#also that last panel was originally a traditional drawing i drew before the rest

[ray-of-destiny]

it's right around a year since my gravity falls special interest began. really crazy it's been so long

i feel like the pacing on this is kinda weird, but eh. it fits into 9 panels like i wanted it to. it's fine

[cbcdiversity]

Our Favorite Day: Story Inspiration and Process

By Joowon Oh

Our Favorite Day is a book about the bond between Papa and his granddaughter.

Every morning, Papa starts his day by drinking some tea, watering his plants, and tidying up. Then he takes the bus into town to have his favorite lunch — dumplings! Papa enjoys his daily tasks, but Thursdays are his favorite, because that’s the day his granddaughter visits him. On that day, he buys some art supplies from the craft store, gets two orders of dumplings to go, and picks some flowers that he sees along the path. When his granddaughter finally arrives, they spend time together sharing dumplings, tiding up, doing arts and crafts, and flying a kite they make.

This tale of a grandfather’s love for his granddaughter was inspired by my childhood memories of my own grandfather. In the story, Papa and his granddaughter don’t live together, as I wanted their Thursdays to be particularly special, but my grandfather actually lived with my family until he passed away when I was eleven years old.

I have a lot of good memories with him, but the first thing that always comes to mind are the times we shared steamed dumplings in our dining room after school. After my grandmother passed away, my grandfather often had lunch alone at home or in the city, since my parents were at work and my siblings and I were at school. On the days he had dumplings for lunch in the city, he would bring some home for me and my siblings. When I got home from school, he would call me to our dining room and give me the dumplings to eat, sometimes wrapped in a napkin in his coat pocket. I think he did this out of habit: during the Korean War, food was very precious, and he may have saved leftovers like that then. I sometimes bit into a dumpling where a piece of napkin wasn’t peeled off properly, but I was never annoyed, because I knew that these dumplings were his love for us.

We would sit together, spending most of the late afternoons eating dumplings and talking about what I learned at school, how my exam went, what I did with my friends, and what my homework was for the next day. I loved those moments with him, not only because the dumplings were sweet, but also because I felt his love for me in the way he would look at me so endearingly while smiling tenderly. This may seem like a simple and insignificant detail in one’s childhood, but for me, it is a cherished moment that inspired me to write my very first children’s book about the special relationship between a grandparent and grandchild — and dumplings.

I started off by building Papa’s character, trying to visualize all the memories I had of my grandfather and jotting them down: wrinkles and age spots on his hands and face, gray hair, coat and knitted vest, cane, hat, shoes, slippers, pajamas, bedroom, plants, plant pots, hunched back, the way he walked, and so on. Then I set up Papa’s day, imagining what his routine would be by asking myself, What does he spend his time doing at home all alone? How does he get to the city? Where does he sit at the dumpling restaurant? Before his granddaughter comes home, what does he do to prepare for her?

In my initial story line, I wanted to show Papa’s loneliness while performing his daily routines, like when he is at home or eating alone at the restaurant, to contrast with his time with his granddaughter. However, my editor, Kate, suggested that it would be nice if I could create a community of people who care for and are interested in Papa and his life despite his living so quietly. We decided to add some dialogue with the waitress of the dumpling house and the craft shop owner to enhance the story, but also to ensure that Papa doesn’t seem like a lonely old man. I thought this was a great idea so that kids can see that their grandparents are people who can still enjoy their lives with their community and family.

The granddaughter is a sweet and creative little girl. She loves dumplings, polka dots, flowers, and drawing. She wants to make a butterfly kite instead of a traditional kite and decorates the string with the flowers that Papa picked for her. She is also a caring girl who likes to help Papa wash the dishes, thread a needle, and button his coat. Without her, the story cannot be complete. She is the reason that Papa looks forward to Thursdays.

In terms of the art-making process: After I received the revised text from my editor, my designer, Lauren, sent me an empty paging dummy with only the revised text and her and the editor’s notes about the illustrations on the bottom. Since the story had changed from my initial draft, I had to ignore most of the sketches in my old dummy and start all over again. I had to make thirty-two new sketches. At first, I thought this would be challenging, but I ended up enjoying the process.

First, I worked on the overall pacing of the story and the page layout. Since I wanted Papa’s typical day to move at a more leisurely pace in the beginning of the story, I drew only a single image or two on a page. Then when it was Thursday, I drew more panels per page to show how the pace of the story quickens as Papa has a lot to do in preparation for his granddaughter. For the scene where the granddaughter arrives, I drew a full spread because I wanted readers to pause to enjoy this big moment, the moment that the whole story has been building up to.

Then I tried drawing the scenes in different perspectives. They varied depending on what emotions and moments I wanted to convey through each scene. It was almost like filming a movie, with all the different angles. I kept asking myself, What perspective would be best to make readers feel as if they are watching Papa’s routines as observers? Should it be a high angle from above or a low angle to make Papa look small and weak compared to people passing by in the city? Should I zoom in on his hand and shoes instead of showing his whole body during the quiet moment when he bends down to pick flowers? I produced a couple of different sketches for each scene before deciding on a final composition.

While I was concentrating on depicting what was said in the text, I also had fun adding what was not said to make the illustrations more rich and to engage readers to open their imaginations. For example, in Papa’s bedroom, there is a photograph of Grandma wearing a polka-dotted dress and another of her holding a flower, two things that her granddaughter also likes. There is no explanation of what happened to Grandma, and I hope kids reflect on why the illustrator included photos of her in Papa’s bedroom, and also how he may feel when looking at these photographs.

To create the images, I used watercolor, white gouache, and colored paper. First, I sketched a scene on a lightweight paper and put watercolor paper on the top of the sketch. Then I traced some images out of the scene using a light box and painted them with watercolor mixed with white gouache. I cut out each image and put rolled tape on the back of the cutouts, then put it all together on a painted background. The reason I used rolled tape instead of glue was to create shadows underneath the cutouts and to make my artwork look more three-dimensional and tangible. It was a time-consuming process, but without it, I wouldn’t have been able to create the unique look.

Childhood doesn’t last forever, and the moments that kids can share with their grandparents are limited. Last week, I visited North Carolina to see my sister’s family, and my parents also came from Korea. My niece is almost two years old, and my nephew is five months old. I’m sure you can imagine how adoringly my parents look at their grandchildren. As I was watching my father play with his granddaughter, my giggling niece reminded me of myself and my father’s playful expression reminded me of my grandfather. I knew a grandchild could be the only one to bring out these emotions in my father. We all have childhood memories that will stick with us for the rest of our lives. They create who we are, shape our lives, help us find our purpose, and teach values. Even though my grandfather is no longer here and the dumpling restaurant no longer exists, the love and the warm memories that I was able to create with him have lasted. And as these memories have inspired me to write this book, I hope kids today will have great times with their grandparents, cherish every moment, and give the warmth they feel back to the world in their own ways.

Joowon Oh is originally from South Korea. She earned a BFA in illustration and an MFA in illustration as visual essay from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She works primarily in watercolor with a little bit of gouache and paper collage. Our Favorite Day is her picture book debut. She lives in New York City.

[orbyssarchives]

A Brief tl;dr

This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and I know I can be fairly long-winded so if you just wanna skip ahead and click through the pictures I’ve put up, I understand.

The TL;DR is

Hello and welcome to Mage Punk Archives! My name is Tables and this is some of the work that I’ve done over the last few years and what I’ve been up to in my little corner of the world. This is the third and last of a series of posts, outlining a number of updates that I completed on the site.

Included are some of my inspirations and a little of what I’ve learned so far about myself as an ever growing artist up to this point.

After this, I want to keep the content more focused on the actual art and story.

  I’ll post to this site as often as I am able.

    Thanks for reading!

  ***

Long Ago, Before the miracle of handheld internet searches and Instagram

When I was but a young, internet webling, I was heavily into shitty online flash games and looking for anything even remotely related to my interests at the time. From Mario and Sonic to various comics, videos games, anime and things never to be said aloud (pornpornporn). My love of the likes of Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog (big fandoms for me at the time) would later lead me to sprite comics. Today, my feelings for the little hodge podge collage strips of old video game sprite sheets and backgrounds are a little mixed.

(They were beautiful and I’m gonna make one someday)

Then, in Highschool, I took a basic Web Design class. It was a VVoid World Web of Notepad and Internet Explorer where a kindly old crone passed on to those of us there, some knowledge of the ancient runic language which forms the foundations of the World Wide Web: HTML. Tables, frames, css, oh my! This knowledge would eventually prove invaluable.

Throughout our studies we were occasionally allowed to venture out into the Wider World Web. It was during these little adventures and travels across the Web that I happened upon the magical land of Webcomics. It was also during this time that I began break free of the enchantment of sprites. Even though I would probably never return to them, they would always hold a special place in my heart.

  The Internet is for [Comics]

    Webcomics – Synonymous with “Masochism”

At first, I had no idea just how grueling webcomics could be. Most webcomic artists pump out pages one to three times a week. At the time I got into them, MegaTokyo, then still partially a video game webcomic, was just releasing its third printed book; 2-3 updates a week with a loosely set schedule. Evan Dahm was wrapping up his surreal fantasy epic, Rice Boy; with updates consistently going up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The various sprite and drawn webcomics that I was following at the time were updating all the time. Seeing all the great work going up, I felt encouraged to try it myself.

I drew these closer to the end of my junior year of high school.

Desu

Taking major inspiration from a lot of the manga and anime that I was enjoying then, I used pen and ink to make my comic pages. I liked working in black and white because it felt direct and skipping on color made it easier to finish faster. I figured I could work faster if I didn’t have to worry about the extra step. When I did want to use color, as is typical for the early pages of a new manga, I used markers.

At the time, I had no idea that mangakas used assistants. That’s messed up.

Not to say that it was completely unrealistic, but back in the real world I could only average one black and white page a week. If even. The spider webs I was drawing all over were so that I wouldn’t have to use a ruler to draw my panel proper borders. I thought it gave the comic an “old archive”. In the end, I concluded that the spider webs should have their place and not be all over.

This time, I decided to work a little more carefully and deliberately.

  Moving Forward

It was going pretty well but by the time page 7 rolled around, it was time for midterms and I had become too self-conscious and uncomfortable with the way I was drawing my comic pages then. Then, it was time to take finishing high school seriously and before I knew it, I was a freshman at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. I did a lot of growing in the next four years that I attended there. Unfortunately, I never revisited those pages. Instead, near the end of my sophomore year, I took a Sequential Art class where the Final was a full-color, 5-page comic.

These are the ink-wash versions of the 7-page Final that I submitted. I’d originally colored them digitally to meet project requirements but I don’t want to post those just yet..

  In the End

I wasn’t satisfied. The truth was that I waited until the last minute, rushed it, and over-reached on a re-draw that wasn’t much fun for me to work on. During the course of that Sequential Art class my professor turned my attention to artists like Moebius and Mike Mignola. I also came across Katsuya Terada’s stuff around this time.

  And school went on…

    I worked on Mage Punk when I could between assignments.

    Between thinking I could possibly work on a for-print comic…

    …and a webcomic at the same time.

  The End was Near

Most of these were actually made towards the end of my four years at Ai. Those of us graduating were tasked with compiling our work from the years past in accordance with the requirements for obtaining our degrees. I believe that we were given two semesters to gather our pieces and do any revisions to previous works to get them up to date with the rest of the portfolio piece. Illustration Graduates at AiFL were typically required to gather a required selection of their work into an on-demand printed book. The year that I graduated, my department decided to change things around a little. Specifically, we were given the option to collect the requirement work into a plain black binder portfolio and make the printed book more geared towards our pursuits. I opted to make a Mage Punk/Orbyss Archives “Zine” as my main portfolio piece.

  And Then College was Over

I drew a few more pages of the comic until I became employed full-time. These days, there aren’t enough free hours in my days for me to keep up with any typical webcomic’s update schedule so for a long while I stopped working on the comic altogether. I’m squeezing as much work out of every second that I’m not there; with whatever energy I can muster. This includes planning, writing, sketching and drawing. Before I got back to work on the site, I was posting fairly regularly to my Twitter and Instagram; those posts took time to do as well.

  Most of this post was written in separate sessions on my commutes to work.

“Shortcuts”

Even though I always wanted to present Mage Punk as a webcomic, I always worked on it like it would go to print eventually. This created a confusing mindset for me when working on the comic, where I had to work on a whole book, but I have to rush to finish every page. If I wanted to put out pages more frequently I took shortcuts at any point I could to be done with them. Even if I created a good buffer of finished pages, I’d still run into that same pitfall eventually. I wasn’t enjoying my project because of a pressure I applied on myself to finish it in a way I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with. I didn’t even get that much done in the end.

It’s important that I work on it at a pace that lets me show the best of my ability. I would love it if I could be properly finished with the pages before I post them but if I wait before it’s all good and done I’ll just never get around to posting anything, forever floating, aimlessly, throughout creative internet limbo.

Instead, if I have to work on my comic in piecemeal, I’ll just post it up in piecemeal. Mage Punk will still be presented as a webcomic but, until the end of the book is done, certain changes are still a possibility. Editing is an important part of producing any book and I’m going to make its presentation reflect that.

  Cue Rhidiculous shouting “I told you so!” from some nearby bushes.

  A Webcomic in Presentation Only?

Those Two Images are the Same Page

Instead of trying to finish things at breakneck speeds, I’m going to work on the comics at a more reasonable pace. I’ll try to work on it mainly Chapter to chapter instead of page to page like how a webcomic normally is done (buffers aside) This gives me the opportunity to take a step back and get a broader look at the story while still putting out content in enjoyable chunks.

It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around drawing a comic on a start-to-finish, page-by-page basis. While I was working on the later pages in the chapter I kept finding myself jumping around and making changes to previous pages to make some things more consistent with later parts of the story. Instead of working page-by-page, I was editing the chapter as a whole to try to strengthen the narrative I’m trying to tell.

To that end, I still want to present it on this site as a webcomic; if only in name and archive.

The Process

At the VERY longtime behest of my editor, I’ll be presenting the comic as a work in progress at various points in the following production stages.

Writing

I’ll post dialog excerpts here and there. Nothing that can spoil the story too much.

This step will be kept largely behind the scenes.

Thumbnails

I do these on index cards in ballpoint pen to figure out the sequence of events that I most prefer.

This is the step where I’m prone to overloading a page with information.

First Drafts

Full size roughs of the earlier thumbnails. This step helps me get a better sense of how crowded or unbalanced a page might be early on.

This step also helps to prune out any strenuous scenes or dialog that could otherwise have their own pages.

If it isn’t working visually at this point, it’s not going to work in the next step.

Pencils

This is where the real drawing happens. Drawings in this step are made by either digital or traditional means depending on when or where I’m working.

Inking

This step is exactly like the drawing step but in pen and ink. Despite my affinity for real pen and ink, I’ll mainly be working this step digitally.

Color

This step is wrought with indecision but it also one of the faster, more fun steps to do.

Lettering

I’ve removed the dialog from all the pages currently up, opting to keep that out until a chapter is completed; it’s the thing I’m likeliest to change the most frequently until the end.

All lettering is currently done digitally but I’m considering the possibility of hand lettering.

Drawing dialog can be quite fulfilling but it takes a lot of practice.

Editing

This part will be happening all throughout. Page re-orders, panel redraws, changes in dialog.

Until the book is done.

  Here We Are

I’ve already made some revisions to a handful of the pages that are already up; if you browse through the comics you can see the revisions noted in the comic descriptions. I’ll make blog posts for any major revisions or series of revisions that I do. I have a few ideas for some smaller projects that I can work on while I work on Mage Punk. Whether they be illustrations, stories, or even mini-comics like this silly thing down here.

      Moving on

I might have also mentioned before that I have a few other drawings that I wanted to make for the site. In particular I have a neat idea for some social media icon illustrations. I wanna make something that takes advantage of what I’ve learned with using CSS. It’s nothing too fancy.

All that said, future posts will be a bit more brief than these last three were. I’d much rather write and post about the work itself, but I feel like I’ve hit a personal milestone and felt the need to ramble on about it a little.

    Until next time,

  Thanks for reading!

    The Big Site Update (Part 3) A Brief tl;dr This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and 

[panda-paco]

Anthrocon 2017 + trip around 3 countries

Anthrocon 2017!! Despite the technical problems and many complaints of the people, it was an amazing experience for me, probably the best AC (for me) until now. And even more for all the experiences I lived after the convention.

I must say that I didn't have high expectations of this Anthrocon, and for months I was more excited about the idea of ​​BLFC and felt that the trip to Pittsburgh was only for tradition more than because I really wanted or I was really excited for another AC, and even came to think that it would no longer be worth going back to plan a new Anthrocon for 2018 (which is still in doubt as I really want to go to new different summer conventions, as Megaplex (plus Disney World) and going to Pittsburgh is a bit expense for me). But this edition of the biggest convention in the world (still, we don't know if in December this title is going to be snatched) made me take again to have a great affection for the Uncle Kage's great event.

There were many complaints about technical aspects, and yes, I was also an attendee affected for those issues, but in the end who make the convention a super cool event are ourselves, not so much the staff or the convention center. (Of course, they must do their part, I'm consious of that). In general I had an incredible time, I went back to see many old friends, I met people who I wanted to meet in person, I made new friends. It would be extremely difficult to mention everyone, surely there would be people who I miss to mention: there were many who made me spend extremely pleasant moments, whether at breakfasts, at dinners; who invite me beers; who meet them at some point and to talk; who join me in my path and helped me to take pictures with my favorite fursuiters; many fursuiters who accepted me taking pictures with them and hugging me; many fursuits and people who were excited to see me and of course, I was glad to take a picture with them or just hugged them. In the artists alley so many people very kind, so many talks, so many commissions that asked me, so many waiting in huge lines that made you lost half of the convention time only to pay a sticker X__X

I was also on the cruise on Thursday, where they took us on a tour around the Pittsburgh rivers in fursuit, there were many photographers and media, one of them interviewed me, ooh nooo, it had never happened to me that I would be interviewed in United States, I had them several times in Mexico but it was the first time I had to do it in English, I got very nervous and I'm not sure if I did it right (surely not).

In this year's ConBook, the drawing of my friend Ed Puma appeared on the cover, while my drawing appeared also printed on page # 4, which also made me very happy.

On Saturday I spent most of the day in fursuit, and surely many noticed that, you could see the panda from the morning in the dealer's den and the artists alley, in the afternoon in the group photo, in the fursuit parade (as always, the best Fursuit parade of the universe, even though the staff of the Anthrocon wanted to ruin it by making us move faster, I ignored them and just enjoyed my moment), in the panels of Youtubers, in the fursuit meet and greet of the roof of the convention center, and even afterwards in the rave. More than 10 hours in fursuit (And I must say I didn't stink, I am very careful with the body odors and constant cleaning of my fursuit)

The raves became super intense, dancing until we were rushed from the convention center, and then to follow the time in the lobby of the hotel. The last day of the convention, where we were gotten out early from the convention center, and were also finishing very early all the events at the Westin, and that there was no longer water or headless lounge (RIP for those who we were fursuiters), and me very sleepy, awake late night but didn't want the night to end. You can even see it in this video: Https://youtu.be/apJdpfXi6sY?t=13m40s

If you want to see all the photos I took of the event, and even a few that shared me, you can do it in this link: Https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q4bq4nirato003t/AABK-FlLn2TsDEppZ1_wEeWza?dl=0 Even in that link are pictures of the subsequent trips that I will tell coming up next.

After Anthrocon, my original idea was to travel to New York City, spend two days in that big city and then return to my Guadalajara (I already had my plane ticket), but what happened was "Kurtt", who convinced me to lengthen the roadtrip still beyond.

We arrived in NYC, it was a nightmare to get a hotel, as it was July 3rd, and there were lots of tourists coming up to watch the fireworks for the 4th of July, which complicated things as far as hotel and parking, but in the end we got. We strolled around the big apple, and on July 4th we saw the fireworks. Okay, now I will mention the names of the people who were with us, at last there are not as many names as could be the mentions at Anthrocon. On the trip I went with Kurtt, Ed Puma and Drew Otter, back in NYC we saw Yoshi Azul, Moof and Zarafa. With the last two mentioned we saw the fireworks, and the next day Zarafa was our tour guide, and took us to quite cool places that I didn't know in Manhattan.

The next day we left NY and went to Boston (only Kurtt, Ed, Drew and me), where we stayed with Leon Skunk, and we saw Tonya Song. We walked around downtown, went to a faraway place just because it was called Deer Island and then we went back to Leon's place where Tonya was also with us. The next day we went to the house of Gale and Strobes, where they welcomed us wonderfully, it was an excellent evening full of good talk and ended in dance.

Madly we launched that night to Canada, crossing through Maine, until we reached Quebec City, where we realized that everyone there spoke French, and even there were people who didn't speak English X__X It's a beautiful city, it seemed that we were no longer in America, but in Europe. I never imagined being there.

The next day we went to Montreal, where we arrived at a comic convention, and we met by coincidence to Noodle dragon, we never imagined that we would know a furry there. We went to a park full of raccoons, and then we saw another furry named Ritch, who was our helpful guide, especially in the language, as indeed there were people who knew nothing of English, only French. We took some pictures at the Montreal Olympic Stadium.

Our next stop was Ottawa, and that day we arrived in Toronto, where we were received by many furries, many of them friends I met at Furnal Equinox and I was very pleased to see again: Lumen, Dat, Arctic, TJ, Zanth and Dumpling. It was also very nice to be back in Toronto, wow that is a very nice city.

After leaving Canada, the first place we visited back in USA was Niagara Falls in NY, and I visited my good friend Matt the tiny deer, it was an express visit as he had to work in the afternoon. That day we had the madness to get to Atlanta but it was not possible, we stopped at a place in West Virginia, in a rest area, to spend the night. The next day before arriving in Atlanta, we arrived in Charlotte to go to the Nascar Museum. Arriving in Atlanta, we saw friends of Kurtt and Ed: Tanner and Jake Foxx, with whom we stayed. But I also met Zilch and Zip, that pair of foxes I so much wanted to meet, they are a lovely guys !!

From there we traveled to the north of Arkansas, in a place near the nothing, in the middle of the forest, where Albi Azul welcomed us, and we were able to meet and play with Asriel, his fox. Albi is a great host, he prepared homemade ice cream, and the next morning took us to a delicious hibachi place. It was a super pleasant moment on the trip, being in the middle of the forest, away from big cities, away from the hustle and bustle. But the next day we had to leave, heading to San Antonio, TX.

In San Antonio we were received by AJ and Frederick, two friends of Kurtt. They were also very good hosts. In that stop in San Antonio was where we waste lots of money, because with so many stores and so many malls, we did shopping, things that we can't find in Mexico for sale, or that are just much cheaper than in our own country.

We went to Monterrey, Mexico. We crossed the border into Laredo. We couldn't see any furry in Monterrey, many of those we knew from that city were not available or were definitely out of town. We had the opportunity to meet a new furry but the plans were hindered and all the plans were improvised at the moment, we walked through Parque Fundidora, a wonderful afternoon with el cerro de la silla so imposing and beautiful. And finally we could eat real Mexican food again. The next morning we arrived in San Luis Potosí, where I decided that it was a good idea to take my bus from there to get back home.

Arriving home I found that I left many pending to do, many unanswered messages (wich I haven't replied all of them, yet), a sad dog that missed me for many days, few dollars in my wallet, but with thousands of experiences which nobody can ever take away. I thank those who have to thank for all these experiences. And I hope that you can live such incredible moments, even more, like these. I thank a lot to the furry fandom because it has been the main engine in which these experiences come true, so many people so cool that we have known that has made us open doors in the world. I really love this fandom.

[iesorno]

I spoke to Alice a long time ago and have been very slow in getting this interview up on the site, for which I apologise.

I’d seen Star Bright in the small press section of my local comic shop (without realising that Alice worked there at the time) and was intrigued by it, flicking through, but never quite committing as it wasn’t my normal art style. When I put out a call for interviews and reviews and Alice responded I was pleased as it gave me the reason to engage and test that prejudice. I’m glad I got that chance as I was particularly struck by Star Bright, so struck I awarded it one of the five Paper Underground awards zine love gave out for 2019. I was very moved by the story, it ended with an admittedly quiet emotional outcome, but it hit with quite a heavy weight.

I also want to thank Rob Zwetsloot for their additional responses (and help with editing!!)

That there are only 200 copies, and not all are sold, seems to me a big shame. It’s a strong and accessible work, even for younger children and it seems like a comic that could fly with the right publisher to raise awareness and get some strong distribution.

Star Bright can be found online, on twitter and bought here

Alice Clarke can be found online, on twitter , on instagram and facebook

Rob Zwetsloot can also be found on twitter

ZL – Hi Alice, could you give a brief introduction about yourself first of all?

AC – Hi Iestyn! I’m a Brighton born & raised artist. I’ve been drawing since a young age and graduated from the University of Brighton with honours in Illustration in 2017. I lived in Texas for two years from when I was about twelve, which is where I first came across manga in my middle school library, and ever since then I’ve been hooked on comics.

ZL – I guess the obvious question is, what have you been doing since the strip finished up at the end of October 2018, apart from, running a successful Kickstarter to get it physically published?

AC – It took quite a few months to fulfil the Kickstarter as I was doing almost everything by myself and I was working full time. In April I quit my job to sort and pack all my earthly possessions and on the 1st of May I moved to Japan – so since then it’s been an adjustment period I suppose! Comics-wise I’m working on my first solo comics project, a lot of which has been building up the courage to start drawing. I’m thumbnailing it right now!

ZL – How did it feel to see the Kickstarter do so well, and then receive positive reviews from the likes of Broken Frontier as well?

AC – It took me a long time to work up the confidence to even try to make a comic in the first place and I only feel I was able to do it with the support of my wonderful co-creator and writer, Rob Zwetsloot, as well as friends and peers who cheered me on every step of the way. So, for the Kickstarter to be such a success, I was completely overwhelmed and overjoyed. I am extremely grateful that people such as Stephen at Page 45 and Holly at Broken Frontier took the time to read and review our work and say such nice things about it.

ZL – You got a lot of backers, I was wondering how many copies you had produced over and above those to fill the initial Kickstarter orders and how well they are selling, and where people can buy them if they want a copy?

AC – We had a pretty small print run of 200 copies, around half of which were for the Kickstarter. We have around 30 left over not including copies may be left on shelves in comic book stores – my previous workplace, Dave’s Comics in Brighton, Page 45, all the Travelling Man stores… You can buy them on my Etsy store! Rob is fulfilling orders at the moment since most of our readers are in the UK, it didn’t make sense to send them to myself in Japan.

ZL – I’ve read Star Bright myself and – terrible person I am – as soon as you said it took you two and a half years I went and looked at the first drawings and the last ones to see what improvement there was.  I was struck by two things straight away.

The character designs were strong from the outset, it is easy to tell characters apart and there’s great scope for communicating their emotions, which is very important in this story.

Your figure work and anatomy were very strong by the end, also your line work was much more assured.

Do you see the difference and how do you feel about your progress?

AC – Thank you so much. That’s not terrible at all – I always do the same, I think it’s fascinating to see someone’s growth in this way! For me personally, I feel the change is immense (I actually can’t bear looking at the old pages haha) and I learned so much as I drew each page of the comic – people aren’t kidding when they say if you want to get better drawing, draw a comic. It forced me to draw many things I would never usually draw (backgrounds!!) and think about how to lay out each page and panel in a way that was visually interesting but conveyed more than just an illustration on its own would. I think I also got a bit more confident in my work and was more willing to take risks with angles, poses, etc.

ZL – Is there a point where you thought that the drawing really hit its stride and you felt that you were achieving an outcome you could be proud of, were you proud right from the start?

chapter 3 frontispiece

AC – I don’t think I was particularly proud of my work (meaning the drawings themselves) until maybe end of chapter 3, chapter 4. A long way in, I know, but I have a lot of self-confidence issues with my drawing (thanks art school) and it wasn’t until that far in that I think I found my stride and the way I wanted to draw the comic. I am pretty proud of all the pages at and after that point.

ZL – What was the genesis of this comic, did you know the writer Rob before you started working together?

AC – I think we knew of each other through mutual friends and the UK cosplay community, but it wasn’t until I put it out on Twitter that I was looking for a writer for a comic project that we really started talking. Rob came to me with a rough outline of ideas and character concepts and I just loved it straightaway, the rest is history!

ZL – I find it interesting that you call it out as an LGBT comic, because, to me at least, it’s far more universal, dealing with social anxiety and self-image. I’m particularly interested to see a comic written by someone with different life experiences that handles the feelings and emotions of teenage girls so convincingly and wondered what inspiration and insight Rob drew on to write the story. Did you work together on the storyline and character decisions or was this a more traditional writer and artist collaboration?

AC – As LGBT creators we always want to create work that reflects ourselves and our community in one way or another, and while Star Bright may not feature a story with a hard-hitting LGBT subtext, I think it’s important that people can read and access comics and books that feature gay and trans characters without that necessarily being the focus of the story. Especially as a book aimed at a younger audience who may not have figured out or even thought about those things yet (I know I certainly hadn’t when I was Zoe’s age…) I wanted to manifest LGBT themes in a manner that was more suggestive but also conspicuous. Accepted. Like Robin and Sarah always showing up holding hands, Zoe and Star’s progression from friendship to something more just being accepted. I hope that makes sense.

Robin and Sarah in the background holding hands

Rob is non-binary, so I think those self-image issues and feelings of anxiety and not fitting in would not be too dissimilar to a young teenage girl’s at all. Although it was chiefly Rob who wrote the story, it was quite different when originally brought to  – there are whole characters we decided together not to use in the final version. I would say we were co-creators more than anything else when it came to the script, and as someone who was once exactly in Zoe’s shoes, a young teen girl struggling at school with loneliness and friendship troubles, I did my best to help nuance Rob’s wonderful script in a way that echoed my experiences. In that way I think we are a little bit outside the traditional writer-artist style of collaboration. Rob also gave me almost complete freedom with page layouts and pacing, only really giving me stage direction and visual pointers when they had a strong idea for how a certain page or scene needed to be drawn. I think our collaborative method was really symbiotic and we both helped each other constantly to build on our strengths and grow our skills.

ZL – This sounds like an interesting point and I’d like to bring Rob in on this and get their point of view, how did you find the experience of writing about teenage girls?

RZ – First and foremost, I wrote these characters as just people, with wants and desires, different history and life experiences. I think that’s important with storytelling, otherwise you’re concentrating on just one part of them (and it reeeaaaalllllly shows when you do). A lot of Zoe’s character was based on me growing up and some of the problems I faced. It was sort of wish fulfilment for how I’d liked to have been able to face my issues while I was still a teenager. It’s been nice to learn that a lot of other people had these sorts of experiences, so I wasn’t quite as lonely as I thought – although I guess the irony there is, we were all too lonely to reach out to each other at the time. Having said that, while writing the story I was worried that I might end up not writing the girls ‘correctly’ – despite the agnostic approach to creating the characters, I don’t have experience as a teenage girl. I think at one point I was even asking friends “did you ever just talk in Simpsons quotes as a kid?”.

However, I said to Alice at the start that she should correct me if I did something wrong. It really helped with the way the scripts were written. I’d write the chapter, do my edit passes, tweak it until I was happy with it (or as happy as I could get), and then Alice and I would read through it together and punch it up, almost like a TV show writers’ room. We’d add bits and change stuff for story reasons, consistency, for better visual layout in the comic, etc. It definitely would not have been as good as it is without her input. I think Zoe ended up an amalgam of Alice and myself in the end, and really the only mistake I made with them was initially writing them a bit too mature. We added in more of the uncertainty and confusion of being fourteen and left it up to the reader.

  ZL – What impressed me most with the art on this was how you used it so efficiently to highlight emotional states, it’s interesting to see someone approach a Japanese style comic that develops the use of body language and silent connections more than the hyper normal, speed line mania one usually sees being aped. The approach lifts what is really a small, introverted narrative and lends it a heavy sense of emotion, rather than playing up an opportunity for melodrama. I’m wondering if there was a conscious decision to play the story that way, or whether it was something that came from the characters as they emerged, or whether it was something that the two of you brought from your own influences?

powerful loneliness

AC – Thank you very much, I’m really pleased you picked up on some of my visual choices. I am not really sure, I think for my part I just tried to draw and convey the story and the emotions in a manner that felt natural to me. Some of my most favourite storytelling techniques in comics are found predominantly in manga, so a lot of the ways I decided to draw certain scenes involving drama and emotion are probably very influenced by Japanese comics. I find the quietness and subtlety of melodrama in manga oftentimes much more emotive and appealing than some of what I’ve seen in western comics, and I think it’s closer to reality so it works better for stories like Star Bright where the narrative is close to home and relatable, (well, except for the whole alien thing haha).

ZL – I don’t know whether you were aiming for this, but it’s definitely something that I picked up, whilst this is clearly a comic aimed at teenagers, a YA style, it’s also something that I, as an adult could read and identify with. The style is engaging and endearing and open and it feels like I’m getting an insight into the lives of the girls and girls that age in general. What was the aim of creating this story, who were you hoping to talk to and what was it you felt you had to say to them?

AC – Thank you so much. I really like books that have a wide appeal, that have something for everyone. Many of my favourite series fans’ ages range hugely so I guess maybe it’s a natural way for me to create work (Cardcaptor Sakura, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lord of the Rings…) For me, not having a voice when amongst my peers and the smothering feeling of loneliness and being misunderstood as a teenager was something I had rarely, perhaps never seen represented in books and comics I’d read, so I really wanted to voice it myself with this comic. With Star Bright, I was hoping to talk to that lonely girl who spends her school breaktimes at the library reading by herself, who begs her mum for sick notes, so she doesn’t have to go on school trips, the girl who’s always last to be picked in P.E., who never has a pair for group work. I’m sure there are lots and lots of Zoes out there in the world, and I wanted this book to find them somehow and let them know they’re not alone, and if they didn’t find them yet, there’s definitely a Star waiting for them.

ZL – It’s also surprising how, if you gave it as an elevator pitch, something seemingly sweet and so low stakes in terms of character arc, manages to be so engaging and supple in its storytelling. I genuinely came away feeling happy and like something good had happened in my day. Part of that was how well the art managed to communicate the characters feelings, both using body language, character interaction and then more subtle artistic effects, for example, when Star first goes and stays with Zoe’s friends. How much thought and how many tries did it takes to nail that approach? Did that solution just come naturally to you or did you think it through and try different approaches?

Double pages – illustrating what happened

and how it feels

AC – Wow, thank you. That means a lot to me! We spent a lot of time reworking the last chapter and a half or so, trying to figure out the emotional beats and get the height of the drama just right for the bus scene with Zoe and Star. Like you say, it’s a low-stakes story and I was always worried that it wouldn’t be enough to engage some readers. It’s hard to know how many tries and rereads it took to get the script right, since I was always working with Rob right up until I had even finished drawing the page to tweak lines of dialogue, etc. I can say however that there are almost no pages I drew more than once or that changed dramatically from their original thumbnail sketch.

ZL – Final question, I promise!

What are your plans for the future, would you like to do more comics and see them published, or stick to webcomics, or are you out of the comics games for a while?

AC – I would love to have my comics published someday, it’d be a dream to be published by somebody like First Second. But small steps, for now I’d like to try and successfully complete something solo and really indulge in my interests.

ZL – …and you Rob?

RZ – At the moment I’m (very slowly) working on a new story concept that may end up as a book. As for Star Bright, it’s over for now but we may always return to it in the future.

ZL – Thanx for all your time

  — Paper Underground Award announcement —

  all art copyright and trademark it’s respective owners.

content copyright iestyn pettigrew 2020

  the long list interview – Alice Clarke and Rob Zwesloot I spoke to Alice a long time ago and have been very slow in getting this interview up on the site, for which I apologise.