I Am Only a Foreigner Because You Do Not Understand by L. Nichols

Some books take the whole of a lifetime to write.

I Am Only a Foreigner Because You Do Not Understand continues Flocks, L. Nichols’s graphic memoir of growing up trans in the rural South. These comics document L.’s further transition, from living as a man to walking the middle path, facing depression, disease, divorce and death. Healing leaves scars, things fall apart, and pronouns change until there is no I, there is only us.

L. Nichols was born and raised in rural southwest Louisiana and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master's degree in Media Arts and Sciences, both from MIT. L. has a unique voice that utilizes the language of science and engineering to add an additional layer of meaning and complexity to their work. Nichols also incorporates elements of comics to turn their paintings into broader narrative forms. L. lives works as an illustrator, comic artist, graphic designer, educator and sometime blacksmith with their two children in New York's Hudson Valley. They have been published in over a dozen comics and art books.