#also my first non-fandom zine! :DD

[willczek-art]

My piece for the awesome Red Zone III Horror zine (by @dotzines)! :DD 👀✨

Check out their post to see all of the talented contributors and spread the news :DD

The zine is free, you can grab it over at itch.io :PP

[daredevilexchange]

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What’s your fannish ID? I go by TheSwordWizard on twitter and tumblr, and WizardKicks_ on instagram, as well as when I do conventions and tabling events. I picked the sword wizard based off a variation from the swamp wizard, a background character that shows up for like one page in an old and short never-completed webcomic. I've also always really liked old-timey wizards and I also think swords are sick. End of.

What types of fanworks do you create? I do fanart! I struggle with mediums that require long term commitment over being able to power through with the motivation of starting a new project, so while I've started some writing projects and do non-fan related zines and independent publishing projects (I dream about getting an MFA but I'm to addicted to that full-time paycheck). In my fanart I tend to focus on composition and intense mood, which is usually what I'm inspired from.

What are your favourite types of fanworks, when you’re not creating? I LOVE FANFIC. I love fanart of course but I LOVE reading people's interpretations of my favorite characters. I'm a dirty multi-shipper and while I'm addicted to the insanity of Fratt and Mattelektra (And Frattelektra - YOWZA lmao), I've read probably every Mattfoggy, Mattkaren, Mattclaire, Mattetc, Daredevil-themed-femslash fic on AO3. I want to see what grinds people's gears about different character interactions! How different people and different interactions, to being in just a different place at a different time completely changes contexts and brings out something totally different between characters! It's a nice juxtaposition to why I'm addicted to making fanart - never being able to translate into stable form the sort of platonic, collective ideal of a character - so I want to tease out a specific, tiny vignette of a single aspect of a character… I majored in basically Thinking About Art Concepts so I could go on literally all day I just love transformative work so much… If you've written a couple Fratt fics you might already be recognizing my writing style from the comments I leave even with a different username… I GET REALLY EXCITED!!!!!!

What do you like in particular about this fandom? AUGH there are so many reasons! My first instinct is because Matt's mental illness is legendary. He's such a funny character you know instantly why everyone who knows him is obsessed with him but also wants to murder him, just a little bit. I'm a pretentious artist so I'm enamored with his perception of the world, and how unique and intense it is and how much TRUTH he has to hear so much and yet how subjective and susceptible to his own messed up headspace his reality is. I was obsessed with NBC's Hannibal (Fratt is MCU's Hannigram you can't tell me I'm wrong) for so long there are so many places where a lot of what I appreciated about that show can tie into Daredevil (both the show and some of the comic runs). I can never get into a lot of comics because the power creep gets nuts, but it's perfectly likely for Matt to basically deal with the same shit every week in new flavors, especially when you can count all the ways through the LAW things can get hairy. Which brings me to another factor, how there's a little bit of a higher bar in terms of research that's required (imo) with having to deal with the law and having plots grounded in reality. I just really love the DD comics where Things Have Consequences. Also I'm older so I want to read fics with more… mature characters. Undergrad fic? Hell yeah let's go! LAW SCHOOL FIC?????? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pretty much all Mattfoggy starts in undergrad at the soonest so I always win. And then Fratt is like tom and jerry to me I love them. Hit each other with hammers. Make those rituals even more intricate. Can you find love even as two crabs in a bucket? Also Elektra is a Vr1ska to me so I'm obsessed with her, she slays. Sorry I think it's funny when Matt dates people who kind of want to make him worse.

Do you like participating in fan events? Right now I've mostly been doing conventions! I haven't done too many big ones yet (I'm nervous about COVID) but I've been ramping up from local ones. I've also got a lot of side projects from these so I haven't done as many exchanges as I would have liked recently - I used to do them a bit more. I made myself a promise that I was going to at least do the next Fratt bang 👀

What about your creating process? I tend to have two different methods of making fanart - one that starts with me wanting to make something, but I'm not sure yet, so it takes a bit of back and forth and trying to nail something down that I'm happy with. The other one is when I'm struck by a very specific mental picture and that inspiration keeps bugging me until I'm able to carve it out how I want it to look. These tend to be my cooler/better concept pieces imo. I'm pretty much always listening to music, and sometimes if something I'm working on is directly inspired by a song or specific vibe I'll loop a single song until I'm done LOL. I have so many little worlds in my head and different versions of characters that I often get too overwhelmed to put down on paper so I tend to stick to my vignettes.

Do you interact a lot with other fans? Noooo I want to though :(. I'm shy on tumblr - I've been here for so long but never talk to people here, it always feels awkward! I also use twitter a lot (shame shame shame) and I find that form way more natural for starting casual conversation so I talk to people a lot there. IF ANYONE HAS ANY GOOD DAREDEVIL DISCORD GROUPS PLEASE LET ME JOIN. DOUBLY SO IF IT HAS MORE ADULTS (no hate to teenagers I love y'all but the last younger discord I was in betrayed me for stranger things).

Is there any particular piece you'd like to showcase for this post?

This is one of my more recent pieces… I worked up the focus to do some painting styled stuff again (I used to do traditional watercolor/oil painting before it became too cumbersome… digital art I love you) and in a similar style as to a Blade piece I did and was really happy with. I think it turned out well and was proud I got through it :). I do really like the minimalist color palette/compositional pieces I do, it gives me a lot more mental space to experiment and try new things, but I do try to keep up my portraiture!

Do you have other fandoms you'd like to talk about? I talked about Hannibal before (I actually recently started making more fun DD pieces because I remembered that I could make Marvel fanart in the same way I used to make Hannibal art and NO ONE COULD STOP ME!!!!!) but I also spent a long, long time in HS (the webcomic that I know a lot of people have muted so I shan't say), and I think I took a lot of that in my philosophy toward experiencing different versions of characters and taking liberty with character designs, making really thematic work, etc. I promise I was a really good fan. It honestly prepared me a lot for reading comics!

Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself? As you can tell, if given an opportunity, I love talking about Concepts (I was in a worldbuilding server for a comic fan AU once and it was so fun). And Matt :D. I want to lock my powerful jaws around his calf and death roll him like a crocodile. And like crowdfund him therapy or something.

Where can your fanworks be found? https://theswordwizard.tumblr.com/tagged/my%20art https://twitter.com/theswordwizard (I have some art moments and you can always search my mentions of "matt" and "daredevil" but Read My Posts Boy)

Thank you, @theswordwizard !

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