Teddy Jamieson chats with Jenny Robins about Biscuits (Assorted) for Herald Scotland
‘Almost everything in the book is drawn from photographs, with certain changes made to the characters of course. But I don’t tend to think of London as a city of scuzzier corners. Here the scuzz can often exist on the very same street as the posh, or at most a few blocks over. The infinite desire for real estate has gentrified so much of the city, but there’s still a lot of communities rubbing elbows with each other – tower blocks or rundown terraces one block over from Georgian splendour or modern chrome. That doesn’t mean the people actually talk to each other of course, or frequent the same establishments, but they are very much in the same space.
I live in Islington, which is very much poshville, but pictures like the stack of discarded market boxes or the broken sofa left in the street were photographed within a three-minute walk of our flat. The image of Jane and Alice walking through what looks like a pretty rundown area is one of the few pages taken almost entirely from one photo – and it’s a photo taken in Bermondsey (also poshville).’
Teddy Jamieson interviews Jenny Robins about her debut comic, Biscuits (Assorted) for Herald Scotland.
Jenny Robins interview with Broken Frontier
AO: Given the diverse cast of players in Biscuits (assorted) how did you approach the responsibility of ensuring an authenticity to the voices you were bringing to life on the page?
ROBINS: Oof. Yeah. I read a lot. I looked at and listened to the world around me. I sought advice when I felt I needed it, and paid for it where appropriate. I probably have messed something up and will end up offending someone. But you can do that even if you only write about people that fit your exact identity profile, right? The scenes or throwaway lines that deal most directly with issues of identity are mostly things that I have seen or heard about first hand. The way that Samarah’s English teacher speaks to her for example, is something I saw happen in real life to a Somali student I knew. And yes of course when I drew her henna I tried my best to get the patterns accurate. But having her know about Pink Floyd, or watch horror films from between her fingers – that didn’t require any research. What I do believe is that we are all a combination of the expected and the unexpected. In London many people do grow up in or grow into a mix of different cultures and there’s a certain amount of common experience here. But no-one is 100% a stereotype, or 100% unstereotypical. As Hana puts it: “we are all simultaneously unique snowflakes and parts of the snowman.”
Read the interview between Jenny Robins and Andy Oliver for Broken Frontier in full HERE.
Biscuits (Assorted) is available to buy now.