thing and it's so entangled. But that distance, in addition to vulnerability, is [00:15:00] necessary. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I ask my burning question? Speaking of like the contradictions, I was thinking about like the imagination of Istanbul, which is something that I've been thinking for a while.

There's this collective imagination of Istanbul, which kind of troubles me. Sometimes it is kind of imagined as I feel it's very gendered and feminized in a way that, you know, it is something super alluring, but also intimidating, something that lures you in something that's intriguing, but also scary, you know, there's like this imagination of the city in a particular way, but it's also very desired.

Everybody wants to be there and all sometimes in a like an uncomfortable way because it's like a place that you Conquest even you know Sammy vietnam may stumble kind of thing, but I didn't feel that thing When I was reading there to disappoint for example, and I think that there's also like an angle that helps us there.

It's like we see Istanbul, we [00:16:00] imagine Istanbul from the perspective of a child, actually, a little girl, that I think offers an entirely different angle. And I know that this is not like this whole collective imagination I described is not the only thing. There are like contradictions, just like you said.

Um, but I think your book was like offering a really, for me, like a relieving and really nice angle. So like, imagine Istanbul from that perspective, and I'm like born in Istanbul, but I'm still kind of raised with those kind of ways of imagining Istanbul or Beyoğlu or like the city center. So I don't know, was that, what can you say about this?

I don't know. No, it's interesting that the I don't again calculate these things. Um, in both books, I represented Istanbul, uh, in Evil I See and Dare to Disappoint. And, and I have heard in academia, like how Istanbul is being represented in Turkish films. I have [00:17:00] heard about its feminine representation of it.

Though like in Dare to Disappoint, my father says. Istanbul is a lure. Uh, it eats you alive. Something like that. I can't remember exactly what it is, but he says something like that after we go fishing. And then I come to Istanbul and then in, in high school, I got in political turbulence and I get expelled from school.

And then in college, uh, the climax of the book happens, which is another very fun incident. So it's, it's in a way that, I mean, it's, Those things, those cliche representations of Istanbul is also true. Like Istanbul is a magical place and Istanbul is a chaotic place full of dangers. And I think those, like these qualities exist in Dare to [00:18:00] Disappoint and Evil I see, but of course, like how you articulate these qualities without doing the same cliche, perhaps is the question.

It's, it's a very, very good point. The, um, also complex thing because when these bold stories are about past and it combines with how do we remember the past? Like I remember past as something magical, something like dream. For me, the anxiety moves away because it's already over. I remember it with no anxiety and I navigate in that memory everything under control way.

So that magical way of being in the past combines with the representation of CD too. So like the magical is a big part of it. But how it's falling into [00:19:00] that cliche or not falling into that cliche requires deeper analysis. But can I also bring in another angle that was quite popular amongst the Western readership trying to imagine Istanbul?

That was Orhan Pamuk's angle and thinking about Istanbul through Hüzün. So, like, for me, I think I'm not, Thinking through whether it's a cliche or not, but it's kind of like bringing in a more feminine angle to the way we imagine and think about Istanbul was also kind of increasing the number of adjectives we add and attach to the city.

Um, as, as a reader, kind of, I was thinking that. I also wrote an entire chapter just on Istanbul and I was reading novels and stuff to, to expand that. And I think, yeah, I think I will just highlight kind of bringing in the, the feminine experience and its feelings to those imaginaries. And I think like what [00:20:00] you said has reminded me that one concept that moves me immensely is absurdity and, and then the poetry.

Because Istanbul is such a big, crowded, cosmopolitan place, like the intersections or people that we meet, people who come there, increases the possibility of these absurd incidents. That I like telling anecdotes and almost every anecdote I carry has some humorous part of it, but that humor comes from the absurdity and that absurdity comes from unexpected people coming together in unexpected situations and Istanbul is the place that creates that.

And like, perhaps I navigate the cliche representations of Istanbul. I also see poetry in that absurdity. I kind of have this follow up [00:21:00] question. Um, you mentioned to again, Melton that navigating underwater is much simpler than Yeah. Yeah. Navigating the streets of Istanbul, I wanted to hear your thoughts on like Ece and Meltem's experiences as a woman in Istanbul during that political climate and like any differences during that time of the story and now.

The questions are so beautiful. Thank you. The people like imagine these dangerous nature activities more dangerous than they are in general. But then, like, being underwater, maybe it's quieter, calming, meditative activity. And then, many of us lived in Istanbul many, many years, or different part of Turkey, and we kind of internalized being there.

Like, the difficulties of it became normal to us, and we don't see it. Unless we leave the city and start [00:22:00] living somewhere else, and then you notice. And then you notice. What was that? So when I left Turkey and came here, I realized that there was a ongoing male gaze in Turkey that, that I don't feel it here in Chicago.

Like whatever I wear, whatever I behave, if, if I start running, like if I wear even not shorts, like just like sweatpants and run on the sidewalls just for exercise. A lot of cat calling happens in Istanbul and we normalize that right when we live there like it just we develop methods of being invisible we know which neighborhoods to do what which neighborhoods not to do it so if you think of that like So many difficulties as, as a woman, we navigate in Istanbul, [00:23:00] like that you have to take a taxi alone late at night.

What kind of feeling is that there versus here? Those are like much more dangerous than, or much more tricky than being underwater. So it's just like a fun conflict. I would like to ask one of our kind of, again, Tahir related, imagination related questions. I think I'd like to hear more from you, you know, how much of a freedom you feel like you are, like, think about any moment you were trying to convey in your graphic.

Can you tell us maybe a moment where you felt liberated not having to use words, especially when it comes to these untranslatable, cultural, elements or linguistic elements too. If you can give us with an example from either of your books or from, maybe you didn't talk, you didn't kind of connect it to Turkey that much, but your New Yorker pieces were quite powerful and interesting [00:24:00] too.

I'd like to, I think here, an example. I am more of a visual person than a verbal person that I think with images rather than words. So it's always a relief for me to explain something with a drawing. And, for example, in Evil Eyes Sea, there is a key frame. These two main characters are poor students. It was a university, so they are staying in the dorms in the nineties, but the dorms were in really, really bad condition in mid nineties when we were there.

So I need to tell how bad it was, like what is a bad dormitory, right? And not only tell it, I want to take the rear and put them there. Like I want them to feel the tactile smells, images. So there, like, I have a very detailed scene of this, say, 15, [00:25:00] 18 square meter dorm room. Eight women living in it. There are, like, four bunk beds, metal closets.

We have our suitcases, our shoes, the clutter, everything. Like, the words help to describe it. But I have to draw that chaos and that chaos. It's like, you know, it's like there's a woman in it like and it takes for you three seconds to look at that image and get the impossibility of being there, right? So like those condensed moments are so perfect to convey with images and with the power of images is the perception, like creating them takes forever, but the perception or like transporting the reader where they are

In seconds that that quickness is so powerful in images, and then there is another principle that any cartoonist use. We write [00:26:00] however it comes, we draw however it comes, but then at the end you edit it and you look at with this lens. Am I repeating anything that I drew in my like text? If you are saying the same thing, you just take out the textual part.

So, like, people may approach it differently. For me, a graphic novel is more of a visual thing because we have the novel, so the images should tell as much as they could and words assist the images. So, I do everything, but then I reduce the textual descriptions. That's interesting. When I'm looking at your, your graphic, uh, novel and following you on social media.

So I can see kind of your determination to create and you just said that I don't want to repeat myself. It's a, it's an artistic form of challenging yourself to stay creative, right? [00:27:00] I'm guessing one of the, these kind of self challenges you are following is you know, when you are speaking to the Western audience, obviously, you want to stay away from that very orientalist expectations of, you know, imagining Turkey, imagining the Middle East, et cetera, the Muslim country, et cetera.

Maybe you can give us one example when you were consciously kind of trying to avoid that question. that trap and forced yourself to stay in the creative side and your solution would be interesting to listen to. I hope I don't fall into that trap, but I think it's a very big trap and I, I'm sure I am not like perfect on that.

I tried, but I can definitely see your effort. That's why I want to hear one of the, you know, moments where you were like, like the evil, I see, for example, it's about being woman in Turkey in [00:28:00] nineties. Right. And then, so connecting to Mariam's question, like it talks about that difficulty, uh, that challenge of existing there.

And metaphorically The circumcision ritual connected to my point so well. So, and I use that in the book, but I was thinking like, is this Orientalist? Like that, because it's such a extreme cultural thing, but metaphorically it's so like relating, just sitting there. So you kind of wait, like, is it really worth it bringing this?

cultural information into the story that is, is it really going to do what it needs to do? Because it's this itself is a shiny concept that could appeal the attention to itself. So tricky [00:29:00] balance there. The, the other challenge that comes with it is writing the book for Turkish reader. Or writing it for the Western reader, like English speaking reader or American reader is completely different thing.

In, when I write for American reader, I need to know that they don't know these cultural details. And they can like stop and open Wikipedia and read about it, but it's going to also interrupt their way of reading. But if I explain what it is. Then I interrupt my own story, that it becomes kind of didactic and informative.

That's a very tricky balance. So I have to kind of give that cultural information somewhat making part of the plot. That I explain it, but not as an explanation. And not always. Sometimes, sometimes I just explain. But I think that's where creativity lies, right? Not being [00:30:00] too comfortable, kind of as soon as you become too comfortable, that creativity fades away.

Thank you. We just want to, I guess, wrap up with a final question about your future project. Um, you kind of offered a really powerful critique of the politics of and the social issues of Turkey, its contemporary Turkey and its past also. So as you kind Keep on exploring these themes, uh, what new directions can we expect in your future projects?

Are there any new genres, new themes, new topics that you're excited to explore? Can you give us like a sneak peek of what's next for you? Like I have, I have some art projects I am doing collaboration things with here. With the chemistry department, we are doing something, but in terms of graphic novels, I see this Evil Eyes Sea builds a really good story [00:31:00] world.

The atmosphere is very powerful. I was wondering, like, what it would be like seeing it as an animation or a live action. piece. So I may explore that direction. I know it's a lot of effort. It's a big take. That's like at the back of my head. In terms of like, I would love to do another book. I would like to explore the challenge of doing something that's not about Turkey.

Because I have been living in the United States 21 years, I believe I now look at people and see their stories behind. Like, when I first came here, I would look at people and I couldn't understand, like, which social background they are coming from, what is their past. Like, I couldn't even project onto that.

Right now, like, I understand the dynamics of here, not perfectly. It's a big [00:32:00] challenge for me, but um, I also believe in that you could tell a story about a place that you know really well. I know academia so well, and I know the schools so well, and both of my books, like Dated Disappointment and Evil Eyes Sea, are taking place at schools.

My parents are teachers, like school is my habitat, right? So most likely it will be, maybe, something about academia. But I think it will take place in the United States, the third book. I would never know though, like it just, those ideas jump a lot. I think especially as people in academia here who really spent their whole lives in school, or especially we are really excited.

It's, it's an interesting place, academia, that allows us to escape the competitive nature of the industry. And that we have the luxury of [00:33:00] chasing knowledge just for the sake of it, like without caring. Will it be, will it bring more money? Will it bring benefit? It's just the curiosity of running after knowledge, right?

That's, that's such a big luxury in our times. Well, what's the cost of it? What kind of lives do we live? And. Do we really avoid from competition this, like we live in this culture of, uh, we have to be successful and everything is measured, right? That your value comes from how many articles you published, how many places you went, what does it do to your soul, like to exist that way?

Aren't we already valuable even if we don't do those things? These are great points. I think we all have this question in our minds, so we are really excited to see what's coming from you. That's an awesome point to, I think, end this conversation with as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me.