To mark the occasion I've prepared an interview with Julz, a comic making lady from Cape Town, South Africa, and the artist and writer for the glorious spookycute webcomic Something to Cry About.
Something to Cry About focusses (so far) on three young ladies of the goth persuasion, cheerful Serah Tonin, sharp-witted Medi Kate, and main character Anne Aesthetic, a somewhat moody and introspective lass, who is dealing with the recent ending of a romance. Dealing with it very much like this:
I stumbled across this comic a few weeks ago purely by chance (I was browsing through someone's twitter friends and came across the StCA twitter, and my curiosity was piqued by the twitter avatar), and I can say in all confidence that I'm very pleased I did.
As someone who is myself very much a hopeless romantic (the operative word in my situation being "hopeless") I can really relate to what she's going through. Anne's starting to come around a bit though. Thankfully she has the aforementioned two friends to help her through this. The fact that its currently Halloween has probably helped her state of mind as well.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of the look of this comic. I love the big pupil-less eyes, the girls' various outfits, and the little details included within the comic, such as boxes of tissues being marked (t)issues. And despite it being rooted firmly within the aesthetics of "goth culture", the comic is very lively and genuinely funny. It has a playful sort of humour which I love to bits.
So I decided to email Julz and ask if she'd like to do an interview, to which she agreed to. I then sat down and tried to come up with some interview questions that were interesting to both Julz and anyone who might read the interview, and that would also make for an informative interview experience. Julz graciously emailed me back with some mighty fine answers.
But enough of my rambling and gushing. On with the interview!
Chloé Kovac: By the look of your site, and the subject matter contained within, its apparent that you have an affinity for the, shall we say, "spookier" things in life. What lead you down the path of spookydom? Was there a pivitol moment in your life that led you towards this particular appetence? Or was it a combination of things?
Julz: I was always a bit of a ghoulish kid, fascinated by anything spooky, even if it gave me nightmares. I always loved how ghost stories and the idea of monsters hiding in the closet stirred my imagination and gave me the shivers. I hope it doesn't sound too clichéd, but an awesome moment for me was the first time I watched Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. It was just the perfect combination of weirdly eerie and totally loveable, and I've been smitten with Mr. Burton's work - and the spooky/cute aesthetic - ever since.
CK: Its always good to get a creator's thoughts on their comic. How would you sum up Something To Cry About?
J: I'm hoping it's something that will make people laugh and see the lighter side of some of life's big, dramatic, heartbreaking moments. And sometimes it's just an excuse for me to whine about something!
CK: How do you go about constructing each page? How long does a typical page take to do?
J: My methods are really primitive! Originally I wanted to do the whole comic by hand, but after scanning a couple of my character images and re-drawing them in FreeHand, I found the result was much smoother and easier to work with. So once I decide what's going into a comic, I draw the characters in their various poses in FreeHand, then drop those images into my PhotoShop template, which includes the 4 panels and their borders. The amount of time it takes depends on the content of that comic - the quickest so far has been 1 or 2 hours, and the longest took about 7 hours.
CK: How long have you been developing this comic?
J: I've been drawing pictures of Anne for a couple of years now, but she never had a name or personality. I started thinking seriously about working on a webcomic about a year ago, and eventually came up with the title, concept and characters in April this year. I spent a couple of weeks working on the first few strips and getting the site set up, before launching in May.
CK: Is this your first comic, or have you worked on other comics prior to this?
J: No, this is my first. Although I do have some rather insane and illegible childhood attempts stashed away somewhere.
CK: Besides drawing StCA, what are your other interests? Do you find these extra curricular interests infuse the energy of your comic in a helpful way?
J: I'm a graphic designer and copywriter, so I'm in a fortunate position where my work and hobbies blur into each other. I love drawing, scribbling and doodling, which sometimes helps me find the inspiration I need. Sometimes it helps to get away from my desk and get some exercise - I'm lucky enough to live close to the beach, so taking a walk there really clears my head. I'm also a voracious reader; beautiful prose often inspires me, and I'm totally mad about comic book art. Occasionally I also paint truly awful paintings and bake disastrous cupcakes - which really are worth crying about :)
CK: Do you have any creative pals and/or people who you find influential that you'd like to include some links to in this interview?
J: There are so many awesome webcomics and talented artists out there! Check out StCA's 'Links for the Lonely' section for a list of my favourites. Two webcomics I'm really loving at the moment are Eerie Cuties
(http://www.eeriecuties.com/), an adorable horror-comedy about teenage monsters in high school, and Evil Diva, (http://www.evildivacomics.com/) about a super-cute little demon who just wants to be good. Both of them have that spooky/cute combination that I love.
So there you have it folks. A little bit of background info on the creator and her creative process, which should serve you well when you go and have a look at the eldritch delights contained within the Something to Cry About website.
Chloé
[Something to Cry About © Julz. Images used with permission]
Posts
This is right up my ally by the looks of things. I must go and read through the archives asap!
ReplyDeleteI must never forget I found AOTE by chance, at a dA banner. Chance is our friend when curiosity also is.
ReplyDeleteDamn, I wish I had enough stuff to ask you to actually post an interview. When AOTE is over, I'll gladly fawn on it on about:black and spread Starla's word.
P. S. 1: like I said on dA, I love those pun names. I created a minor character months ago called Nina Estric, whose name is a disguise for estricnina, Portuguese for the good (?) old strychnine. She runs a poison-related company (don't ask).
P. S.: what, a, crap; it all seems as though Julz has no deviantArt account.