When local artist and zinester Nicole Georges discussed her
sexuality with her mom last year, it turned into such an awkward
conversation that the 27-year-old made a video re-creation of it to
gain some perspective. “It’s my coming-out story with my dog playing my
mom. She was like, ‘Why are you a lesbian? Didn’t you like making love
to men?’ Someone asked me to show it at a queer film festival but I’m
not really a filmmaker. I might put it on YouTube, though.”
Georges’ follies probably translate better in her highly
entertaining zine, Invincible Summer. The newest issue (#13)
shows, through words and comics, how she got kicked out of the band she
started, what you need for a vegan pumpkin cheesecake, and where not to
go for a torturous toothache.
Georges’ art has popped up everywhere the past two years. After
illustrating the Tin House book Food and Booze in 2006, her work
has appeared in magazines, rock posters, and art shows (she’s currently
showing at the Fresh Pot on North Mississippi until February). “My goal
for last year was to be more deliberate. I started drawing things with
pencils before I put ink over it, which I hardly did before.”
Though her work has become more polished, Georges’ punk/DIY roots
still show proudly. She made her first zine in Kansas when she was 13.
“It was about ska music and aliens. Bands would get mad at me for
asking stupid questions like, ‘What’s your favorite cheese?’ Then I
made a really awkward emo zine where I called out all my friends for
being sexist.”
She’s learned a little about zine etiquette since then. “My early
zines used real names, and now I ask people to choose their own
pseudonym. Usually if I’m courting someone, I’ll bait them with gifts,
like my comics, so they can see what could happen.”
Georges has her second full-length book coming out in the spring
(from Microcosm) and she also published a 2008 calendar. She came back
from last year’s Sister Spit tour with a literary agent, so more book
projects look to be in her future and she’s feeling pretty confident.
“Sometimes I feel like the Jay-Z of illustrators in my own head. Like
‘I’m the best drawer alive! I can draw anything.'”