iamdavidbrothers asked:
Octopus Pie is super good, but I feel like you've been on a tear this year especially, with a lot of really groundbreaking or amazing strips. Do they feel different when you're making them or do you only realize it when you finish? What pushes you to keep levelling up your craft?
You’re very kind David! Is there a humble way to answer this. haha.
The more ambitious strips do feel like my best work when they go up. By the time they’re finished they’ve passed through a few trusted filters over the course of weeks. I throw away a lot of ideas that don’t resonate personally; a lot of the time they morph into something more personal as they go. Mike gives me a lot of useful feedback while I’m working out the script - usually, what to trim away. I trust his tastes, and if he thinks I’ve got something, I feel really good about developing it.
Having an increasingly clear vision of the final product has helped a lot, even though a portion of the process is out of my hands. Working with Valerie has made me think about color as part of the storytelling, and I trust her to interpret my notes with her own aesthetic. She experiments a lot too, with results I think are a large part of the level-uppedness.
Making comics has felt like an intimate form of communication for a while now. I feel vulnerable showing them off, or frustrated when they don’t read correctly, or very loved when people can relate. I don’t know if that will always result in improved quality, but it feels right to trust in this process.
