Backstage Pass October: Meredith Moriarty

Hurry Hurry Hurry! Grab Your Ticket Quick!

Ghoulies And Ghosties And Long-Legged Beasties, Come Along For Your Halloween Treat!
Meet The Wondrous Weaver Of Frights And Sights,

Meredith Moriarty!

Do we have a spooky treat for you today! Boys and ghouls, take a seat with Meredith Moriarty and listen to her tales. Meredith, take it away!

I'm a graphic designer by day, comic book artist and illustrator by night, from Philadelphia, PA. I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011 with a B.S. in Information Sciences with a focus on web design and programming, but decided I'd rather do art stuff instead.

Main Project

Third Shift Society is a supernatural action comic about two paranormal investigators: Ellie, a young college dropout struggling to find her place in life; and Ichabod, a calm, intelligent man who happens to have a pumpkin for a head. Together they navigate a world full of ghosts, vampires, witches, and demons...and those are just the clients! You can find it at www.thirdshiftsociety.com, ortapastic.com/series/ ThirdShiftSociety

Other Hobbies, Guilty Pleasures and Obsessions

Video games, baking, watching cartoons, knitting and crochet. I am tremendously boring. :P

So, tell me about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling stories in pictures?

I'm...not entirely sure. I think it was the result of impatience and vague misanthropy. Haha, that probably needs some elaboration. So I always loved reading and making up stories, and cartoons were basically my favorite form of entertainment. Animation seemed like the natural path to go down, but then I learned how much time goes into making a few seconds of content, and how many people are involved in the process, and that was a big turn-off. I wanted my picture stories and I wanted them now, damn it! :P So comics it was! Later on I discovered how nuanced and beautiful the medium could be, and I'm definitely happy to be working in the field. It's just funny where the choices of our younger selves can lead.

What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?

Photoshop and Manga Studio.

As a reader I really appreciate your crisp and colorful art style; what were your major influences as this style evolved for you? Did you set out consciously to master a specific style, or did it evolve organically from the art you were exposed to?

A little of both, I think. I grew up watching a lot of Bruce Timm's work, and I think elements of that style have definitely stuck with me in little ways. I was also pretty big into anime in my middle school years and into high school, and I sought to emulate the art of shows I saw on Toonami and Adult Swim. The results were...less than wonderful. But I think the biggest influence on my style over the past ten years has been the online art community. Being exposed to so many techniques and approaches, you can't help but be inspired!

Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your work process flow from idea to finished page?

Although most of my scripts are scribbled out on notebook paper,

 the actual comic pages are entirely digital. Using Photoshop and an 11"x17" comic template, I do a quick thumbnail sketch to work out the paneling, speech bubble placement, and flow of the action. I then do a loose sketch to more fully block out the figures, followed by a tighter sketch to nail down the details. If the script calls for characters to spend a lot of time in a particular environment, I might whip up a Sketchup model to use as a base for my backgrounds. Doing this ensures that the surroundings are consistent from page to page, and it's also a big time-saver! Once I'm satisfied with my "pencils", I take the file into Manga Studio for inks. Technically I could do this part in Photoshop too, but I find Manga Studio has crisper inks, and the stabilization option is super helpful. After that it's back to Photoshop for colors, text, and speech bubbles. Sound effects are usually last. I like to make my own by drawing out the letters in black, then using layer styles to add color and effects. If only I had more interesting handwriting. :P

What’s the most difficult part of your work?

TIME. I work a 9-5 job and try to squeeze in some exercise and family time every day,

Art By Randy Coffey

 which usually leaves me a few half-asleep hours a night to work on comics.

 It's definitely exhausting, but I really enjoy it. There are some days I can hardly wait to get home and draw! 

Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?

Definitely somewhere in between. I do my scripts one chapter at a time, and they tend to be formatted more like screenplays: mostly dialogue with a few stage directions interspersed throughout. Sometimes I'll indicate where a page turn should be, but usually I leave it pretty open ended and figure out the divisions as I go. I rarely change the content while I'm drawing the page, but if I think of something better than what I've previously written, I'm definitely open to making edits (after letting it sit for a couple days, of course - sleep deprived me is not always to be trusted XD).

You use a lot of interesting mythology from a variety of cultures; how do you go about researching it?

There are a ton of great documentaries out there, and I like to put them on in the background while I work - multitasking at its finest! I'm also a big reader, and usually around this time of year I'll get on an "educational spooky books" kick. Last time I learned way more about the scientific origins of vampires in the European tradition than I'll probably ever need to know. :P

  Does getting mythology ‘wrong’ or being accused of cultural misinterpretation/ appropriation ever scare you off an idea?

Nah, not really. I like to use mythology as a starting point, but never set out to present my comic as an accurate guide to folklore. The characters in TSS may be vampires or demons, for example, and although they might abide by certain mythological conventions, ultimately I prefer to focus on their individual personalities and stories rather than getting hung up on their place in the folkloric tradition.

You have a wonderfully lucid way of getting your character’s personalities across. How do you go about designing a character’s personality and/or features?

Ah, there are so many books and guides that do a better job explaining this than I ever could. But there is one thing I find really helpful but don't usually see mentioned: know what your character's voice sounds like. I'm not sure it works for everyone, but personally, if I can "hear" their voice, I can write their lines, which in turn helps me flesh out their personality. I suppose it has something to do with how much our accents, vocabulary, and speech patterns are a product of our personal histories.

How much of a buffer do you like to keep?

Haha, I'd LIKE to have at least a couple pages of buffer, but the reality is closer to zero. And by "closer", I mean it's zero. No buffer. The page you see is the one I've been working on that week. One day I will have a true buffer, and it will be glorious. XD

Has anyone told you that you'll never be a successful artist and you'd be better off studying a real field and/or getting a real job?

Not exactly, but I was frequently encouraged to get a job doing something that pays well and just do art on the side. I suppose the rationale was that if the art thing takes off, you can always quit your day job. If not, well, at least you won't starve. Happily, my day job is also art related, so I guess that worked out ok. :D

What message do you hope readers take away from your work?

Hmm...I don't know that Third Shift Society has a message, per se. At its core it's a story about finding your place in the world, and I hope that resonates with my audience, but ultimately my goal is to tell an engaging story that people enjoy reading!

What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?

Latent masochistic tendencies? Haha, seriously though, I'm not entirely sure. I guess I just get really excited about sharing stories with people, and drawing comics is super rewarding. It's my creative outlet, and my way of relaxing and having fun. But I wouldn't enjoy it half as much without the fantastic support from my wonderful readers. <3

Thanks for the thrills and chills Meredith! Happy Halloween!

Saturday Revue October 8: BrunoHarm

Load Your Guns, We're Going On Patrol With

'A dark night in the naked city...great, time for a glass of prune juice and bed. What, you thought a hot dame was gonna walk in? Gimme a break!'
That'd be Bruno Harm, the creation of Travis Shearin. This crotchety crimefighter will save the day, and he'll get the damned kids off his lawn too.

The Ratings

Pretty good for a rookie, you're getting your chops on these mean streets.

The Raves

It's the writing that really charms readers in Bruno: the perfect one-two punch of a subversion of a trope and deadpan humor team up like the Keystone Cops to have you chuckling. This comic is a master of the deft bait and switch: just when you're settling down for a boilerplate noir novel, in stumps a crotchety old fella. So you get ready for a male version of Murder She Wrote? Nope, because there's fight in the old dog yet.  Thought you were getting noir? Sorry, here's the comedy surprise. And just when you thought it was funny, wait! It gets dark!
And while you're being bait-and-switched around the plot like a rookie boxer being flurried by an ol' pro, you'll be chuckling at the deadpan jokes delivered so adroitly that they'll get a chuckle out of you no matter what.

Shading and color scheme rapidly improve, and by the most recent comic they've become quite a treat: bold, sharp and engaging. There's wonderful use of visual intensifiers and sound effects as well, encouraging that Golden Era comic feel. You can almost hear the newsprint crinkle between your fingers.

The Razzes

While there is amazing improvement from the first page of the comic to the last, I'd still like to see a little more work done on figure drawing, especially around the head and joints. For me, the most jarring note in the work was in two areas: shading and layout.
The artist often leaves faces unshaded, while the rest of the body is limned in bold shadow. This leaves faces looking flat, doughy and unfinished when contrasted with the rest of the visual landscape.

and boy oh boy, did following the speech bubbles get to be a pain in the neck! Right to left, top to bottom Travis, that's how English readers do it. Anything else confuses your readers: keep it in mind going forward. I can sympathize, I'm a fellow sufferer in this area of my art, but you gotta keep at it till you got it!

The Revue

Plenty of shenanigans here! All around, a good ol' fashioned Penny Dreadful romp through Noir City. Give it a read! 

Sunday Revue October Second: The Wretched Ones

Wretches And Wonders Await!

Deep dark magics opened along with an ancient trunk. Family mysteries and fantasy of all sorts. Sword and sorcery fiends and Regency fans have found a friend here. The comic is 'The Wretched Ones' by Iainne Johnson. The story is legendary. The reviewer's verdict is below

The Rating

Not a bad first project, but there's still a lot of  work before this apprentice becomes a master.

The Raves

What this work does have in incredible abundance: potential. There's already a great grasp of style, a strong sense of narrative drama, timing, and a growing sense of framing and imagery. The color palette is bright and alive and the storytelling style is dramatic and stylistically rich, drawing deeply from the well of Regency fiction and European folklore. Not a bad beginning at all. 

There's also the beginnings of a dry, wise sense of humor that will blossom if given care and cultivation. Now and again you can't help but chuckle in empathic commiseration with the characters.

The Razzes

What this comic doesn't have is workmanship. This is a very early work, and it has several major areas to intensively improve. Figures are flat and blocky, the story is erratic, and the website itself has some issues. But, speaking from experience, there is nothing better in the world for an artist's improvement than the daily drawing required to produce a comic. Below is a step by step improvement regimen to strengthen the creator's skills.

Art

All the social media savvy in the world means nothing if the art itself isn't good. The artist of 'The Wretched Ones' has A LOT of work ahead of them, though they've made a good start. First, they must make an intensive study of the human body and its anatomy.
I recommend beginning with a solid book as a study guide of the human body and a self-imposed study course. First, put the comic on hiatus, or discontinue it.  Pick up 'Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists' by Joseph S. Sheppard, and make drawings based on each section every day for a week. Get to the end of the book. Repeat. Then do the same with this free link to Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life. By that point an aspiring artist will have a solid foundation.
During such a slog, take a break by checking out the wonderful free tutorials on Cartoon Block, and check out the pintrest boards of the wonderful Comic Underdog Community.
Once the human body has been mastered, it's time to get a handle on perspective and architecture. I'd recommend the youtube series How To Sketch Like An Architect, a perfect starting point and a nice change from hitting the books. A slightly more intense course is Circle Line Art School's Channel, which is a solid primer in the area.

Layout

Font and dialogue layout are one of the hardest skills to learn in comics, but it's a critical skill. Right now, the font used in 'The Wretched Ones' is boring and overly small; it rather looks as if pieces from a newspaper were simply cut out and plopped on top of art. This isn't appealing. Make the words of your comic look like part of the art; they're conveying a lot of your story, and deserve the attention equal to their responsibility. They deserve to be beautiful as well as functional.
Changing the shapes and sizes of the speech bubbles can help with this: flat, cookie-cutter bubbles can give a clunky appearance to even the finest artwork. Vary the sizes and shapes, keep the eye interested!

Website

The general layout is good, but here's some suggestions:

Add Images To The Cast Page- there's not a lot of help in textual descriptions of comic characters. Portraits would be a big help here.

Make The About Page Interesting And Helpful- right now the About Page reads as a goofy, offhand introduction. Save the cuteness for Facebook and help the reader figure out what's going on in the story if they're new to the page.

Story

There's a lot of interesting ideas and possibilities in 'The Wretched Ones'...but the writing style makes them difficult to access. By ten pages in, we hadn't been given any introduction as readers to the characters. This is unacceptable in storytelling. There's a good sense of drama, but not nearly enough understanding of storytelling here. It makes reading the comic a chore when it could be a joy.
I'd recommend that the creator read the seminal book 'Making Comics' by Scott McCloud, followed by 'The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics' by Dennis O'Neil

Follow that with a LOT of practice. Write, write, WRITE! Then have friends read your writing. Take their advice. Rewrite. Keep it up until you're really proud of what you've got. THEN draw.

The Revue

My final recommendation to the creator: use this project as a springboard and a learning experience.  Study intensely. Then go on to create something new and greater. You're off to the right foot, but there's a long road ahead.

Backstage Pass September: Rosi Kampe

Psst! I Snagged Us A Pass!

Come On, Keep Up! Let's Go Meet

Rosi Kämpe!

Rosi Kämpe, or 'Toherrys', as you pen your art handle, it's so great to get to chat with you. So, tell us a bit about yourself?

To be honest my main comic project right now is drawing a series for Top Cow, but my main personal project is Unknown Lands
http://unknownlands.thecomicseries.com/ or on Tapastic: https://tapastic.com/series/Unknown-Lands or even Smackjeeves: http://unknownlands.smackjeeves.com/

Other Hobbies and Obsessions

Comics rule my life so they are my work and only hobby, heh. But I am obsessed with reading up on various mythologies and pagan beliefs and practices, although most of that is for Unknown Lands so... yea, comics rule everything.So, tell me about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling stories in pictures? What was the seed of the idea for Unknown Lands?
I've enjoyed comics ever since I could read. Donald Duck comics are a staple in Finnish homes and I also read my dad's old and faded Phantom comics. But the first time I realized it'd be fun to make them myself was when I saw a Spice Girls fancomic back in the 90s, hehe.

I started building the idea to Unknown Lands over 10 years ago when I first sketched my main character Vard in my biology notebook and wanted to create my own shounen manga, because back then I felt they were the epitome of comics. Since then the story's matured a bit.

What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?

Unknown Lands is made completely digitally in Photoshop.

 You've got such a lot of research and world building going on in this work; what are your favorite sources of inspiration and/or research? How much research do you put in to make sure your concepts hold up?

Reading literally anything is enough to inspire me, but since Unknown Lands is a combination of ancient Scandinavia and a modern fantasy world, I have amassed books about Scandinavian, specifically Finnish, folklore, mythology and traditions. It's near impossible to find any proper information on them online. My favorite is probably a massive book full of drawings of objects found in ancient Finnish graves.

Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your working process flow?

Usually I first figure out the page layouts for the next update, then I refine the sketches, and then do the “inks”. I have panel border lines, character lines, background lines, and special effect lines on separate layers. Then it's the grueling task of flatting, followed by the fun of shading aaaand finally letters. It takes really long to finish a page...

What’s the most difficult part of your work?

Page layouts, definitely. It's like figuring out a puzzle, while the rest is more creative.

Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?

I like to have the entire chapter scripted out before starting to draw it. Anything beyond that is all in my head and the farther things go the more vague they are. I keep to certain important plot points, but otherwise I like to keep the story loose so I can change and adapt details to fit how the story evolves.

How much of a buffer do you like to keep?

I have no buffer, I like to live on the edge.

Has anyone told you that you'll never be a successful artist and you'd be better off studying a real field and/or getting a real job? How do you cope with negative commentary?

Oh yes, so many times. By pretty much all family members and many friends. It's also impossible to convince these people otherwise, until you actually have any success. I have wonderful parents who did all they could to support me, while waiting for me to fail and come to my senses. It's annoying when you seem to be the only one who believes in you, but when you find your thing no one can talk you out of doing it.
Support from strangers on the internet helps a lot too.

Negative comments on my comic, I usually try to ignore. If they were particularly rude I'll passionately rant about it to my friends, and then ignore them.

What message do you hope readers take away from your work?

Unknown Lands has environmental, feminist, and LGBTQ+ themes, but I want those to come off less as a message and more for people to see it as the norm, something that doesn't need to be explained. I hope readers enjoy the characters and their reckless lives, and the chaos those lives bring about.

What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?

I'm way too deeply in love with my characters to stop. But really, I've had variations of this story in my head for so long I pretty much need to get it out there.

Rock On Rosie, And Thanks For All The Great Thrills And Chills!

Saturday Revue September 2: Lonely Skeleton

And Now, For The World Weary Reader, Presenting

 The Lonely Skeleton!

Sounds like the title of a kid's Halloween book, doesn't it? 'The Lonely Skeleton'. You can practically predict the plot. Poor Lonely Skeleton will be lonely. Then he'll make a friend. Then he'll be HAPPY!
....ahem. Not exactly. Imagine that kid's book was written by Kafka or Nietzsche. After a few shots of bad vodka. 

You get the idea....
That's 'Lonely Skeleton', a gaga gag-a-day strip created by João Duarte Silva.You were warned.

The Rating

Well played, sir. Well played.

The Raves

This offbeat comic will regularly have you bursting out in small spurts of giggling, because it states so baldly facts that we spend our entire lives dancing around that you laugh almost in self defense. Reminiscent of the Farside at its best, 'Lonely Skeleton' holds up a mirror to our lives and points out just how absurd the life we call 'real' is. Its main point is the meaning of life: that is, how desperate we all are for there TO BE ONE. Skeleton and Rock's pitifully desperate search for things to occupy their ENDLEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS time is at once hugely amusing and darkly satisfying. 

When you've had a rotten day at work, when you've realized that the paper you spent days writing will be read by the professor in about 5 minutes and then tossed, this is the comic to soothe your savage breast with. In future I know I'll flop down after a crappy day, flip through a few pages, smirk grimly and murmur 'damn straight!' to myself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, takes some skill. It isn't easy to tell people blatant truths in an amusing way, but Silva pulls it off with aplomb.

The style is classically gag-a-day simplistic, and has what I call the 'DIY aesthetic', meaning that a skilled artist is doing something with casual ease by hand. They aren't afraid for you to KNOW it's hand drawn, with slightly wobbly lines here and there, but the very fact that clean, well rendered drawings can be created in such a casual manner shows the skill of the creator. It took me back to reading Gary Larsen, PHD, Love And Rockets and some of my favorite indie zines.

The Razzes

Just one suggestion? Work on the lettering a touch; some of the hand-drawn letters are a touch blurry and difficult to parse at a glance. No big deal, but something to keep in mind. Other than that, as a reader I'd LOVE to see updates on a more regular basis, and would love even more to buy the print book of strips. When does it come out? Granted, I already know Skeleton's answer...

The Revue

Grab a shot of grey goose and give it a read when the boss has been an ass. You'll feel oddly validated in the ultimate meaninglessness of life...oh and you'll laugh too.

Saturday Revue August 27: Ten Years

Come Take A Stroll Down Possibility Lane

With

Ten Years

Should've. Would've. Could've. What would've happened if...we all ask ourselves these questions. Danny Valdez has taken it a step further, creating Ten Years: An exploration of both time and place, and the potential intersections which could have shaped my life. The story splits down two alternate routes with the opening of that dreaded college acceptance letter so many of us remember. Holding it in sweating fingers, our hero opens it and finds...well, he could have found two different things. And that's where things get going.

The Rating

I give it an A for creativity, a C for execution.

The Raves

Reading 'Ten Years' is, for a lot of Americans, like looking in a mirror. It expresses much of our collective social experience in a charming 'boy next door' way, capturing scenes that make you give a gentle, reminiscent smile and remember the time when you were in your own version of the situation.
The writing is solid; the creator is very good at encapsulating an entire social experience or life event in a few panels, and the writing flows from experience to experience in a cogent way. There's a gently affirming comfort in the work as well: even if your life didn't go exactly as you had planned, you can still find joy in it.

The art is extremely stylistic and rather flat, but also highly consistent (an image creation program I presume?) and meshes well with the story style. Nothing particularly wrong.

The Razzes

Problem is, 'nothing really wrong' and 'rather flat' sums up the entire emotional tone of 'Ten Years'.This comic is a little TOO realistic; events happen. People do things. Nothing is really resolved, and though character growth is hinted at there's nothing that calls the character to really rise or fall.

  I've lived in the Midwest, and this is the comic equivalent of sitting on a porch in a small Wisconsin town and watching your neighbors go by. There's nothing wrong with it, and on certain days it's pleasant. But it doesn't' do much beyond comfort.It is, quite simply, ordinary life in Heartland America on paper....and most of us read to get out of our everyday lives.
The creator has grasped all the aspects of comic work and draftsmanship. What they're missing is a soul. I'm hoping they'll use this as their learning project and go forward with a new idea that has a bit more zest. Everything's here but the spark.

The Revue

If you need some mental downtime, grab a seat on the porch, ma will have some iced tea for you. If you're looking for excitement, keep driving.

Backstage Pass August: Hanne DeWachter

Hey Look, I Snitched Us A Backstage Pass!

Let's Go Round The Back And Have A Cuppa With

Hanne DeWacther!

*Pours the Tea* So Hanne, tell us about yourself!

My name's Hanne Dewachter. I'm a Belgian comic artist, currently living in Antwerp. I studied Animation and graduated with a Bachelor degree in uh.. I think 2010? Since then I've been doing various jobs in animation, illustration, comics, storyboarding and just your random regular stuff.

Main Project 

My main comic project right now and for the past 4 years has been Dork Toes! To be ogled at www.Dorktoescomic.com
It's an autobiographical webcomic that started in 2012 and updates every Tuesday. So far I've been able to uphold that schedule relatively well. I've been making autobiographical comics for years before I got Dork Toes up, as a lot of other comic artists do, until I thought it was really high time to collect them somewhere neat and coherent.

Other Hobbies and Obsessions

If we disregard all things artsy for a moment, people who've read my comic in the last year or so probably know that I'm very fond of snails. Really, any creepy crawlies/slitheries you'll find when you have a random grab through the grass interest me a lot.

 I also dabble in amateur taxidermy, liqueur-making and I like to bake things that give you caries.

So, tell me about your early experience. How did you fall in love with telling
stories in pictures?

Oh, very early on. I've always been an avid reader and image-browser. I'm not sure where the interest specifically came from, most children are probably interested in pictures, but I remember taking it close to an obsessive level.

Images that told stories just popped out of my pencil naturally, as if that was the way to go. I remember one of the earliest kinds of comic I drew, when I couldn't have been more than 7 years old. It was a kind of life-cycle of a person. It included being born, growing up, having sex, having kids, and dying in a car accident. Uh. Yeah. They were very basic drawings, but that sequence could be described as one of the earliest comics I ever drew, I think. And the thematics are.. pretty telling of what I was interested in, I guess. I haven't really stopped since then.

What media and programs do you work in to produce your project?

Dork Toes is generally drawn in Photoshop or in ink on paper. Especially in the early days of Dork Toes my comics were usually drawn on paper, with staedtler ink pens and sometimes aquarel paint. Ever since I got myself a Wacom Cintiq my comics have become increasingly digital, though sometimes I do get the need for something tangible and draw a couple on paper again. I generally use some kind of brush pen now and draw on paper a little smaller than A3-size. I am a tiny person. A3 is literally too big for me to be comfortable.

Excerpt from the comic 'Scribbles'

Can you tell me about your typical day or strip-creation session? How does your
working process flow?

Generally throughout the week I'll scribble in my sketchbook and I try do draw out sketches of possible updates when I get the idea. I've found that if I keep the idea in my head for too long without getting anything on paper it tends to dissolve in my brain and be gone when I actually try to draw. Rarely when I have the time and energy I start drawing my comic on the weekend, but usually I start the comic of that week on Monday evening, and it goes live the next morning. It takes me about 2 to 5 hours to finish my comic, depending on how long it is. And it can be long. The comics generally vary from only two rows to 4 or 5 full pages in one update.

What’s the most difficult part of your work?

Ooh boy. Erm. This is a difficult question, actually, since it tends to vary from period to period. I guess you could say that updating social media and advertising myself is probably the most difficult part.
 I'm notoriously bad at selling myself, also because I don't see it as a very important part of what I do. Or rather, in a perfect world to me, it wouldn't be important. But really, being able to reach out to your fan-base or expanding it or contacting publishers or seeing new opportunities for your project to grow is a pretty dang important skill to have.
Apart from that I'm painfully perfectionistic. Curiously, in Dork Toes that part didn't really cripple me that much, maybe because the webcomic medium that updates once a week kind of forces you to let go and grow with time. I haven't started a stand-alone comic in a long time because I want the thing to be perfect from the get-go, which is a really good way to never make anything ever.

Can you tell me about your storytelling process? Do you prefer to script your
stories, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?

Well this is kind of different for me because of the autobiographical theme. I wait until something happens and then I uh, draw it.

I never script my Dork Toes comics, I find that very uncomfortable for these types of comic. Instead I just make a relatively quick sketch in my sketchbook, which is most often “right” the first time in pacing and look, and use that sketch as the base for my final drawing. For other comics I tend to at least try to write a kind of script, but I noticed that I work better when I just start drawing instead. Less thinking, more doing.

How much of a buffer do you like to keep?

None, really. The first year of Dork Toes I tried to make some comics up front but I noticed that I find it hard to upload a comic I made previously when by that time something else has taken over my attention. I DO have multiple sketchbooks full of first sketchy drafts though, so if I'm really strapped for comics, I'll look through my old sketches and pick one that I've wanted to make but haven't gotten to.

Your comic is a very interesting cross between slice-of-life and social commentary. What gives you ideas, and how do you record them until they become strips?

Ha, thank you. I sometimes just notice when something grabs me by the back of my brain and my reflex is to turn it into a comic as a way of dealing with it. In that sense, when I'm distressed I tend to make more comics because I have stuff I need to get out and process. Making a comic is, for me, a really good way of processing what happened. It's like ruminating.

 I've often throughout my life have had the impulse to write when something is whirling around in my brain, to put it on paper gives it structure to me, and in a way making comics does the same. Giving it humour is also an easy way to make difficult things seem less serious. But like I said before, I try to just draw down a first draft in a sketchbook the moment I have the idea.

 I've recently tried out writing some short sentences as mini-scripts or reminders in my sketchbook since I sometimes don't have a lot of time to draw (also, when you work in animation you can be a little “drawn out” at the end of the day, which is sad, but it can make you draw less at home).

Your work often features your personal life;
how do your friends and family feel about appearing in your work?

I kind of make it a point of asking people if they're okay with appearing in my strips. Sometimes I forget, but over the years I've only had one person who afterwards explicitly told me to never draw them in my comic again, even though I had gotten their permission up front. But, no problem there. I would really feel uncomfortable to feature someone if they weren't on board. Also, I'm normally pretty careful with how I present people in the comics. If I draw a comic about my mom it's with a very different tone than one about a friend, at least to me.

Has anyone told you that you'll never be a successful artist and you'd be better off studying a real field and/or getting a real job?

Haha, no, actually. The opposite. Ever since I was a kid people have been telling me that I'd be “famous one day” and people have been encouraging me to keep it going all my life. .. That might have something to do with the sometimes crippling perfectionism. But really, both my parents and especially my mom are vocally of the opinion that you should always try to study something you find fun and interesting, otherwise it's kind of a waste. I'm thankful for that. And so far my studies have provided me with decent jobs, I don't think anyone right now would have the idea to tell me I should get a “real” job. Or I haven't met them, at least.

What message do you hope readers take away from your work?

Oh dear. Uhm. I try not to think of one overlapping message. I kind of hope they find pleasure in the little and big things they find recognisable and know they're not alone in many ways.

What keeps you devoted to telling the story you’re telling?

Honestly, it's almost compulsive. I know that I'll keep making comics like these even if I quit the website, so I might as well keep it going. I'm someone who does well with deadlines. Open ends make me postpone and procrastinate and overthink. Setting this weekly deadline forces me to DO. Dork Toes has been a great way to try out new styles and give me the confidence to go places and do things I otherwise wouldn't have. I'm certain I've grown a lot in those 4 years. Plus, people can be really kind. I've gotten some really wonderful reactions and messages that remind me that I'm not just imagining it or something, people really do enjoy these little comics. And that's a big drive.

Rock On Hanne! Your work makes so many readers happy, and it was lovely to get a peek behind the curtain!
Oh, and thanks for the tea!