Mark McGuire & Alain Chevarier on Clay Footed Giants, In Conversation With Tahneer Oksman

Join Mark McGuire and Alain Chevarier as they discuss their graphic novel Clay Footed Giants with writer and critic Tahneer Oksman.

Set in Montréal, Clay Footed Giants is a tragicomic meditation on parenthood, masculinity, and violence.

Being a parent is so much harder than Pat ever imagined. While his partner Ester is away on a work trip. Pat loses his temper and transforms into a grizzly bear of a father, scaring his children and compounding his guilt. His friend Mathieu's stay-at-home-dad parenting advice is of no help, and only emphasizes Mathieu's professional shortcomings. The two men soon realize their children are mirrors reflecting old wounds that might never heal.
Meanwhile, an unexpected package arrives from Pat's estranged father containing letters, photos and a mysterious medal from his time as a soldier in Vietnam, and it propels Pat's obsessive quest to understand his family's dark past. As Pat plunges deeper into his research, he and his family reach their breaking point. With help from Mathieu and Pat's mom, Pat digs down to the roots of their family's intergenerational trauma and learns how to heal himself in the process Growth is possible, but so is oblivion. Eventually, the light pours in.

Mark McGuire is a Midwestern born Montréal father, writer, and community housing project manager who played basketball like an English major at Davidson College. A documentary about a Japanese sacred mountain he made with Jean-Marc Abela (Shugendô Now) won the David Plath prize and played festivals worldwide. Clay Footed Giants, co-written and illustrated by Alain Chevarier, was a finalist for French language comic book of the year in Québec. A jury of film and television producers at the Angoulême Comic Arts festival selected their story for its cinematic potential. Alain and Mark are currently adapting their story for an animated feature.

Montréal born, Alain Chevarier started dabbling in comics as a teenager, and moved on to study drawing, painting, graphic design and filmmaking throughout the course of his long and convoluted education. He spent most of his professional career as a film and TV director, while raising two daughters with his wife, contemporary dancer Jamie Wright. He got pulled back into making comics when co-author Mark McGuire suggested they create a graphic novel about fatherhood, based on their life experiences. Projects have since multiplied, and their book Clay Footed Giants, along with other books Alain worked on, have been nominated for several prizes.

Tahneer Oksman is a writer, teacher, and scholar. Her interests revolve around comics and visual narrative; feminist literature; memoir studies; contemporary Jewish American literature; cultural criticism; grief studies; and writing studies. Tahneer is Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Literature, and Language, with a joint appointment in the Department of Communication and Media Arts at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she teaches classes in writing, literature and comics, and journalism.