Eddie Ahn is an environmental attorney and the executive director of the nonprofit Brightline Defense. He is a self-taught artist whose graphic memoir Advocate got released this year. Ahn recently did an email interview with the IE.
Jennifer Lee: Your book mentions your time in college helped you get interested in education and community service. What exactly triggered this interest?
Eddie Ahn: While a senior at Brown University, I studied public education systems and youth development in seminar, which inspired me to work with elementary students. I ended up being a political science major, and I was thinking of getting a master’s degree in teaching and how I could translate my parents’ commitment to education for a larger community.
Once I moved to California, AmeriCorps offered entry level opportunities to work in public schools, and I particularly wanted to focus on 3rd through 5th grade as a critical stage of development. The combination of these interests led to my work of being afterschool programmer serving Asian immigrant youth and families right after college.
JL: The editing process is always difficult when you’re cutting out pieces of your work for the final version. I heard that you initially planned to have 10 stories but whittled it down to seven. What are the stories you decided to take out?
EA: The 10 short stories were initially envisioned to be 10 pages each, but many of these stories were consolidated and expanded into larger chapters, with each chapter being 20-30 pages. This process, however, meant a significant amount of reworking the material as well as deleting several pages that couldn’t bridge the short stories.
One story I ultimately took out was a longer chapter on urban agriculture and community gardens, which would have furthered the book’s themes of food, family, and community. While it’s always hard to delete finished pages or ideas that excite me, I really wanted this graphic memoir to maintain a brisk pace of storytelling.
As I’ve done since the book’s publication in April, I may return to ideas like this by creating new pages and continuing to publish them on Instagram @ehacomics. These additional pages may also be part of a future book, as the current book continues to be successful and has increased general interest for a sequel.
JL: You are such a busy individual. How do you find time to work on your craft? When do you usually work on your drawings and artwork?
EA: For my art practice, I typically work late at night to pencil, ink, and digital edit my art. I also work early in the morning as the morning light is better for coloring. My art requires careful consideration of time and labor for each drawn panel as well as writing and rewriting. Fortunately, my family and friends have been very understanding of this singular focus on my craft, which has allowed me to improve my art over the years.
JL: What artists have influenced your style? Are there any artists you follow or whose work you admire in particular?
EA: My work is influenced by a wide variety of graphic storytellers in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Taiyō Matsumoto (Tekkonkinkreet, No.5), Raina Telgemeier (Smile), and Gabriel Bá (The Umbrella Academy, Daytripper with Fábio Moon) are a few of many artists that I admire. In addition to other cartoonists, cinematography and film direction also heavily informs how I frame comic panels — and I’ve closely studied the movies of directors ranging from Alfonso Cuarón, Greta Gerwig, to David Fincher.
JL: You are a self-taught artist. What were the most difficult things about being self-taught rather than taking a class or receiving instruction? How did you overcome these difficulties?
EA: The difficulty in being self-taught has always stemmed from my own limited resources and time. For instance, I’ve steadily built my collection of Copic markers (an alcohol-based marker used for the coloring of Advocate) from 3-4 gray tones to now a few hundred colors over 8 years. Despite these limited resources and long timeline, I do find teaching myself has certain advantages — I can teach myself at my own pace, while also pushing myself to improve specific approaches toward perspective, coloring, and anatomy that enhance my storytelling.
JL: What advice would you give to people who are interested in nonprofit work? What should they be aware of? What should they be prepared for?
EA: Focus, mindfulness, and patience are important attributes to long-term survival in nonprofit work. I hope they would be mindful of the nonprofit’s mission and history as well as the necessary labor and relationship-building that exist prior to their involvement.
Nonprofit work is about understanding one’s capacity for generosity and being willing to learn from different perspectives. Much of Brightline’s work (Instagram.com/brightlinedefense) bridges diverse communities as well as their unique economic and environmental needs, and I’m constantly learning myself.
JL: You are always cheerful with your approach to work. From your book, it sounds like this may have come from your observations of how your parents approached their business when you were growing up. How have your parents informed or influenced your approach to your work? Would you say they are part of the reason you have devoted your professional life to service?
EA: My own parents had the patience for a liquor retail business that was a very different experience than their own education and training to become an engineer and pharmacist. They saw this business as a means to an end, one that served a greater goal in uplifting our family and improving our living conditions in the U.S.
I think a lot about their attitude toward work, and how it continues to influence my own thinking about nonprofit and public service. I also keep in mind that if I lose that similar cheerfulness or patience, I should find another line of work.
JL: Would you say your parents are accepting now of your life’s work and your career? Are they able to see beyond the financial aspects of your work? Now that over 15 years have passed, would you say they appreciate the work you do and what you have accomplished?
EA: One nice surprise has been that my mom has enjoyed the graphic memoir and appreciates my nonprofit work — I was worried about her reactions to sharing so much of our family life and history, but she’s been following the growth of the online audience on Instagram and their appreciation for my work. She’s already read the book several times and continues to re-read portions that she likes the best — she remains my most important critic, so I’m glad to have her stamp of approval!
JL: Who are the most inspiring people you have met through your work, and why (or how) did they inspire you?
EA: Gordon Chin is the founding director of San Francisco Chinatown who’s inspired many other community leaders – he built up a major nonprofit dedicated to affordable housing, Chinatown Community Development Center, which now houses and serves over 5,000 low-income residents and families across the city. His story and roots in SF Chinatown can be heard through my own nonprofit’s podcast (https://www.brightlinedefense.org/podcast-list/80-square-feet-of-chinatown).
Also referenced in the book, Dr. Espanola Jackson remains a tremendous inspiration, both for her generosity in spirit and willingness to educate me about environmental justice. She remains a great inspiration for my work. Her willingness to work across different communities and find new people to “pick up the sword” continues to motivate our policy fellowship program, intended for college or high school students looking for experience in nonprofit work and policy research.
JL: What have you done to be an advocate for yourself? Why would you say this is important?
EA: It took a tremendous amount of effort and reflection to not only create autobiographical comics but publish them so that the world would know my own voice and advocacy.
In 2016, I created the first pages of what is now Advocate, but I did not publish them anywhere until I decided to post a few pages on Instagram in February 2020. I wasn’t sure if anyone really would want to read or even care about my environmental nonprofit work, but it’s turned out to be an important way to humanize my nonprofit’s work.
While on tour, I’ve met extraordinarily kind readers who have been reading the comics online for years, and their stories of connection have reinvigorated my own optimism and faith in humanity.
