Detained during Myanmar’s 2021 political upheaval, American reporter Danny Fenster endured half a year as a political captive. Throughout much of his confinement, he combatted monotony and dread, sustaining himself with meditation and podcasts from an SD card clandestinely delivered via mail by his partner, Juliana.
Presently, almost half a decade after his liberation, he teamed up with his acclaimed cousin, Amy Kurzweil, a renowned New Yorker illustrator and visual memoirist, to create an extensive interactive graphic narrative for The Verge concerning his detention. I communicated through electronic mail with Kurzweil regarding her function as a visual artist and narrative creator in this challenging extensive endeavor, the obligations intrinsic to relaying another person’s account, and how she crafted intricate, multifaceted illustrations solely employing a graphite stick.
The Verge: Your creations frequently center on familial past, such as your grandmother’s endurance within a Warsaw Jewish quarter and employing artificial intelligence to reconstruct your grandfather’s vocalization. How did you find the process of assisting in the narration of Danny’s experience?
Amy Kurzweil: When Danny was initially incarcerated, I contacted my friend Ahmed Naji, an author who had been confined by Egypt’s totalitarian government for nine months in 2016. He expressed that the ordeal of unwarranted confinement can be more arduous for those on the exterior; you are concerned for the captive yet lack any intelligence about ongoing events. I remain uncertain of my conviction in his assertion, but I did value Ahmed’s corroboration that the absence of knowledge constituted a distinct form of torment. This served as part of my impetus for desiring to partner with Danny on this work. I sought to comprehend the nature of his ordeal, to understand it thoroughly, and to permit myself an educated visualization of the circumstance I’d vaguely pondered in my thoughts.
Understandably, Danny’s predicament constituted a significant aspect of my family’s existence in 2021. Together with Juliana, our family assembled an ad hoc rapid response unit committed to ascertaining a course of action. We convened frequently with our diplomatic mission and leveraged every available asset we could conceive of. (Our coordination was strong — we even had a Slack channel!) We encountered others who’d undergone this peculiar torment, and we mobilized a network of individuals committed to the objective of #BringDannyHome and #ProtectThePress.
However, we lacked true comprehension of what Danny was enduring. There existed a deep chasm between our mundane everyday lives and the uncertainties surrounding Danny’s confinement. I retain a clear recollection of attending dawn discussions with erstwhile envoys while on a holiday at Disney World resort with my brother’s family, queueing for It’s a Small World concurrently with publishing updates regarding my cousin’s incarceration. The bewilderment stemming from this situation had a deep impact on everyone in my family. We sensed a loss of agency. Contributing to the formation of an artistic piece that attests to the intricacies and particularities of what transpired feels deeply grounding. It is restorative. This is a primary reason why imaginative and engaging narrative delivery is so crucial: It bestows upon us an extended sense of realizing, Ah, such was the actual state of affairs.
How did this artistic partnership function among yourself and Danny?
Danny is a talented author, and I was pleased to utilize his inclination to record his ordeals and his receptiveness to executing it multimodally. We commenced with dialogues, and collaborated to ascertain the segment of his ordeal that could adapt effectively into a narrative for The Verge. Danny began by composing text, then we worked together to convert his writings and excerpts from his confinement diaries into a graphic novel screenplay via Google Docs, and subsequently, I initiated drawing.
Elucidate your illustration methodology.
Illustration has consistently served as my conduit to apprehend authenticity, due to a pair of factors. The first is that drawing is tangible; it aids me in experiencing and conveying sentiment. The second is that drawing uncovers specifics.
Danny furnished me with all the pertinent images he possessed of the nation of Myanmar, in addition to his diaries, which contained some preliminary drawings. However, there are no publicly accessible images of Insein Prison. We jointly examined the Google Maps orbital perspective of the
panopticon and he guided me through his section, detailing events in each location. He sketched numerous diagrams for me — of his and Juliana’s apartments, of his division and his cell, but the only other pictorial material I could depend on was an assortment of sketches by Maung Pho, a previous inmate in a separate section.
When I depict an unseen area, even in an uncomplicated manner, I require numerous inquiries addressed: What composed the floor of your cell? What was the surface of the walls like and what inscriptions were on them? What did you observe through the bars of your cell? Where was your sleeping place and how did you store your belongings? Oh, you truly possessed a New Yorker tote in your cell for half a year? Fascinating. Each illustration necessitated alterations; sometimes Danny needed to witness me draw something — with precision — before he recalled the true appearance of the area. That wall stood taller, and that wall featured barbed wire, and weeds grew there, and no trees existed in this spot… This comic demanded more iterative adjustments of drawings than any project I’ve ever undertaken previously. That’s one reason why I completed the ultimate versions with graphite.
But it was so rewarding when I’d accurately depict something, and I’d think, Wow, drawing is the most enchanting method there is.
“But it was so gratifying when I’d really get something right, and I’d think, Wow, drawing is the most magical technology there is.”
How did technology influence your illustrations?
Danny and I depended extensively on messaging via phone to exchange pictures and elucidate matters as I worked. We were able to devote periods to collaborate and exchange observations face-to-face, but the majority of our workflow occurred with us on different continents: Me in the US, Danny in Vietnam, where he was residing until a short while ago. We also arranged (with a degree of disarray) all our pictorial and written materials in Google Drive folders.
I sketch manually. I appreciate the immediate link with the paper, and I particularly enjoy drawing in pencil because of the resistance and tactile sensation of the mark. I do extensive copying, much like how I positioned paper against my computer monitor to duplicate Danny’s handwriting from the digitized copies of his incarceration diaries. For my ultimate versions, I drew the initial sketch in blue pencil, and then I’d “render” with Blackwing pencils, which are substantial and produce rich, deep tones.
A quality scanner (and effective scanner software) is crucial: I utilize an Epson wide format with Epson Scan 2 software. Then in Photoshop, I removed the blue pencil base layer and adjusted the tonal range, so the dark pencil became more pronounced without losing monochrome nuances and surface quality. Photoshop also became my medium for experimenting with arrangement, and estimating the layering progression in the ultimate motion graphic rendition. I’m captivated by how graphite impressions appear on a digital screen, and I think “rendering” in pencil prevents numerous procedural difficulties and maintains the original essence and fluidity of an impromptu sketch.
How was technology an integral component of Danny’s time incarcerated?
One of the initial remarks Danny made to me when he was released from incarceration, which I’ll always remember, is that it was pleasant to be without his phone. This is not to minimize the hardship, but it’s characteristic of Danny to offer such a remark, to depart from confinement perceiving that a benefit had been presented to him. One of the questions we aimed for this narrative to investigate was: If we are so flooded with data, with accounts of distress, difficulty, and unfairness, how do we actually give due recognition to a specific report? In a democracy, we need reach to every one of these narratives, but how can we feel concern about any single one?
That’s to say nothing of all the unrecounted narratives. Danny and I are only capable of recounting his Myanmar story because he was fortunate enough to be an American with certain means. We think the solution here relates to skill, sentiment, and deep engagement, what we aim for this narrative to provide its audience, but it also relates to the perspective of the tale’s audience.
The pivotal moment of this graphic novel features Danny being given, from Juliana, a story that deeply affected him: a This American Life episode about another American detained overseas. Danny had no longer had consistent availability of pen and paper, the fundamental tools he’d initially depended upon to create significance and occupy his hours, so he’d been contemplating, preparing his intellect for monotony, and then arrives… an audio broadcast!
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