Félix Saparelli

About Me

My birthplace and my home are at antipodes, thereabouts, and I tend to long one when I visit the other. I've traveled a fair amount, through both seas, lands, airs, and dreams. I dabble in various disciplines that have some relation to paper, such as calligraphy, ink-making, line drawings, pen-handling, epistolary. On that note, I prefer Claire-Fontaine velours and Rhodia yellows. In another part of my life, I code and design and think hard about efficient algorithms. In yet another, I draft plans for houses. My published work is usually released in the Public Domain unless otherwise specified.

Why do you write?

Experiences and situations, whether they be real or imagined, whether they be mine or others', whether they be uplifting or downcast, whether they be resolved or unfinished, whether they be about love or hate or grief or pain or lack thereof. My finished works are generally poetry and shorts, but in my drawers you'll find dozens of starts and beginnings.

Once or twice per year, I write to beat friends' and strangers' word counts: I participate in NaNoWriMo and its Camps.

Any favorite authors? Books?

Since my childhood, Hugo's Les Misérables (in its original French version; I never liked any of its translations) is what I consider the best. Jules Verne's 20'000 Leagues and Mysterious Island are keeping it company. In the bande-dessinée corner, there's Lanfeust and Trolls of Troy, and Léo's awesome Aldebaran.

More recently, books that struck me similarly have been few and far between. The Knife of Never Letting Go was a terrifying read. Damasio's Horde du Contrevent is quite the masterpiece, placing itself higher than Dune and The Hitchhiker's Guide. Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and LotR are beneath them all, in reverse order. Manga-wise, I've loved FMA several times over, but it pales in comparison with Kim Dong Hwa's Color of Water.

I read online as well. The Flying Cloud and City of Roses I consider highly. Tales of MU, less so. Questionable Content used to be better, Leftover Soup is still relatively unknown (listen to the hipster in me), Oglaf still confuses me sometimes, but GGaR is where I go when I require that perfect mix of great art, humour, and depth.