Open Access
Published: December 2025
Licence: CC BY-NC-4.0
Issue: Vol.20, No.2
00:48:01
December 2025
The messy business of becoming good enough (with comics and magical girls) – cat ko in conversation with Zi Wei Yap
Join JoCAT podcast host Singapore-based Zi Wei Yap for a conversation with cat ko, an emerging creative arts therapist from Hong Kong who is currently living, learning, and working on Dharug and Eora Country. Moving between comics, imposter syndrome and magical girls, the podcast explores cat’s experiences of re-storying self and learning (as a student-on-placement and a mentee-recipient of the 2025 JoCAT-ANZACATA Author Support Bursary). Their article, ‘Comics for re-storying self: Revisiting autoethnographic research from student placement’, is published in JoCAT in December, 2025.
Cite this podcastYap, Z.W. (Host). (2025, December). The messy business of becoming good enough (with comics and magical girls) – cat ko in conversation with Zi Wei Yap [Audio podcast]. JoCAT Podcasts. JoCAT. https://www.jocat-online.org/p-25-ko-yap
You can read the article here:
Mentioned in the podcast
Remeina Yee’s Comics Devices Library
https://comicsdevices.com/author/reimenayee/
Fionn McCabe’s Comic Exercises
https://www.fionnmccabe.com
Amy Bell’s framework of therapeutic autobiographical cartooning (“The Portal and the Path”)
https://amybellarttherapy.com.au/thesis-download-full-pdf/
cat ko’s Comics as self-care zine
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17HA-E0xdi0rQpF6zo4lRzaxN-Bl3aINa/view
About cat ko
cat is an art therapist with a deep curiosity towards the processes of human becoming. They are on a journey to understand trauma through a socio-political lens, and to investigate conditions that foster growth, healing, and resilience. Based on Dharug and Eora Country, their work focuses on adolescents, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people from Hong Kong and the Chinese diaspora. As an artist–therapist, cat explores how comics can rewrite our lives and selves, supporting creative flourishing in challenging times. On their days off, they believe in the healing powers of ‘lying flat’ (躺平) and not doing anything at all.
About Zi Wei Yap
Zi Wei is a public servant passionate about creating a kinder, gentler, more connected social service sector in Singapore. She holds a Masters of Arts, Art Therapy (with Distinction) from LASALLE College of the Arts. Zi Wei’s career has spanned arts administration, social service sector planning, family policy and the protective services. She has spearheaded multiple programmes to strengthen social service delivery and uplift the vulnerable. On ground, she incorporates art therapy tools and theories in case work and supervision. She has an interest in grief and loss, trauma and post-traumatic growth, the stories we tell of ourselves, and undercurrents of the unconscious psyche.