Sean Christie chats to Joe Daly, author of 'Highbone Theater' about the joy of creating graphic novels. Driving out from Cape Town to meet Joe Daly in the fishing village of Kleinmond, I noted the alveolar look of the coastal rocks and made a mental note to ask the enigmatic cartoonist whether these had inspired the lava-red coastal pools from the opening pages of Highbone Theater, his recently published graphic novel. Then, outside his apartment block (one of the only structures in Kleinmond taller than a single storey) I thought: this is Eric Palmer's digs, from the book.Daly, 37, sporting an Abe Lincoln beard, emerged from the building looking a little sleepy. Via e-mail he had warned me, "Since I'm an all-night worker, my brain only starts to function well later in the day, so come at 2pm, or even later."Over cups of instant coffee and rolled cigarettes in his tiny living room we talked about this and that. Accounting for the predominance of Tom Waits albums in a CD tower, Daly said he had gone through "a BIG Tom Waits phase". story_article_left1Like the younger Tom Waits (and like Palmer, Highbone Theater's protagonist), Daly looked older than his years (he's 38 this year). He admitted that his "extreme focus on making comics" had taken a toll on his health, and that one of his teeth had recently "cracked out".Picking up a steel guitar, he played a few chords, but lost interest and set it down. I recalled that his father, Niki Daly, the celebrated illustrator of children's books, had made two well-received solo pop albums in the '80s, the first of which included the local classic Is it an ism or is it art? Joe's mother, Jude, is also a well-known illustrator. They also live in Kleinmond and Joe lived in their home until recently."I create graphic novels because I find the work joyful most of the time, but the fact is I'd make more money doing just about anything else," he said.A pigeon alighted on the balcony, and Daly glared at it."I experienced an infestation of tropical fowl mites recently," he said. "They can't actually survive on human blood but they think they can, and the first time you realise your home is infested is at night, when they swarm all over your body, biting you."In Highbone Theater Palmer, hallucinating, spies bugs on the ceiling. I wondered aloud whether this was then a fictive rendering of real events. I mentioned the coastal rocks, too, but Daly dismissed my speculation in characteristic terms."I dreamt about the bugs appearing on the ceiling before the actual infestation. Likewise, I started working on the coastal rock scenes before I moved to Kleinmond. These are just two examples of art synchronising with reality, raising some deep philosophical and maybe even scientific questions, which I doubt we'll be able to resolve very easily, or at all," he said.Daly wasn't comfortable talking about himself, or his work, and I wasn't particularly comfortable in the role of inquisitor. So we decided to skin up and go skateboarding instead, in a panhandle at the edge of the Kogelberg Biome. Here Daly seemed loose and happy, failing to land tricks he had once performed with ease...