A Reunion in Ink with Gavin Aung Than

On Friday, I sat down with

Gavin Aung Than

- creator of Zen Pencils, author of the brand-new Creature Clinic, and someone whose laughter I recognised from two decades ago in Perth when we were both sketching during our day jobs, wondering if cartooning was a viable life choice.

Cut to two decades later. Gavin’s now a New York Times bestselling cartoonist with a string of hit books and a global readership. I’m in New York with a flatulent French bulldog writing New York Cartoons, drawing, creating and slowly eroding my wrist joints.

(Note: Longtime readers might remember Gavin from his edition of my “Artist Spotlight” series a while back. You can find that here.)

There’s something beautifully circular about talking to Gavin again. We were two awkward cartoonists lurking at the back of an Australian Cartoonists Association meeting, trying to make eye contact with our beer glass rather than each other. For me, it was James Foley who introduced me to fellow cartoonists at my first WA Chapter meeting at the Fremantle Arts Centre. For Gavin, it was me!

He remembers that our meeting vividly: “Everyone was older, and there’s this one young guy who knows everyone, cracking jokes. They’re treating you like you’re their son. I was like, who’s this friendly bastard?”

The Perth apprenticeship

We talked about Perth as a place to learn. “Back then, it was actually an advantage,” I said. “You could make your mistakes in isolation”, Gavin agreed: “Yeah, I’ve been back here six, seven years. It’s harder to make a living as an artist, but you can do it. Doesn’t really matter where you are anymore as long as you’ve got good internet.” He’s now got his dream studio in Bayswater -proof that sometimes the mythical land of Work–Life Balance actually exists west of the Nullarbor.

Dan and Pete to Zen Pencils

Before Zen Pencils, Gavin created Dan and Pete, a full-colour superhero strip that ran in The Sunday Times. “I thought that would just magically take over the world,” he said. “Didn’t happen.”

So he quit his job as a newspaper graphic designer. “I hated it. Everyone around me was getting made redundant. I thought, I need to do something drastic.” Around 2011, he launched Zen Pencils — turning famous quotes and speeches into comics. It went viral.

“I thought it was a good idea, so I quit. My wife said, all right, do it.” He laughed. “Scary, but best decision I ever made.”

I called him the day it launched. “I was nervous, thinking I’d made a terrible mistake, and then you called and said, I love the idea, keep going. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Books, burnout, and the long haul

Six years later, Zen Pencils had become four books and millions of readers, but also burnout. “I was starting to repeat myself,” he said. So he pivoted to graphic novels.