Some serious comicking ahead!

So I'm thinking about doing a comic - perhaps even a comic book - about the 1968 student movements in Germany. It will focus mainly, but probably not exclusively, on my father's perspective, moving from a small, Catholic area in North Germany to big city Cologne to attend University. I've interviewed my father these past two days and have just finished typing up ten pages of those conversations, which are madly chaotic and go from post-war growing-up stories to the education about Hitler, to politics in the 60s, demonstrations, the intricacies of the German political system, his studies, and finally how he has come to work in foreign countries.

My hands hurt. The German language, as pretty as it can be, has many very, very big words in it. I never type in German, and at first I kept on accidentally typing English words. The ease with German has returned to me, a bit, but now I feel like my English sentence structure is all wrong. I could never do the two languages at once.

Anyway.

This is a big project. Would people be interested? I'm not sure. I guess the main thing is that it's something which has always interested and fascinated me, and as long as you have passion for a subject, you can make it interesting for other people. Or at least that's what I choose to believe.

I'm also thinking of looking at similar movements around the rest of Europe at the same time, France for instance. Though my father and the students in Cologne were not as affected by these as I'd hoped, I think it'll give everything a bit more context, especially if you're not from Germany.

Though, of course, social democracy in Germany with its history is especially interesting, and 68 was completely necessary for Germany at the time. I find it very difficult to think rationally about Germany's past, without getting overly emotional and angry, and I can only imagine what it was like for my father's generation when they found out (because they didn't, immediately, because their parents just didn't talk about it).

I don't know. I think I could actually do something very interesting with all of this. I scrapped this fiction project that I've been wanting to do for ages, because I don't think I'm any good at writing fiction, at least not now. I have to get away from all this auto-biographical navel-gazing because I'm not doing anything interesting enough to write about, and it's probably safe to say that you're as sick as I am over my perpetual angsting (I mean, so you don't like your life right now, move on Julia, do something about it, seriously). And somehow, I'm desperately trying to make a connection with my own relationship to politics, and activism, especially considering how everything is swinging to the right at the moment and it has become so much more important and necessary to know about the way these things work.

The problem is, the writing is almost the easy part, the drawing will be what's going to really stump me. The amount of research (and complicated research) I'll have to do will be substantial. And then I'll constantly have to send my father drafts and ask, "was it this way or was it different"? My parents were able to provide me with shockingly little photographic reference from that time. I mean, seriously. The only (the only!!!) picture my parents have from when they lived in a commune in Cologne is this, from 72:

What am I supposed to do with that? What is going on? That's my father in the back, by the way (apparently they were moving out and their flatmate was mixing paint with a drill).

At least I know what my parents looked like around that time.

If I simplify my drawing style, it'll be alright, I guess. I have to rely on that, my father's descriptions and the good ol' internets.

I'd like to say that all of this will be done by Leeds, but I'm not 100% certain. It's become a huge project. I could possibly do it in chapters and release it in issues. Any thoughts?

But seriously guys, would you like to read this? There's some really interesting stuff, from what my father told me. He's had quite a mad life. I'll make it pretty as well as interesting, or I'll try at least. Should I do one issue as a test run for the summer conventions and see how they sell? Or should I just shut up and get on with it?

I should just shut up and get on with it.

Looking for photo reference concerning Benno Ohnesorg, I found a really haunting picture. The senseless death of Ohnesorg was what made my father join the demonstrations. That picture is probably going to stay with me forever.

Anyhow, I'll just get on with it, shall I? I'll post sketches and thoughts as the project develops, and I'd love any kind of feedback, guys. Even if it's just "keep doing it" so I don't lose faith in this thing.