Writer’s Block: Elaine M. Will

All Lit Up: Tell us about your new book. What can readers expect?

Elaine M. Will: The Last Band on Earth is a liminal horror “road movie,” about a noise rock band called The Dead Layaways, who are trapped in a post-apocalyptic city ruled by demons. They can’t really remember how they ended up there, and would very much like to leave, as there’s a dark cloud hanging over everything at all times that stifles their creativity. The band would also like to take their act on the road, and go on tour in whatever might be left of the world, but the demons insist there’s nothing outside the city limits but desert wasteland, and that it’s safer to stay where they are. Eventually, it becomes clear that it’s not safe, and they will have to leave and take their chances out in the wastes—or risk being devoured by the city.

Did I mention that this is all a thinly-veiled metaphor for depression?

ALU: What was your most rewarding moment as an writer?

EMW: Most of my work is themed around mental health and attempted recovery from mental illness. My first book, Look Straight Ahead, was about a teenage boy’s struggle with depression and psychosis in his last year of high school, and was loosely based on my own experiences. Before publishing the book, I put it online as a free-to-read webcomic to try and gain a readership. I heard from a number of readers who said it resonated deeply with them and helped them with their own mental health struggles—one comment that always sticks out in my mind is “thank you for explaining what I never could.”

ALU: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

EMW: At its core, The Last Band on Earth is about a group of friends fighting to survive a world literally composed of crushing, overwhelming despair and about never giving up hope in the face of this adversity. I didn’t intend for this message to be so timely when I started the book in 2019, but I do feel it’s become more important than ever right now. As with all my books, I also want to leave readers with the impression that they are not alone and that it’s okay to struggle, but to remember not to let yourself be consumed by your demons. After all, it’s pretty pathetic that my brain demons don’t have anything better to do than to constantly berate me all day, isn’t it?

The book is also about the drive to continue making art in a world that’s actively hostile towards creative people of all stripes, and that is what I will continue to do as long as I’m able–it feels like a very punk rock form of protest! Writing and drawing graphic novels are my therapy, and I hope that they’re just as therapeutic to read.

ALU: What inspired the idea for your latest book?

EMW: It’s actually based on a story I attempted writing a couple of times in high school. I self-published a “zine” version of the first chapter with record reviews in the back pages, and I really thought this made me the coolest thing since sliced bread—but I digress. In this version there were no demons, but the basic premise was similar: a rock band is trapped in a dangerous city for some reason and wants to escape. There wasn’t much thought given to the world-building beyond an embarrassing info-dump on the second-to-last page to try and explain everything. I was revisiting the zine as an adult and realized “y’know, I kinda still like this concept—what if it was about depression?”

I’ve always been fascinated by stories about bands. You could almost call this a creative hyper-fixation of mine. Again in high school I discovered a graphic novel adaptation of the 1995 Canadian movie Hard Core Logo, which is about a fictional punk rock band from Vancouver who reunite for one final tour, and the tensions that broke up the band the first time around begin to resurface. The graphic novel almost had a zine feel to it, as it incorporated a cut-n-paste approach by using a lot of different art styles and inserting photographs (realistically drawn and shaded in pencil) and interviews with the band from fictional magazines, that sort of thing. And I loved it, I really love anything that plays with the form of the medium it’s in and gets experimental in any way.

Aside from that, I’ve always taken a lot of inspiration from music. What sort of images does the sound of this music conjure up in my head? I listen to a lot of strange, obscure music, so this can result in similarly strange artwork or writing, and as I mentioned, I really love anything that’s a little strange or offbeat.

ALU: How do you overcome creative blocks when they arise?

EMW: I hate to say it, and I probably don’t take my own advice here often enough, but: taking breaks is important. If I’m really stuck on some element of a story, the solution almost always presents itself when I’m not actively working on the story—say, when I’m in the shower or going for a walk. Or sometimes, just as I’m about to fall asleep, but unfortunately I’m not one of those people who keeps a notepad on their bedside table, so I do have to get out of bed and go into another room entirely to write those ideas down, haha!

For visual art blocks, again taking breaks helps, but I also find drawing fan art or “X in the style of Y” can help get me back on track if I’m feeling uninspired. If I’m mimicking an existing art style, then there’s less work that I have to do from scratch, but it still exercises different parts of my creative brain, that then, in turn, can lead to other original work. Just plain doodling is great too! 

ALU: If you could spend a day with one of your characters, who would it be and why?

EMW: All of them! But if I had to choose one, I’d say Rick. He seems like a lot of fun, and is so chill and laid-back—I’m so anxious all the time, so I feel like he’d be a positive influence on me. We don’t see it in the book, but he also has a big collection of old analog synthesizers and associated music production gear—I’d love to get a look at that and maybe learn some of the craft!

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Elaine M. Will is a Joe Shuster Award winning cartoonist and illustrator from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has contributed work to a wide range of different creative projects, including magazine illustration, animation storyboards, poster design, graphic layout design, and a newspaper comic strip for Saskatoon’s Verb magazine. Elaine is most well-known for writing and illustrating Look Straight Ahead, an award winning graphic novel about a teenage boy’s struggle with mental illness.