A Conversation About Comics

     Twillie (twillieblossom) is creator of the long-running comic series “Blossoms,” as well as an amazing artist who has placed overall gold in the Beauty Contest twice. June (june_scarlet) is the creator of two comic series: “Dinner with the Scarlets” as well as “Ink.” This article marks June’s hundredth piece for the Neopian Times.

     Let’s begin.

     June: Hey Twillie! Nice to see you, or rather, write to you.

     Twillie: Yeah, thanks for having me!

     Tell us about your first Neopets comic.

      June: My first Neopian Times comic was “Dinner With The Scarlets: Very Sneaky, Lulu.” It was a comic with lineart only, which at the time was the reason I thought it was rejected (though now I’m not sure it was that funny anyway). So I made my next comic in colour, and that got in. And I decided I needed to colour all my comics to prove that I put a lot of effort into them. Until my “Ink” comic series, but that’s a story for later.

      Twillie: My first comic was under a different username, zuzi809, and it was a pretty basic deserted tomb comic titled Black and Blue. I wanted to make a whole comic series out of Black and Blue, and I had some super ambitious (and probably not NT-appropriate) ideas for it. It never took off, though, as I had no idea how to make comics then. I also didn’t have enough substantial ideas to make Black and Blue sustainable I think, haha. I had a bunch that weren’t connected, and I just thought they’d be cool.

      June: I’ve seen your Black and Blue comic before, but I don’t think I knew that you had a whole series planned for it. It’s too bad it didn’t take off, but at least you didn’t label it “Part 1” and then never make a part 2. And we did get “Blossoms” instead!

      Twillie: Haha yeah, I’ve seen comics like that before with Part 1 in the title but no sequels. I didn’t have any other comic ideas in mind at the time, and the idea of getting even one comic into the Times felt near impossible at the time. I remember I took a screenshot of the webpage with my acceptance neomail and printed it out in celebration.

     What advice would you give to someone just starting out with comics?

      Twillie: Don’t think too hard about starting, and don’t be afraid to jump into creating! Comics are something that takes a lot of learning on the job, and you gotta get your hands a bit messy to get started. Don’t go too big too soon, though; instead of starting with a massive series, start with one off comics or short stories. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, as comics can have a big learning curve to them. There’s no rush, so go at a pace that won’t overwhelm you.

      June: I would also say it’s okay to fail at it sometimes. The first comic I submitted to the Times was rejected, but I decided that it was because it didn’t show enough effort, so I made my next comic in colour. And it got in.

      Twillie: Failure is definitely something to embrace! Like anything in life, not only will it inevitably happen, but it can be your greatest learning opportunity. Like in your case, June, it had you explore your art style with comics. And while colour certainly isn’t required to get a comic into the NT, and grayscale comics can display just as much effort, at the time it served as a formative moment for how you create “Dinner with the Scarlets” today.

      June: Yeah, and in the end, after I felt confident in making comics for the Times, I ended up making my own black and white comic, “Ink.”

     What plans do you have for the future of your Neopets comics?

      Twillie: I know how the main storyline of “Blossoms” ends, and I intend to someday reach that ending. I’m not too concerned these days about getting my comics into the NT as I am just making them and putting my ideas into reality. I make my comics for myself, rather than for any trophies. So, if anything happens to the NT, or if it takes years, I still care enough about these characters to continue making comics and give them the closure they deserve.

      There are spin-off stories I’ve thought of as well that take place after the main storyline, so perhaps I’ll make those too someday. I’ve been writing these characters for so long that I have a lot in mind for their pasts and futures, so I’m definitely not short on comic ideas for them!

      June: I’m always very excited to learn more about your characters, and to get more story from you.

      Personally, I feel like I’ve finished with my major plot-driven comic, “Ink,” but that doesn’t mean I’m done creating comics. My "Dinner with the Scarlets” series is a bunch of one-offs, so it doesn’t really have an ending or overarching storyline. And I’ve been pretty interested in my Haunted Woods crew lately, though those tend to be short stories rather than comics.

      But that’s mostly the past. I’ve got an actual storyline driven arc for “Dinner with the Scarlets” in the planning stages. It’s untitled currently, but it feels good to explore the Scarlets cast in more depth.

     Which is more important in a comic, the art or the writing?

      June: Trick question! They’re both equally important.

      Twillie: I’d agree, with a specification on the kind of art that’s important. If I were forced to choose between the two, I’d say writing. I’d much rather read a well-constructed comic than a pretty one. That being said, comics are a visual medium, so of course part of the comic is lost when the art is taken away. There are comics I’ve read before, though, where the art actually took away from the comic. This happened because, while the artist was able to make an impressive illustration, they didn’t seem to understand how to make these drawings flow with each other. I’ve seen side-by-side panels that seemed completely disconnected from each other, action with no sense of motion, the focus of a panel lost to the side, even a full page of panels where I had no idea what had happened.

      You need good art for a comic, but by “good” I mean readable. It doesn’t need full shading, 100% accurate anatomy, or even complicated design (this can actually be a detriment at times!). I need to be able to look at a panel and immediately know what’s going on (in general- comics may create intentional confusion or ambiguity with its art, but emphasis on “intentional” there).

      June: You raise some good points. I’ve seen amazing art in comics that failed to tell the story it was after. It’s always amazing when story and art work together, and saddens me a little when it doesn’t.

      It’s interesting because I know for the longest time, I didn’t understand why when artists and writers collaborate, they get equal billing. In my head, I was thinking that the artist did most of the work. The writer just had to come up with the story. But I’ve come to realize that coming up with the story is a lot of work in itself. The art so often is what grabs my attention, but it’s the story that keeps my attention going.

      Twillie: Oh gosh yeah, writing is incredibly difficult! It’s the most time-consuming part of comic making for me because there are so many things to juggle to get the story just right. I need to consider character and plot consistency, stakes, substantial plot progression, audience interest, natural dialogue, and much more. And even then, you never get that stuff perfect, even when there’s a whole writing team involved. Even just coming up with the basic story idea can be a challenge; sometimes it takes me ages to figure out the main conflict that’ll tie together an arc for “Blossoms.”

      June: Personally, I find that even when I do come up with a story for a comic series, it changes so much from my initial idea. For example, “Ink: As Black as Ink” changed a lot between the initial idea to the final product. I think part of that was my process at the time, which was to write and draw panels as I went along. Which, by the way, I don’t recommend. Much better to write at least a whole part at once, then pencil, then ink. Goes a lot easier. And now I’m trying out writing a script for a whole arc at once, per Twillie’s style of writing.

      Twillie: Honestly that’s just how storytelling always works. The idea you start with won’t be the one you end up actually writing, no matter how much planning you put in place. Stories naturally change the more thought you put into them, and you may not even notice this happening until it’s months or years down the line. Even at the last minute when I’m getting ready to publish a comic, I’m still making edits to the script haha.

     Tell us about your process as it stands currently. How has it evolved since you first started?

      Twillie: My current process for creating a “Blossoms” arc typically looks like this:

     List out the basic story elements I want involved

     Script these out into a linear script organized into parts

     Edit this script multiple times

     Create each part one at a time. This means sketching it out, adding panels, adding the dialogue and bubbles, lining it, colouring it, and putting in any final touches.

     Create each part until the arc is done, and hopefully by that time I’ve got another script ready to go (I’m still trying to figure out how to work on multiple arcs at once)

     I do all my comic creation digitally with the art program Clip Studio Paint on a Microsoft Surface Book. This wasn’t always the case, as originally I did almost everything traditionally. My earliest comics were all drawn and coloured with pencil because I lacked the tech knowledge and figured colour would make the file sizes too big. Eventually, I learned about digital colouring and immediately switched to that, although I kept the greyscale colour scheme to keep a consistent look. Then I figured why not have fun with that and added in the blossom tree story element, which paved the way for the story I have now. I kept to sketching and lining the comics traditionally up until the Secrets arc, which was the first all-digital set of comics. Since then, I’ve stuck to all digital as it makes everything faster and easier to make.

     June: Once you get the hang of digital, that is. There are advantages and disadvantages to both traditional and digital art. I feel like traditional art has less of a learning curve, probably because that’s at least what I grew up doing. Or maybe I was just intimidated by digital art.

     At any rate, I was all traditional at first too. My first comic was just black inked lineart, but after that, I used watercolour to colour my “Dinner with the Scarlets” comics. Finally, I invested in good quality art markers, Copics to be exact. That really helped with colour consistency, as well as making it easier to colour.

     Interestingly, I guess it was my “Ink” comic series that I really started using digital to help with my traditional art more. “Ink” was drawn in ink, of course, but after I scanned it in, I’d have to go through all the linework and fill in what didn’t scan very well. It was a tedious process. I was using a mouse though at the time, which makes it tricky. Eventually, I invested in a Wacom drawing tablet, and that made all the difference.

     I still make traditional art comics, but I do digital art as well now, depending on which I think will serve the comic better. I ended up with Clip Studio Paint as well, and last year I decided since I needed a new laptop, I wanted one I could draw on the screen, and ended up getting a Microsoft Surface Book as well! You’re such a trendsetter, Twillie.

     Why do you make comics?

     June: This goes back to what Twillie was saying earlier about how she makes comics for herself. I guess I make comics for myself, but I also make them to share. Growing up, I hated writing, but I loved making up stories, particularly with my toys. Those are stories that will likely never get shared. But nowadays, I make stories to share with my friends, and whoever else wants to read them. I have plenty of opportunities to make stories for myself. I go to all the work of writing and drawing them out for others to enjoy them as well.

     Twillie: I remember making up tons of stories with my toys as a kid too! Oftentimes they’d even be continued stories, like I’d develop characters and plotlines that’d be revisited every time I played by myself. Storytelling has always been a passion of mine, and I don’t think there’s been a time in my life where I haven’t been creating characters and stories. Originally, though, I wanted to be a novelist. For years I tried writing a number of book ideas, but I never got past a few pages. It wasn’t until I put aside my latest novel idea to work on my Neopets comic series that I discovered sequential arts as my preferred medium. Drawing has also always been a hobby of mine, so it only makes sense for me to combine that and storytelling. I make comics because the medium brings together all my creative passions into one craft. It’s the best way for me to express myself.

     June: Oh, I did that with my toys too, they had personalities and ongoing storylines! I was big into reading as well. I know graphic novels were a thing, but it wasn’t really a thing I was aware of until later, maybe in my teens. I did read comics in the newspaper, though, so really, I’ve been exposed to them for a very long time.

     How do you feel about feedback on your comics?

     Twillie: I love it! I will happily take any and all feedback, whether it’s a sentence long or paragraphs! It always amazes me when someone not only takes the time to read my stuff, but also write out how they feel about it to me. I also always appreciate the help or tips people give me, as I want my comics to be the best they can. The medium of sequential arts is one I’d still say I’m a beginner at, even after years of making this series, so I’m always eager to learn from other comic artists and readers what may or may not be effective in my work.

     June: Wow, that’s such a great attitude about feedback! I admit my feelings on it are a bit more complicated; I also like it, but I’m also a bit afraid of it too. It’s like, especially in the past, I felt like I knew my art wasn’t all that great, and I didn’t really want people to tell me that. I felt like I knew already what was wrong with my work.

     Now, I feel like I’m more open to feedback. My favourite type of feedback though is beta-reading, which is done while the work is still unpublished. It gives me the chance to actually incorporate the feedback into the story, and make the story stronger for it. I appreciate all forms of feedback, though.

     Twillie: I think it’s natural to feel that way about feedback. It’s indeed scary to open your work up like that, as it makes vulnerable something you spent a lot of time and care into. People can also go through different phases regarding feedback. Some people aren’t ready for it, others may not want it at the moment, and then some are actively seeking it. In the long run, though, I think it’s good to be open and seek feedback, for as much as you think you may know your work, there’s always something there you haven’t noticed.

     Beta-reading is great! Going along with what I just said, having that second pair of eyes can help point out holes or suggestions you may have missed before, especially after staring at your work for so long. I tend to have my scripts reviewed before creating the comics myself. I think feedback on a work after it’s been published is still highly useful though since that feedback doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Even if I can’t go back to change the dialogue in an already published piece, if someone tells me that it may not have sounded natural, that lets me know to work on this for the next comic. The creation process doesn’t end when you publish something; once it’s out in the world, that opens it up to sharing and conversation, and the discussion of what people liked and didn’t let you grow as a creator. You learn both your strengths and what areas to work on to make future works even more effective to your vision.

     What do you do outside of Neopets?

      Twillie: I graduated from college a little over a year ago, and in the time since took a job, held it for half a year, left it, and now I’m trying to create my own art businesses. It’s been a strange transitional time for me, so it feels like what I do is always changing.

      In terms of hobbies, I’m also a martial artist with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, have been learning Korean language, and I’ve also been dipping my toes into cooking lately!

      June: Right now I work in a grocery store at the bakery. It’s hard work, but I enjoy the people I work with. But I’m also studying to get into the technology field in front end web development or user experience. Like comics are a good combination of art and writing, user interfaces are a good combination of art and coding for me. I find it to be a lot of fun.

      Outside of that, though, I mostly just write and draw still. I hope to be an author/illustrator or a graphic novelist someday. I consider Neopets a great training ground for that, as it’s a good place to work on my comic craft.

     Final Thoughts.

      June: Thank you so much for this conversation, Twillie! We’ve covered so much, yet I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface.

      Twillie: Thanks to you as well, June! For sure, I feel like I could ramble about writing for hours, haha.

      June: Yeah, it’s a good topic, and one we’re both passionate about. Well, until next time!