An Interview With ‘Lost Letters’ Creator Jim Bishop

If there’s one thing worse than junk mail, it’s knowing you should’ve received an important letter in the mail but it didn’t arrive. In Jim Bishop‘s Lost Letters, Iode’s letter from his mother is long overdue. For more on the graphic novel and the fish-human world that Iode inhabits, check out this interview with Bishop below:

Rachel Bellwoar: In Lost Letters, Sista and Iode meet when Sista hitches a ride in Iode’s car. Why did you want to bring these two characters together?

Jim Bishop: I wanted to bring together these characters for their personalities which are polar opposites. Iode is rather naive and candid while Sista is much more conscious, “adult”. Basically I called her like that because I wanted her to represent the sister I never had.

Bellwoar: At the center of Lost Letters is Iode’s search for his mother’s missing letter. When did you realize the emotional weight a lost letter could have?

Bishop: The letter represents a form of waiting, a response to questions. Knowing that we are waiting for an answer without it arriving makes us obsessive, worried, we cannot really move on. Mourning arrives on the day of answers.

Bellwoar: On Sun Island, humans and fish live side-by-side. What made you go with fish and not other animals?

Bishop: The idea comes from a play on words that I made in French and English. I wanted a “Selfish” character and in French we say salt“fish”, and salt is a main element of the sea. It’s a play on words which derived from a whole reflection, a character who spins with his ideas in his jar was born, and also on our relationship to the ocean, as a collective. I watched documentaries and saw that we were destroying the sea not only because of overfishing but also through the massive recovery of sand, and from there came the idea of ​​sand trafficking in comics, fish that have been saved.

Bellwoar: While some fish, like Officer Cycy, still live in a fish bowl, others are human-sized. Did you always want to avoid giving a full explanation for why this is?

Bishop: I don’t give an explanation but there is one. I wanted the fish in the jars to be freshwater ones, because I imagined that the development would have been different depending on the location.

Bellwoar: One thing fish being able to talk allows Lost Letters to explore is how fish feel about the damage humans have done to the environment. Was that the inspiration for the Octopus and his mafia network?

Bishop: Octopus in its French version is inspired by a Lovecraftian idea and its myths, added to everything I told you previously, I wanted there to be an octopus mafia, which is infiltrated everywhere, which manages things in secret, and who is directly involved in the events of Sista and also the characters. There is the idea that fish, by dint of being around humans, and having recovered part of human sensitivity, would end up adopting the same kinds of destructive behavior.

Bellwoar: It seems like certain fish gravitate towards certain jobs (for example, all of the mail carriers are clownfish). Was it fun trying to figure out which jobs best-suited which species?

Bishop: The clown fish came as a joke, like many things in this comic haha. But as for fish with responsible functions, this is once again an idea not expressed in the book. I told myself that in the politics of Sun Island, for the fish to feel integrated, we needed representatives who looked like them. That’s why the king is a shark, the police are fish, etc… but in reality humans are still there, in secret, represented by the Royal Sunguard in which there is not a single fish. But it was a complex subject to develop so it remains in the background

Bellwoar: My favorite page in the book is when we don’t immediately realize the size difference between Officer Cicey and Officer Surimi. Was that always a part of their dynamic and did you have a favorite character to write for?

Bishop: Haha, yes! There is a Laurel and Hardy side, a duo who doesn’t understand each other but who appreciate each other all the same. Yes, my favorite character is Sista. I loved writing and drawing her, in her outbursts of anger and injustice, she is the strong character of the comic, despite all her flaws.

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Jim!

Lost Letters is available now from Magnetic Press.