Kid Koala Heads to Outer Space for New Graphic Novel

With only four pages left to go before wrapping up his second full-length graphic novel, 'Space Cadet', Kid Koala, otherwise known as Eric San, is understandably feeling a little relieved.

"It will be entering its fourth year," San tells Spinner, feeling a little sheepish that it took DJ-slash-artist so long to follow up 2003's 'Nufonia Must Fall'.

"This one is about space travel and isolation and interconnectivity," he says. "There is one astronaut character who is floating in space in this one-person space pod. Meanwhile, the guardian of that character is left on earth, yet they have these similar days even though they're light years apart."

"I think 'Space Cadet' is really talking about how under it all, everyone's kind of going through the same stuff," San says, "without getting too sappy or new age-y though."

The Montreal-based beat-master, who has DJ'd along side the likes of Radiohead, Bjork and DJ Shadow, reveals that becoming a father had a major influence on the thematic direction of the new novel. "There's a number of things that happened in my life that inspired this, but a major one is becoming a new parent," he says. "Just that experience having a connection with somebody but then knowing that everybody has there own reality and starting to see parallels between it all."

In keeping with the format laid out in 'Nufonia Must Fall' -- a book that follows the clumsy attempts of a lovestruck robot to woo an office worker -- 'Space Cadet' will be accompanied by a corresponding soundtrack. "I don't want to say somber but it's quite quiet, quite score-like," San says of the album's tone.

As for what the novel's live component will entail when the Ninja Tunes artist finally takes his intergalactic fantasy on the road, well, San suggests leaving your dancing shoes at home.

"We're doing a show where everybody in the audience has to wear headphones and we're going to transmit all the keyboard and turntable to their headphones and it's just going to be a kind of quiet headphone-y experience," he explains. "For me, it's all about abandoning the dance floor as a forum. I just feel like I'm too old to be planning in that context."