Talking With And Dave Baker And Nicole Goux About New Graphic Novel ‘Punk’n Heads’

Indie comic book creators Dave Baker and Nicole Goux have an all-new graphic novel out, Punk’n Heads,  chronicling the messy life of Hannah Lipsky as she tries to navigate the world of young adult life after a split with her girlfriend and ends up in a shared fleapit of a house, sleeping with one of her roommates and joining a punk rock band. An intriguing and highly enjoyable book, I wanted to know more, so I hooked up with Dave and Nicole to find out more: 

Olly MacNamee: Punk’n Heads! is clearly a labour of love for the two of you. You mention in the book the months spent workshopping this graphic novel, so I’m keen to know how personal a project this was. How much of yourselves are poured into the characters that come into Hannah Lipsky’s life? 

Dave Baker: I hesitate to say that this is the most personal thing we’ve done, but, y’know. It might be. Punk’n Heads follows recent art school dropout, Hannah Lipsky as she moves into a punk flop house with some old friends, and starts dating her high school almost-was. Add to that already combustible situation, the housemates enlist her as the new lead singer of the band? And you’ve got a powder keg ready to blow. That being said, that drama is just how we get butts in seats. The book itself is about struggling to make it in LA, romantic entanglements, and feeling lost when all your friends seem like they’ve got life sorted out. 

Nicole Goux: Every book we make has personal elements to it. There is a lot of us in the characters in this book, but nothing about it is strictly autobiographical. It’s more that we draw from experiences we’ve had or observed in the people around us that we heighten and change to inspire the characters and elements of the story.

MacNamee: While it focuses specifically on a ragtag group of bandmates and friends, I found it really relatable in capturing that time of your life when you are still finding yourself. This is very much a book about personal growth, isn’t it and not just Hannah’s?

Baker: Yeah, I’d say that’s exactly it. It’s a book that’s about how difficult it is to pick yourself back when life knocks you down. And that’s going to happen to all of us, at least once. Or maybe multiple times. And Punk’n Heads is an illustration about how sometimes your “lost in the desert years” are some of the most pivotal times in your life. 

Nicole: I think we all, at some point or other (and for many in our early twenties), find ourselves in a sort of limbo of who we’ve been up to this point, and who we want to be in the future. For many, it doesn’t feel like a choice until you’re out on your own, and then suddenly there you are, with no safety net, having to decide which direction you want the rest of your life to take. It’s no easy decision. 

MacNamee: I found the art highly inventive, Nicole. You’re creatively playing with and pushing the boundaries of the comic book page. Also, very in simpatico with the script. What were your goals, and how much influence did you have, Dave, on the final visuals? 

Baker: There is a lot of back and forth and ideas thrown around even before Dave sits down to write the script. Some of the formalist ideas come from him, some come from me. When you’ve worked on a project for this long, it can be hard to remember which came first, the chicken or the egg. All of it gets intertwined together to hopefully make one big beautiful cohesive story. 

Dave: Nicole and I are both very interested in the formalist qualities of comics. And yeah, a lot of those formal structures come from me, but they also come from Nicole. Like a few of them are directly from my brain, but at this point I don’t even really remember who came up with what because we’ve worked on the script for so long, and Nicole gave so much great feedback during the writing process. 

MacNamee: I love the episodic nature of Punk’n Heads, and the choice in colouring each chapter in simple colour schemes. Why did you decide to go this way, both narratively and artistically?

Nicole: So the color is a very intentional progression towards orange. As our characters, and their band get closer and closer to the actualization of themselves and of the band as a whole, the color gets closer and closer to pumpkin (or punk’n if you will) orange! 

Baker: Yeah, and furthermore, I think we were just bored about telling one long story. We’d wanted to make something that felt like it was episodic like how the old Star Trek shows were. You get so much more character development when you build a meta-arc over multiple stories. Graphic novels are great. I love them. And I love long epics. But I also like the structure of ongoing comics. And that’s kinda what we were trying to do, at the end of the day. We were trying to trick a graphic novel publisher into putting out a collection of our ongoing book, haha. What can I say, we’re sneaky guys.  

MacNamee: love, laughter, sadness and more. Punk’n Heads must be both draining and satisfying, but you must be proud of this relatable, romantic and raucous graphic novel? 

Nicole: Very proud, actually! Dave and I have been making books together for a long time. I think each one gets a little bit better and a little bit more personal. To date (who can say about the future), I do think this is the best thing we’ve made. I can only hope that readers will find in it the connection and vulnerability we felt as we were making it. 

Baker: You think it’s relatable? Awesome! That’s great. Haha. I know we just tried our best to make something we’d both want to read. 

MacNamee: Dave, Nicole, thanks for the time and all the best with this punk-rock powerhouse of a graphic novel.

Baker: Thanks so much! Please pick up Punk’n Heads April 8th wherever you get your comics 🙂 

Nicole: Thank you!

Punk’n Heads is out now from Top Shelf.