Under the Surface Q&A with Cole Degenstein

Alone in Japan, a travelling artist writes to a beloved poet while trying to reignite the urge to draw.

Continued correspondence reveals loneliness and desperation that stretch far beyond the isolation of solo travel and the typical self-reckoning that comes with it. Composed as a series of illustrated letters, Cole Degenstein’s Dear Kenneth is a sensitive work of comic auto-fiction that touches on themes of projection and selfishness set to the backdrop of a months-long trip to Japan. Rendered entirely in graphite and coloured pencil, Degenstein examines the desperate act of taking things and making them into what we need them to be, rather than trying to connect with them in a genuine way; when desperate enough, anything can be projected upon: a person, a poet, an artist, a city. Numbed by medication and burning under the Kyoto sun, the artist is forced to self-evaluate, face the consequences of running from oneself, and confront what it means to make artwork out of misery.

In anticipation of Dear Kenneth‘s spring launch, check out our Q&A with Cole Degenstein below where we chat about the intersections of travel, displacement, tattooing and the dying art of letter writing. Dear Kenneth launches spring 2026 and is available for preorder now!

I have observed recently that a lot of cartoonists are turning to tattooing to make a living. Seems like this is a great revenue stream for artists, especially cartoonists who make “flash” drawings all the time for their comics. Can you describe your tattooing practice? How is it different from making comics? Do you have a regular shop and schedule for tattooing?

Making comics, for me, is an incredibly solitary practice. When I’m in the drawing phase of a project, I work between the hours of 10PM and 4AM most of the time, writing, drawing, and editing alone in my little home studio. My comic making process is something I am fiercely protective of — I don’t like to have anyone meddling. Tattooing is entirely different as from the get-go it is a deeply collaborative process, especially for custom work. I work out of a shared studio with a bunch of wonderful artists and the social and collaborative aspects of it are really exciting. I do a pretty even amount of custom and flash designs, with a big focus on prairie/country imagery. I tattoo very similarly to how I draw on paper, highlighting loose gestural lines and textured sketchy colour fills that evoke pencil crayon. 

Though I like to compartmentalize and keep tattooing and comic making separate, they do inevitably bleed into each other (i.e. my tattoo flash is often observational, based on things I see or draw in my sketchbook while at a farmers’ market, plants growing around the city, things I’m baking in the kitchen), and much of my writing is observational and examines daily life, so there is certainly crossover in subject matter. Tattooing also allows me to have a level of flexibility I couldn’t find in basically any other field — I’ve been able to attend zine festivals all over the country, participate in artist residences, and I’m able to book busier or quieter months depending on how much comic-making I need to do. I truly feel like I hit the jackpot, and am so grateful for tattooing.

There are many people out there with your art permanently displayed on their bodies. How is this different from having your work permanently displayed in a book?

An often shared sentiment in the tattoo studio is about the permanence of the work — you have the tattoo forever, after all. But in a way, tattoos are far more ephemeral than physical comic books. Hypothetically someone could come across a copy of one of my books on a bookshelf in 100 years, but all the tattoos I’ve done will be underground. Sorry if that’s morbid! 

That being said, there is a level of human connection you feel as both a tattoo artist and client that can’t be found [in] many other places. It’s an exchange of continued trust, and the process of making the tattoo is done as a team. Comics are so different in this regard — in general, books are made and consumed privately, and often I have no idea what experience readers have. Both of these exchanges are exciting in their own way — it’s nice to see someone walking out of the tattoo studio with a drawing of mine I may never see again, it’s also nice to release a book and wonder who will pick it up and what they might think of it.

Your first book 10-10 to the Wind was picked up by the American publisher Fieldmouse and won the Center for Cartoon Studies Studio Award in Vermont. You have also done residencies in France. You are from the Prairies but choose to live in Montreal. What are the advantages or disadvantages of all this international exposure? Any plans to keep moving?

I think the way that settling in a new place (or just visiting) forces you to adapt and think on your toes is one of the most exciting parts of life, and I look for that same thrill in making books. Generally, I know what shape I want a project to take and I have a map of the emotional beats and major moments, but much of the actual writing and image making that fills the space between the bigger planned out set pieces is improvised. Dear Kenneth began as sketchbook pages from my time in Tokyo and Kyoto, and the comic was created between Montreal, North Battleford, and a three month tri-country comics residency in Angoulême (France), Bilbao (Spain), and Quebec City. Being granted the opportunity to move around so much during the making of this book also reinforced the feeling of displacement and the necessity of adapting, which I’m positive had an influence on the book. I guess the only major disadvantage of hopping around like this is that I have a lot of people and places to miss!

Dear Kenneth focusses on more travel. It is about the ex-pat experience in Japan. Is this based on a trip you took? Another residency?

Dear Kenneth is a work of auto-fiction about projection and the pursuit of clarity amid a mental health crisis disguised as an ex-pat chronicle. I had been on antidepressants since I was twenty and had no idea where my mind was at without them; I felt completely dulled out. I decided to go off of them cold turkey, and found myself in utter disbelief at just how big feelings could be— it was like I had entirely forgotten about any feeling but ‘fine’. I made this decision two weeks before the longest trip I had ever taken. The brunt of the side effects were felt while in Japan, particularly in a lonely little stretch in Kyoto, and the narrative is built around this. Ultimately it is a body of work about feeling and observing in an insular, self-centred way rather than trying to genuinely connect. The time I spent between Tokyo and Kyoto felt like a lifetime because of this newfound clarity I was experiencing after going off of my medication — the overstimulation and self reckoning that comes with being in a new country were completely overblown.

Dear Kenneth is an epistolary graphic novel. This means it is all written in letters. In this case to a poet named Kenneth. Is this a real poet? The epistolary form is unique in comics. Have you seen this form before? What was the inspiration behind this?

Yes, and no. I do have a poet in mind who I’m writing to, but the poet in Dear Kenneth is deeply mythologized — a man who I’ve created and have come to believe in based on his poetry rather than to the poet himself. A lot of this project is an interrogation of the idea of projection and adjusting the context and meaning of things to fit our needs. I’ve always been fascinated with mail and the exchange of letters — I grew up trading zines with strangers I met on internet forums and writing letters to pen pals. I do feel that the art of letter-writing is dying, and I love the narrative gaps that a reader needs to fill in an epistolary novel when the return letters are not shared. 

I liked the idea of the book feeling like it is truly about one person reaching out, and who is so deeply trapped in their own head that it’s as though no one else exists around them. Japan is near empty in this book. Aside from the occasional Kyoto river bather or pedestrian in Shinjuku, this book is about one man, alone, desperate to connect to something, or someone.