{"id":985,"date":"2019-07-22T19:17:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T19:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/?p=985"},"modified":"2019-07-22T19:17:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T19:17:25","slug":"christiannes-comics-i-dont-generally-do-tragedies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/2019\/07\/22\/christiannes-comics-i-dont-generally-do-tragedies\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianne’s Comics: “I don’t generally do tragedies”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christianne creates self-published comics about trans people and zines about movies.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

STL SPEX (Joceline): What are your artistic influences?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For making comics, my influences are mostly American independent cartoonists of the 70s and 80s, particularly the artists of The Studio in the 70s (Bernie Wrightson and Jeffery Catherine Jones; Jones was trans and you can sometimes feel that transness in her art) and the Hernandez Brothers. You can sometimes find a smattering of Dave Sim and Gerhardt in my comics, too, but that influence had dwindled over time. Also: Moebius, Roy Crane, Alex Toth (particularly his rule: “When in doubt, make it black.”), Colleen Doran, Alison Bechdel. My old college professor, Frank Stack, though I don’t draw or write anything like him. I don’t feel much influence by Manga or Anime except at second hand through people like Becky Cloonan or Carla Speed McNeil. I’m set in my ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a kid, I wanted to draw superheroes and horror comics. As an adult, I find myself drawing weird little comedies and erotic transgender melodramas. You never can tell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I have some movie zines this year, my main influences as a film writer are people like James Agee and Greil Marcus. Not so much film writers who approach it as a consumer guide. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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STL SPEX: Who do you create for? <\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mostly create for myself, but in doing so, I create for people who are like me. Particularly transgender people. I think this is important because left to their own devices, cis people who make stories about trans people usually stumble over transition narratives and tragedies (I don’t generally do tragedies). I find this tendency morbid. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STL SPEX: What does your comic-making process look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t really understand my writing process. Most of my stories spring into my head fully formed, usually from things that have been percolating in my subconscious for a while. I don’t write formal scripts. Instead, I go straight to thumbnails, usually indicating everything with stick figures. Obviously, this is different if I’m working with a writer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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STL SPEX: What are your go-to tools for making comics?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I draw my comics on 11″ x 17″ Strathmore or Canson Bristol board. I’m thinking of scaling this size down for speed of production, though, to maybe 9″ x 12″. I used to do it on the stuff that’s already lined for comics including all the printer’s marks, but I found that those lines acted as a resist for the ink I use (I use Sumi ink) and I wound up having to correct this in the computer once I scanned the finished pages. These days, I line everything myself with a pencil. I draw with run-of-the-mill pencils and then erase them after inking. I rarely draw with blue pencils. I ink directly over the drawn pages, which is risky sometimes. I’ve had my share of catastrophic inking accidents. I ink with a #2 watercolor brush, though I sometimes use Pitt pens. I spot blacks with an old brush that’s been wrecked by ink for anything else. I generally letter digitally in Adobe Illustrator, but sometimes I letter by hand. I just eyeball that rather than using lettering guides, which are too fiddly for my tastes. I’m not respectful of panel borders when I draw word balloons. If I’m making comics in color, I’ll color them in Photoshop. I have a script to render inked pages into layers for flatting and coloring that also turns the lines into a mask if I want to color the lines, too. On a couple of occasions, I’ve painted my comics instead of drawing them in ink, usually in watercolor and gouache on a 300-lb. hot-press watercolor paper (Fabriano Artistico or Arches, depending).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I print most of my comics myself, I generally stick to black and white, though. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christianne creates self-published comics about trans people and zines about movies. STL SPEX (Joceline): What are your artistic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slicexpo.org\/stlspex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}