Creator Spotlight: @jdebbiel

Deb JJ Lee is a non-binary Korean artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They have appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, NPR, Google, Radiolab, and more. Their award-winning graphic memoir, IN LIMBO, about mental illness and difficult relationships with trauma, released in March 2023 from First Second.

Below is our interview with Deb!

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

That implies I am over my art block, but I’m still in it! I think about Kiki’s Delivery Service a lot and how she had to stop doing a thing, and that you can’t really force it, and you have to let it come back to you. It’s a pretty humbling moment, realizing there is more to life than just drawing. I’ve been trying to consume other content like reading or watching movies—anything that is not drawing-related—and to trust that it will come back to me. I think not being afraid to do the small pieces before committing to the big pieces is helpful. Because big pieces are what I am known for, I dig myself into a deeper hole, thinking that each piece has to be bigger than the last one. So yeah! Relaxing and doing the small things before overcommitting to a big piece is the best way to go about it for me.

Which 3 famous artists (dead or alive) would you invite to your dinner party?

I feel like these are all artists that I have second-degree connections with! Jillian Tamaki, Victo Ngai, and Tillie Walden would be my picks!

What are your file name conventions?

…What file name conventions? I mean, I don’t have specific file name conventions, but I actually have a public Google Drive archive! But I usually put “djjl_whatever-the-title-is_final,” and I would always know it’s the final and legit version.

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

I did an illustration for the whiskey brand Johnnie Walker. It’s so wild because I only had four days to finish it, and it usually takes me a week and a half if I rush. And honestly, it’s probably one of my best pieces from this year, which is funny. It was for the Mid-Autumn festival, so I made it as Korean as possible.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

I only use my iPad to draw everything now, and if I want to pretend that I have a steady workstation, I’ll use my Cintiq. I still am not as comfortable on the Cintiq as I am on Procreate, but it’s still pretty solid and nice. That’s the good part about technology. The bad part about technology is how AI art has been messing things up for me. I’m currently in a lawsuit about AI art as a class rep. Some of my stuff got turned into AI art late last year, so I have to give a deposition at some point. 

What is a convention experience that has stuck with you?

Honestly, they’re all good! I feel like Lightbox Expo has been really nice because it’s truly been a convention for artists. I feel like that’s where most of my audience is, and they’re all around because their purpose is to be better at art. That’s where a lot of original artists do well because they’re getting art they’re inspired by, not so much fanart. I like the Lightbox Expo because it encompasses the pure love of art very well. 

Top tips on setting up an Artist Alley booth?

Use a Y axis, not just your X axis! Take advantage of it! Branding is also something to think about. It is definitely something I’m getting better at. Having an assistant is also very important. I’ve also heard that 8.5x11 to 12x18 inches is usually a good size for prints, but I also provide postcard-sized prints because sometimes people don’t want to commit to a larger size. 

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

You know this is so funny. I’ve been following @alicexz for over a decade on Tumblr and other platforms. I’ve followed her work since high school, and we’ve only recently become peers. I found her, and we met for the first time in real life, and she recognized me. And then I found all my drawings from when I was in my Alice phase, back in high school, and I was like, “Yo, this is when I was trying to be you so badly!” and she was cracking up and was like “Wow, this is so good!” It was such a sweet moment. I wanted to take a picture of her holding my drawing up. It’s really nice because now we’re peers.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Deb! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @jdebbiel.

'Dune' by Deb JJ Lee.

Officially licensed 24" x 36" screen print, in a numbered Regular edition of 215 for $70; and a numbered Variant edition of 115 for $100.

On sale Friday April 19 at 12pm CT through Mutant.

Mutant will release Dune 24x36 screen prints by Deb JJ Lee tomorrow, April 19, at 1pm EST. The standard version (left) is limited to 215 for $75, while the variant is limited to 115 for $100.

You guys have got to see this. The whole evolution is a great story, let alone being the simplest explanation how to do something ever created. This is wow.

Huge congratulations to all those honored by the 2024 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature!

There is a candidness in their approach to gender exploration and identity as well. Lee, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, is loud and proud about their journey toward and experiences of gender identity and presentation. But it wasn’t always this way for Lee, as depicted by their recently published graphic novel memoir In Limbo (2023). The graphic novel details the illustrator’s navigation through mental health problems, self-worth issues, and “tricky relationships” between 2010 and 2014 while they were attending high school in northern New Jersey. Having moved from Seoul, South Korea, to the United States at a young age, Lee was situated in the murky grey area of non-Korean and non-American, speaking to the book’s title in just one of several ways.

Deb JJ Lee x INPRNT.

The astoundingly beautiful work of artist Deb JJ Lee is available as fine art prints in their INPRNT Shop!

Be sure to follow INPRNT on Tumblr, too!

“Swimming” by Deb JJ Lee for Procreate.

EEAAO

Comics Review: 'In Limbo'

In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee

autobiography

bullying

depression

domestic violence

family

memoir

racism

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

IN LIMBO is a complicated read. The graphic novel is an ongoing and endless contortion of teenage ostracism, the commonality of human arrogance, and the occasional bout of heedless self-martyrdom. Not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily always stemming from the perennially anxious narrator. IN LIMBO is about the risks of accumulating emotional debt, but readers won't know that until they're about 180 pages into the book.

The problems Deb faces are not unique, but they feel all-encompassing. She struggles to adapt to the faster pace of high school. She's behind in her schoolwork. She's cracking under the pressure of her first-gen immigrant parents. She's drifting away from her best friend. She's losing interest in her extracurricular feats. Deb's tribulations, in isolation, are not particularly exhausting. Nor are they, viewed at length, particularly worthy of note. But isn't that the point? Growing up is hard.

For Jung-Jin Lee, for Deb, the world is spinning faster and faster, and she's doing her utmost to keep from falling apart as she tumbles to the ground. IN LIMBO curls its tendrils around one or two of these problems and personalizes them in meaningful and grueling ways (e.g., What's it like to lose a childhood friend? What's the value of filial piety when it succumbs to child abuse?). The book then exposes how seemingly normal problems in suburban America tend to metastasize in ways very few people see, recognize, believe true, or deem worthy of acting on.

And that's how this graphic novel goes. There are so many points of interest, one will invariably find it difficult to figure out what the book's theme or focus is supposed to be. The immigrant experience? Failed friendships? Racism? Bullying? Academic underperformance? Domestic violence? A young woman with weight issues? IN LIMBO is largely episodic, fragmented, and emotionally dislocated.

Friends come and leave. As do parents' mood swings, pop quizzes, and indifferent therapists. Deb fights to keep it all at bay, and she mostly does a good job of it. But fighting off the stressors of not being good enough (for her friends, for the Korean diaspora, for her parents, for herself), often distracts her from the possibility of finding solace (in listening to her friends, in revaluing her connection to her heritage, in apologizing to her father, in forgiving herself). And that, one presumes, is also the point.

IN LIMBO doesn't tell a linear tale of mental health decline, and that's because so few struggles with depression, anxiety, and suicide rarely manifest so cleanly in the real world. It's the type of book best afforded to readers who know what they're getting into (and know what to look for). Otherwise, the book's first and second halves may read like two completely separate titles. This graphic novel is long, and can feel wayward due to its lack of a resonant theme (beyond a high school girl having multiple bad days). But the emotional curvature bends toward betterment. Eventually. And that, too, is probably the point. One hopes.

The art style is a mixed bag. Lee's character art is composed of delightful and sinewy line work that showcases the author's incredible skill for capturing a character's emotional frailty in a wan facial expression or an errant hand gesture. Elsewhere, the totality of the comic's background art and environmental design is derived from a photo-realistic style whose flat, static countenance feels ruefully disjointed from the story's variably textured mood.

❯ ❯ Comics Reviews || ahb writes on Good Reads

Deb JJ Lee (@jdebbiel) stopped by during NYCC 2023!

Deb JJ Lee is a non-binary Korean artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They have appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, NPR, Google, Radiolab, and more. Their award-winning graphic memoir, IN LIMBO, about mental illness and difficult relationships with trauma, released in March 2023 from First Second.

Check out their Creator Spotlight here.

📸: Rob Douthat

In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee was a surprisingly disappointing read for me. I found the story difficult to engage with. In Limbo covers a number of extremely worthwhile topics, from racism to child abuse to depression and suicide and grapples with them in the highly personal manner one expects from a memoir. In the telling though Lee's fraught childhood and its many potent events and struggles read more soap opera or angsty teen diary than anything else, so one note in its emotional state as to be boring in places where it should be gripping. The characters are mostly flat and uninteresting, which doesn't help. In general, in plotting and writing In Limbo is more unimaginative and dull than outright offensive or genuinely unreadable, but dull it is. Also disappointing, quite disappointing, for me, were the illustrations. It's apparent from the cover that Lee is an excellent illustrator with a great sense of color and shape, and the style of the cover along with a couple of reviews on the back suggest that In Limbo could be sold on beauty alone. From the very first page of the book though, I found Lee's approach to drawing characters to be bizarre and unappealing, especially next to their regular illustrations. Characters proportions are inconsistent in a way that suggests incompetence rather than deliberate decision making, face shapes sliding around from panel to panel, hands at times inhumanly dainty, other times normal, and they're drawn so flatly and with such little regard for anatomy or observation that they look weak even without comparing them from panel to panel. Lee is an undeniably great illustrator but no number of incredible renderings of backgrounds, everyday objects, and hair blowing in the wind could take my attention away from what I found to be amateurish and unconsidered approach to illustrating people. On the cover, now that I've read the book, something stands out past the beautiful colors and shapes. The hand reaching out towards the viewer: it's middle finger is too large, each of the nails is a different size in a way that doesn't relate to either the size of the finger nor its position in space, and their rendering doesn't seem to have been given as much care as that of the abstract sea of colors behind it, suggesting at best little tubes lit from a nebulous source. Perhaps, a sign of what was to come. I would have liked this story to have been told with a more consistent art style, less cloying angst, and another pass at dialogue. The story at its heart is undeniably powerful and the illustrations show an absurd amount of promise, but as it was executed, this book didn't work for me.

2/5

4 out of 5 stars

Just as a warning to readers, this book contains abuse, thoughts of depression and suicide, and uncertainty.

Jung-Jin (mostly known as Deb or Deborah, but absolutely not Debbie) was born in South Korea. Her and her parents traveled to the U.S. when she was young. Deb feels like she's in limbo because she's not Korean enough while also being not American enough. People in her school often make racist remarks towards her and she tries to ignore and avoid them. But it's so hard to do so sometimes.

As she enters high school, she feels the pressure to stand out, while not wanting to do so at all. Her only friends are in orchestra, where she was one of the best in middle school, but now she's messing up all the songs. She doesn't even know if she wants to play the violin anymore, but she stays in it and honors classes because her mother harps on her for it. And harps on her for her looks, and her grades, and her lack of enthusiasm for almost anything.

To put it simply…. Deb is depressed. And her mother isn't helpful as she smacks Deb around, physically and emotionally abusing her. To the point that Deb attempts suicide.

Thankfully, Deb does receive help. She goes to a therapist, who helps her navigate her emotions and helps put her on a path to where she can become more emotionally stable. Though, the artist/author's note at the end does state that, even now, that is a work in progress.

The art in this is so gorgeous. It's pretty much all in blue and gray tones, but the artist puts such an amazing amount of detail in some of the panels that it's a bit breathtaking.

The author does an amazing job at maintaining the pacing of their life. As an outsider, you can see that there are good things about Deb's life as she travels along it, even though she can't. And you see that even though Deb thought other peoples' lives were "perfect", they were also struggling with issues as they went through high school.

I think this would be a great read for anyone who doesn't know what they're going to do with their life while they're in high school. But, as I mentioned from the start, the reader will need to approach with caution if they are experiencing mental health issues as some of the events may be triggering.

Hors pages #3

Cher(e)s voyageur(e)s, Aujourd’hui, nous nous retrouvons pour un rendez-vous un peu particulier. Je ne vais pas vous parler de livre, ni de littérature mais plutôt de découverte sur le web que je voudrais partager avec vous. Ce rendez-vous a été créé par Aurélia de Ma Lecturothèque. Diana Dworek Jason Rainville Diana Dworek The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by @veschwabDiana Dworek Inspiré���

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In Limbo: A Graphic Memoir by Deb JJ Lee

“I love you when you’re at your lowest just as much as at your best. Growing up is about being sad and angry sometimes.” What could have been a depressing and angsty coming-of-age is ultimately saved by a rewarding & bittersweet narrative arc. As a Korean-American teen girl in the very white New Jersey suburbs, Deb feels and is made to feel like an outsider. She’s introverted and insecure,…

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