How I Write my Comics (Patreon)

Here’s a peek at what my note-taking/ idea generation looks like! I know a lot of artists are super visual with their development but honestly the drawing part is what comes the least naturally to me!!

I use Google Keep to jot down ideas. I like it because I can have it on my iPad, on my Android phone and on my PC and it all syncs up immediately so I never have to worry about having ideas written in different places or forgetting my notebook etc.

My comics are pretty much always about feelings. If I’m feeling a certain way, I like to try and think things like ‘why do I feel this way’, ‘why do I ACTUALLY feel this way’ and ‘what can I learn from this experience’. I tend to jot things down when I’m in the thick of an emotion and then dial it back afterwards.

When I started doing my autobio comics on Instagram, I think I was going for a dark humour kind of vibe but lately I want to make comics that are deeper and resonate more with other people but also with myself.

Most of my ideas are like wow honey it’s not that deep lmao but idk if an emotion feels real to me then I think it’s worthy of documenting, Especially if other people feel seen when they read my comics.

Most of my comics are about mental illness in some way, whether it’s depression, anxiety or PTSD which are my specific struggles. It’s my aim to basically be as candid as possible when it comes to creating autobio work. Sometimes that means making a joke out of my condition, sometimes it means being really serious but the thing that I definitely want to avoid is making mental illnesses seem only cute and funny, because the truth is that they’re messy, life-altering conditions. Self deprecating memes are only so useful so my aim is to make work that is a bit more true to my experience.

Sorry if that all sounds really pretentious!! I’m probably overthinking it by trying to explain it haha so I guess I’m just going to keep doing my thing!!