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And while Katelyn is happy to work alongside othe
r storytellers in aiding their material, she also has her own concepts that she wishes to develop. “I even had a talk with my agent the other day, and I have two ideas for stories in mind,” she says. “And she had to reassure me, ‘It can happen, but this is a long process. [...] It can be two years in the making.’ I’m really passionate about working on books.” Then an exciting opportunity dropped in Katelyn’s lap. As a teen, she had been a fan of Edgar Wright’s cult action comedy flick Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. “I was a huge As a kid, Katelyn soaked in the art styles of the media that she was engaging with. “It definitely would have been along the lines of cartoons and TV,” she says of her early influences. “I think I surrounded myself with too many screens, to the point where I’m like, ‘Why aren’t I blind at this point?’ Like, playing the Game Boy late at night with no lights surrounding you, and your dad finds out and you get in trouble. As a kid, the influences would have been from cartoons, like Teen Titans or Pokémon, for sure.” As a teenager, Katelyn developed interests in manga (citing particular investment in the series Fruits Basket and xxxHolic) and Marvel Comics (mainly for their antihero character Loki). She then went on to study Graphic Design at NCAD and, upon graduating, began freelancing and working with agencies. In July 2022, Katelyn moved to Berlin, after a trip there. She says, “I could not afford working in Dublin as an artist, let alone living, and that coupled with the pressure of coming out of the whole pandemic and living with your parents, you’re kind of like, ‘Mmmm! I kinda wanna move out!’ And I went on a little holiday in April 2022 for a few days, and I basically had a reaction of, ‘Should I move here?’” Logistically, Katelyn found Berlin more accommodating to her craft and began selling prints of her work. She then found representation with the New York - and Londonbased Illo Agency, who have been primarily focusing on getting her artwork featured in books. “They would be keeping an eye out more so on children’s books or young adult graphic novels,” Katelyn says. fan of the movie when it came out,” she says. “Even with the soundtrack, and I remember buying the little CD and just playing it all the time in the car.” In her words, Katelyn was “stunned” when an email came from Gliadar – who are a new publishing house specialising in making books available as Gaeilge – asking for her help in translating the original Bryan Lee O’Malley comic series, from which the film was based, into Irish. “They started, I believe, in December 2022,” Katelyn says of Gliadar, whose name means “glee” or “mirth” in Irish. “They had emailed me about a year ago, in May, expressing their interest in working with me, as an Irish graphic artist. They were looking for that kind of thing, and I was like, ‘Yeah!’ “And, of course, at the beginning, they don’t want to give too much information, and I’m just thinking, ‘Oh, I wonder what could it be?!’ And I remember just finding out in a following email, ‘This is all confidential, but this is it’ and a big paragraph of text explaining the translating and what my purpose will be in the project, and you read it and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God!’, and you try to remain composed and respond professionally!’ There was a bit of a snag, though: Katelyn’s proficiency with the Irish language. “I just about got past higher level by the skin of my teeth in the Leaving Cert, and that was an achievement, in and of itself!” Katelyn laughs when discussing her history with the language. “Nowadays, I’m way more passionate about learning Irish, but I’m not fluent or even to [the project’s collaborators] Brian [MacGilla Mhuire] and Seanán [Ó Coistín]’s levels of fluency; nowhere near that. And, luckily, they took me on, despite that. “I remember when they were questioning me about that, before giving me all the details of the Scott Pilgrim project, they were like, ‘How’s your Irish?’, and I was like [Pulls a frozen expression then laughs] ‘I haven’t spoken Irish in years!’ I was just like, ‘Will I be denied? Turned down?’ But, yeah, obviously, they were totally chill about that.” On adjusting O’Malley’s source material, Katelyn says, “My purpose was to re-illustrate, I suppose, the words that go on in the backgrounds or in, basically, any scene. So, for example, I could be changing up a word that goes on in an action scene, like, if it was “ZAAAAH!,” Z, basically, doesn’t exist in the Irish alphabet, so we would have had to change it. So, that was a lot of fun, trying to figure out what words would work, and there was a lot of going back and forth. “But, yeah, just things like that, or even little words on a tin of beans in the kitchen; like, tiny details. Or, like, changing “Corn Flakes” to “Calóga,” which is awesome! It really varied, and I would be working from my iPad and there would be a lot of layering and just mimicking the style. So, we tried our best, staying as closely related to the original styles of text and all that throughout the whole series, which I think has definitely been achieved, for sure. A lot of work!” As big a fan of the film adaptation as she was, Katelyn admits that she had not read O’Malley’s original graphic novels before embarking on this project, but that it has influenced her work. “I think it increased my confidence and my way of drawing, as well, for sure, and maybe led me down more of a comic-focused route,” she says. “It increased my confidence so much that I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I am confident in doing these kinds of things!’” For her own, non-commissioned work, Katelyn takes inspiration from varied places but is typically stimulated by visually striking films, like Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Her work has often been reshared across social media platforms and has been printed in several international outlets. “If you’re interested in my artwork, check out my website,” Katelyn says. “I sell a variety of fun, funky Irish and German prints, including one of Mr Tayto, who I definitely won’t go to court for! Should be fine!” Katelyn’s work and social media accounts can be found on her website, katelynmckenna.com. You can preorder the Scott Pilgrim as Gaeilge series at gliadar.ie. 49
