A self-portrait of Auckland comic artist Chelsey Furedi, created for Canvas to mark the release of her debut graphic novel, Project Nought. Illustration / Chelsey Furedi
A self-portrait of Auckland comic artist Chelsey Furedi, created for Canvas to mark the release of her debut graphic novel, Project Nought. Illustration / Chelsey Furedi
The View from My Window: Chelsey Furedi time travels into the future with her debut graphic novel Project Nought.
It’s crazy to think this entire thing was created on a computer in my bedroom — 330 pages is quite thick for a comic! I was 15 or 16 when Ifirst came up with the characters; now I’m 26. I sort of divided my own personality into six different facets, so I could put myself in their shoes. I knew what they would think in certain situations, how they would react and how they talk.
Ren is my nervous, anxious side. I’m also quite optimistic, so Mars is my naive, excitable side. And I really, really love Phoebe. I think she’s my favourite, so I probably put most of myself into her — the ditsy, confident side. I wish I was more like her, actually. I don’t see them as fictional characters; they’re just kind of real in my head.
The original idea for Project Nought was, what if there’s time-travel tourism? How would that work? There’d be so many implications if people could just go through time on vacation. That got narrowed down to a small experiment that’s heavily controlled, a time travel exchange programme that takes place 100 years in the future.
Project Nought tackles time travel and corporate corruption, with some romance mixed in. Illustration / Chelsey Furedi
Ren, the main character, is from 1996 — the year I was born — when the world was still on the fringes of technology. Suddenly he wakes up in the future and is told he has to take part in the programme whether he likes it or not. After five months, his memories will be erased before he’s sent back.
Everyone else is so stoked to be there and excited about the possibilities, but Ren doesn’t want to enjoy his time or explore connections with the people he meets because he knows he won’t remember any of it. Then he’s paired with his student guide, Mars, who he starts to develop very complicated feelings for. So, I set it up as a bit of a love story about time travel and then I hit [readers] with the plot twist. I don’t think anyone expects the ending.
Of course, these technologies don’t exist, but I wanted it to still feel believable and spent a lot of time trying to research the science. At the end, when they’ve broken into the lab, that’s based on real theories, such as matter being created from energy and 4D mapping.
I wanted to make a world that was both utopian and dystopian at the same time. Chronotech, the tech conglomerate, was a late addition to the story. You see a lot of that today, with big corporations being almost turned into fandoms when they’re just here for your money. It was really fun to write naive characters who don’t expect companies or governments to have quite sinister motivations.
I have lots of sketchbooks from my teenage years with all the characters and early stages of the writing. When I’m trying to map out a story, I put the scenes on post-it notes on the wall and move them around. That’s my typical process. With Project Nought, my days would start at 6am and stop at 5pm. That really took its toll on my hands and I had two major flare-ups with a muscle strain injury. I literally could not pick up a pen or hold a spoon to eat my cereal.
Illustration / Chelsey Furedi
It was a very stressful time and I considered reaching out to my publisher to ask if the book deal could be cancelled. I just didn’t see it getting finished at that point. Now I’m back to work full-time, which is great, but I have to make sure not to overdo it. I don’t draw in the evenings and I try not to draw on the weekends, just to give my hands a rest.
I do have another story in progress. All I can say is that it’s lesbian-centric, and I’m very excited to write more of what I know. I mean, I’m bisexual, but it taps into everything I know about being attracted to women and exploring the variety and diversity within the queer female population. I’m a very romantic person. I love being in a relationship and I love writing about relationships. It makes you all warm and giddy; it’s just my favourite thing.
With queer characters, it’s amazing how far animation and graphic novels and books have progressed. When I was 15, there was nothing. The only movies that got made were centred around tragedy, ending in bullying or suicide or death. I wanted to make stories with happy endings. Obviously, negative things do happen in real life, but it’s nice to have options and think, today I just want to watch a cute lesbian rom-com.
— As told to Joanna Wane
Ren and Mars break into the secret lab of conglomerate Chronotech. Illustration / Chelsey Furedi
Chelsey Furedi began building an international fan base with the 2017 webcomic Rock and Riot and has just released her first graphic novel, Project Nought (HarperCollins, $29.99). A freelance comic artist and illustrator, she works part-time at Mukpuddy animation studio in Auckland and posts on Instagram @cheriiart.
