Being a Vietnamese American led directly to Trung Le Nguyen becoming a cartoonist.
“When you don’t speak the language with the level of acuity that your peers do, you find other ways to communicate,“ said Nguyen, 35, who was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines and came to this country when he was 2 (his parents were Vietnamese boat people). ”So I’ve always doodled.“
Nguyen, whose graphic novel “Angelica and the Bear Prince” is out this week, wasn’t necessarily thinking those doodles would support him, as they now do. In fact, he sidelined his cartoons as something that was fun to do, rather than a way to make money. After he graduated from Totino-Grace High School, he studied art history at Hamline University, thinking he could keep art in his life that way but not have to rely on his own output to do it.
“Because I am the oldest child of an immigrant family, I felt like I needed to be super-responsible — none of which my parents actually foisted on me, by the way,” said Nguyen, whose plan was to work in academia or at a museum. “Being near art, not actually making the art, seemed more responsible. That was the compromise. Then, I fell into cartooning almost by accident.”
Nguyen says his clear, detail-rich work is heavily influenced by magazine illustrations from the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as childhood favorites like “Garfield” and the “Tintin” books.
Little projects led to bigger projects and, almost before he knew it, the south Minneapolis resident had produced a book, “The Magic Fish,” an autobiographical, fairy tale-inspired story about a Vietnamese American coming out and helping his parents learn English. The 2020 book was nominated for cartooning’s highest honor, the Eisner Award. It took a lot out of Nguyen, who also is gay and is married to social worker J Capecchi (the two met in high school).
“I don’t think about the emotional gravity of the subject when I tackle it. It’s just whatever is woven into the lives of my characters. But I got a little weary, after a while, of talking to people about my first book because it deals with immigration and queerness and coming out — heavy, heavy topics. You start to feel sad after you talk to 25 classrooms about that stuff,“ said Nguyen.
The plan was for the new book to be a “treat,” a break from heavy subject matter. He was inspired by “The Shop Around the Corner,” a classic screwball comedy about mistaken identity, when he embarked on “Angelica and the Bear Prince.” But then the characters started telling him he was looking at it all wrong.