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INK magazine assembles the best comics by students at the School of Visual Arts. All stories are Š2017 by their respective authors. All rights reserved. No work from this magazine may be excerpted or reprinted without permission from the authors. Learn more about INK magazine at sva-ink.tumblr.com. For more information about SVA’s cartooning program, visit SVA.edu. Special thanks to Thomas Woodruff, Carolyn Hinkson-Jenkins, Jeffrey Nesin, and Jason Little.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Steph Szulborski Juliet Goodman Annette Fanzhu Iliana Jimenez
cover & contents 2 - 11 12 - 16 17
Alex Alavi
18 - 19
Nicole Rodriguez
20 - 24
Rich Veca
25 - 31
Alexandra Garcia
32 - 34
Adam Paprota
36 - 42
Interview with Leslie Hung
43 - 52
Make Wen
53 - 57
Bon Jeong
58 - 61
David Santarelli
62 - 64
Roxanne Mustard
65 - 69
Daniel Montenegro
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Grecia Vidal
71 - 74
Kaelin Warde
75 - 79
Steph Szulborski
bios & back cover
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An Interview With
LESLIE HUNG We were excited to talk to Leslie Hung via Skype from her apartment in Los Angeles. Leslie collaborates with Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim) on the comic book series Snotgirl. JASON: Did you go to art school? LESLIE: I feel like I wouldn’t know what I would have done if I didn’t go to art school. Or, like, how my attitude toward art or cartooning would have changed if I hadn’t gone. I think overall it was a good experience to have. I don’t know if I got what I wanted out of it. I don’t think I got what I wanted out of it when I went, but I do think that it was very important for who I became as a person, and as an artist.
ing a bunch of people in LA, because I grew up in LA, and I continued to live in LA. There were a lot of people that were in animation and comics. Getting to know the scene a bit more helped, like I figured out that I was interested in doing comics, and so I ended up going to a few comics shows, and that’s kind of how it all started. That’s how I started making my own minicomics and my comics, and developing my style as it is now.
SAMMY: Mm-hm, that makes sense. So I guess this is kind of related to that… how did you get from being a student to where you are now? Because you said you didn’t study cartooning at art school.
SAMMY: Cool! So…what advice do you have for graduates trying to make it in the art industry?
LESLIE: I went to Art Center in Pasadena for animation basically, and when I finished school I didn’t end up getting a job in animation. So I ended up doing another part-time job where I was doing design work for a mannequin company. And while I was doing that I was meet-
LESLIE: I guess it depends on what you want to do. I think that it’s important to keep on making art, and get your work out there. I feel like it’s hard because 43
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so many people’s trajectories are very different, and I feel like there’s no one way to do anything. But I do think that one of the main things that is very important now is just to produce work that you enjoy making. Something you may be comfortable doing full time. And just keep on doing it, and get your name out there, go to shows. If you want to be a cartoonist, obviously go to shows and talk to people, and keep on making comics. It’s like… the “long haul”, you have to keep on doing it until something happens. And for some people it happens really fast, and for some people it might never happen. Your mileage may vary. SAMMY: This is a similar question…I was wondering how you make professional connections and network. Do you think it depends on where you live? Or is it possible to make connections if you’re not in California or around the area where all of your industry is?
JASON: I have a follow-up question… what you said about Art Center and your feelings about it are complex…I had a similar experience when I went to school, and I feel like in a way I wasn’t really ready for the school that I went to. Do you feel like that was the case with you, like you weren’t ready for Art Center? Or maybe it wasn’t really the perfect match for your needs?
LESLIE: I do think your location is important. It makes it a lot easier to be able to talk to people. So I feel like growing up going to comics shows and conventions and those sort of things helped me. Just because they’re able to put a face to my name. I’ve known a lot of people that were not in metropolitan areas, and they ended up moving or relocating just so that it would be easier for them. It’s not necessary for everyone, I think, but it’s hard for me to be, like, “it doesn’t matter where you’re from” because I haven’t had that experience.
LESLIE: I kind of feel that all I knew was that I liked art, and for me that wasn’t enough to know what I wanted to do and have a clear path. Which I feel like is really important when you go to art school, just because your time is so limited, and you have to figure out a lot 45
of things as you go. So I do think that time is a factor. I wish I had waited a bit a longer, or maybe figured out more things, or wasn’t so wishy-washy about certain things. And I think that would’ve helped a lot. I think a lot of people don’t give themselves time to figure this stuff out. Basically, I feel like for me it was a combination of being straight out of high school and my main interest of wanting to be an artist. Now that I think about it, I feel like that was the main problem I had—I wasn’t able to commit to any one thing. Even when I was 18 years old, if I had someone tell me that I would have to go into comics I would be really anxious about it, just because I wouldn’t want to tie myself down. I have a very different mentality towards it now. I knew a lot of people who were just out of high school or had been working for a few years, and I don’t know if they have the 46
same careers now that they would have wanted from just going to art school. Being a bit older and having some more time...can help you figure out if it’s the right thing for you. If you know what you want to do right from the get-go, then those people are going to thrive. JASON: Makes sense. SAMMY: Do you have a job other than working on Snotgirl or is that what you do primarily? LESLIE: I do Snotgirl fulltime now. I did have a part-time job when we were first talking about pitching it, but after it became a real thing, that’s when I decided to do comics full-time. SAMMY: On the topic of Snotgirl, what materials do you actually use to work on it? Like do you use ink on paper or is it
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digital—how do you work on it?
deadline is—which is usually pretty tight—so if I’m running behind I usually will have to be scanning and inking at the same time, and the letterer will have to be working at the same time as I am. Usually I would prefer to just send everything out and then send my notes to my colorist after the fact rather than work on that while I’m inking…but that’s just because I can’t multitask!
LESLIE: I do digital pencils, but I do thumbs on paper first, then I’ll pencil the basic panels in Clip Studio. Then I will print those out and lightbox them, redraw the panels, and ink with a nib or brush. SAMMY: Okay, cool. And then do you send that on to be colored and lettered by other people?
[Everyone laughs]
LESLIE: Yeah, I send it to the flatter who then sends it to my colorist. I think what has been happening lately is that the letterer will work on the roughs that I have already, and then just drop it into the files later. SAMMY: Oh okay. So do you work on things at the same time? So it’s not really like an assembly line, but you’re kind of doing it all together? LESLIE: It depends on how tight my 48
SAMMY: So you said that you send notes to your colorist. Does that mean that you’re the one making the decisions for all the colors and they interpret what you say? LESLIE: Yeah, I usually have a pretty clear idea of what I want a certain scene to look like in terms of color language and color stories—it’s a pretty important thing—and we’ll go back and forth maybe one or two times on most of the pages. Then that’s the final thing, after
I’ve approved everything and we’re happy with the colors. It just goes to print after that.
minute, but that’s how we’ve found it to work best for us. JASON: That sounds neat. It’s a more organic collaborative situation than you’d get with a typical monthly book.
SAMMY: Okay. Do you have any future story plans or projects in mind? LESLIE: I think I’ll be working on Snotgirl for probably a couple of years, but maybe after that I’d want to try doing a graphic novel, but we’ll see. That’s mostly just my pipe dream.
LESLIE: Yeah, we’re very close friends so I feel like we end up talking and tweaking things regardless of whether we want to or not. It just became more convenient for that to be the process rather than being really rigid about sticking to the script. I feel like a scene’s format might sound good on paper but in a comic it might not fit, so we shuffle things around. You make decisions kind
JASON: Would this be something that you would write as well as draw? LESLIE: Yeah, I want to back into writing more—just because I feel like I haven’t done it as much and I definitely feel like it’s something that you need to keep working on, otherwise you’re going to lose it. JASON: Does Bryan write a full script? LESLIE: He writes the script. We work a little bit differently than a lot of other monthly comics collaborators, they work a bit more streamlined. We’re more hands on, and we go back in and change a lot of things all the time. So he’ll write an outline, and we’ll talk about the outline, and then he’ll write the script. Sometimes I’ll play with the wording of what certain characters say in the roughs, and then it goes back to him. Then he looks over all the drawings and layouts and everything and then re-writes it. It’s a bit more involved and the re-writes happen basically at the last
of as you go, because it’ll help the comic read better, help the panels flow better, and the story overall will have a bit more clarity that way. JIWON: Is there any other creative medium that you want to pursue but haven’t yet?
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LESLIE: I think for now I’m pretty happy with working in comics. Before, I never really considered it [comics], just because it seemed like something I wouldn’t be able to do for some reason. I don’t know why I thought that. It was just kind of like a preconceived mentality I had, just because I was a huge fan of comics as a kid but it just seemed so out of my wheelhouse and I just never tried. But once I started to draw and make my own comics I felt like it was a really satisfying medium for me to work in, and so far I haven’t gotten sick of it. There’s so much for me to still learn, so I haven’t spent too much time thinking about what other things I’d want to pursue. I feel like I still haven’t found my footing with comics yet and it’s still something very exciting and new to me in a lot of ways. I’m learning a lot just by drawing comics and doing so many different types of things that I never really thought I was doing before. JIWON: Would you have any advice for students on how to be more creative? LESLIE: [Laughs] Um…Well I think one of the things that has helped me a lot is… I’ve gotten a lot less shy about showing my friends or people that I’m working with what I’m working on, whether it’s writing, a rough layout, or even finished work. Sometimes they’ll have a lot of insight, and they’re working so closely when you’re making a comic that—it’s hard not to get tunnel vision—so when new fresh eyes see the same things you’re seeing they might have different 50
insight. Whether or not you take that into account, is up to you. But I do think it kind of forces you to think in different ways, and being able to take that sort of input or criticism is very helpful, and it can push you in a lot of ways. You might have blind spots towards your own ability, so having other people giving you feedback is very helpful. Not necessarily criticizing you all the time, but I do think that healthy criticism is a good thing. Not surrounding yourself with yes-men or not showing anybody your work because you’re really self-conscious or shy is a huge detriment to growing creatively. JASON: Yeah. I feel like the times where I’ve been living and working in a vacuum, and not really communicating with anyone, have just been depressing. LESLIE: Yeah, and it’s really hard not to do that because sometimes you just get into your own head and a lot of artists are very introverted. But once you start letting yourself be more open to other people’s viewpoints, whether or not you take them to your final product, it will help you to shift the way you think about certain things. It just opens up your art to a lot of possibilities. For me, I used to have a very rigid way of thinking because I wasn’t thinking about other factors. Just to have different types of constraints has helped me to open the way I think about things. The way I panel, the way I tell stories. It’s just been really helpful.
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JASON: Do you feel like there have been any professional breakthroughs from in-person meetings? Just to use my own experience, when I was much younger I went to shows, and showed my portfolio. I kind of felt like a beggar, begging for scraps from the pros, and it hurt my pride. So I just interacted with people through mail back then. But do you think you’ve had good experiences from in-person networking? LESLIE: Um, I have not had good experiences with portfolio type stuff. Going to a show specifically for a portfolio review hasn’t worked out for me personally. I don’t know a lot of people that will get work from shows like that. I feel like it’s a bit different for cartoonists because it’s a much more casual industry, if that makes sense. It’s less about the fact that you’re this special person who has this actual portfolio book. It’s more about the actual comics you are making and you yourself as a person. It does make a huge difference when you have confidence in your work when you meet people, and I found out that I’ve gotten a lot more jobs because of that. Or I would talk to people through a platform like twitter and eventually meet them in person. That’s how I met Bryan actually. I was able to meet a lot of people and talk to them, and just be more candid. I think it’s because there are so many different ways that you can make a comic. You can make web comics, indie comics, or DC comics, but they’re all coming from the same place, and you would meet people in the same 52
ways. I think the most important thing, especially if you’re a cartoonist, is just to make work that you want to make. I feel like there’s no other way to do it, and there’s no better way to improve yours skills, or show what you can do, other than if you’re actually drawing a ton, and making as many comics as you possibly can. I think that’s just the only way. And people ask me like, ‘How do you become a comic artist?’ and it’s just that you have to like…it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways, like you just kind of just have to do it. There’s no right way to do it, there’s no portfolio piece you can have that will definitely make everyone want to hire you. It’s kind of like your body of work will help you more than anything. SAMMY: Do you think having your work posted online and talking to people online like on Twitter, is that like the modern version of showing people your portfolio in person? LESLIE: I think so, in certain ways. I feel like it’s slightly different, but also I feel like the work you put up, even if it’s just like a little sketch everyday, I feel like that does make an impression and it makes a difference, and…I don’t know, I won’t say that you shouldn’t ever have a portfolio, but I do think that it’s become a lot less formal and rigid for sure. Many thanks to Leslie Hung for her time and for answering all of our questions!
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Steph is a Senior Cartooning major who likes cozy sweaters, and is working on a book about dogs and why they’re great. Instagram: srsly_comical_ steph
Lizzy is a cartooning major from NYC who likes bright colors and hot dogs. Instagram: lizzyisanonion
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Sammy is an illustrator and writer with a passion for eating wontons and sitting on the couch
hamotzi.tumblr.com
Jiwon is a Junior Cartooning major at SVA. She is a lover of plants and a constant traveler. Instagram: @kim_ji1
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