The latest in our plethora of video chats with comics illustrators and writers from the Boston Comic Con floor features indie comic creator Jackie Musto, who writes and illustrates Kay and P and also does the art for Lady Skylark. We spoke to her about her trajectory towards becoming a successful indie creator, and the words of encouragement she had to offer for other artists hoping to make the leap.
Read the transcript of our chat below.
***
Hi, my name’s Jackie Musto. I am the author/illustrator of Kay and P, which is a story about a girl whose best friend is a skeleton, and I am the illustrator for a steampunk comic called Lady Skylark. They both star two very awesome ladies. They are something I’ve been working on forever, and will work on for the rest of time. So, that’s pretty fun!
My daily thing is, I’ll get up, I’ll do a lot of sketching, I’ll try and get a couple of pages planned out ahead of time. I usually try to work on one issue at a time of Kay and P because it’s easier to break the story down. Then I do a little sketching in my sketchbook, and then I go straight to digital.
So, all of my work is done in Photoshop with a tablet. I do all my drawing, coloring, everything is done that way. I find it’s a really interesting process to be able to work that way, because when I was working traditionally, I used to get very scared that I was going to mess something up and waste a lot of my time. But I’ve found that digital is actually allowed me to get looser and freer, especially with color, because if I make a mistake, I can just undo it, and I haven’t wasted an entire day on something. So, that’s a lot of fun for me.
I do absolutely everything except for the writing of Lady Skylark, which is done by Chris right here behind me. He does the writing for that. We do everything ourselves: it’s written, it’s illustrated, it’s published, it’s printed—all of that stuff.
Thank goodness for my awesome readers who are so supportive, and Kickstarter, which has allowed me to actually print these books. Because printing in color when you’re doing it by yourself is a very expensive process. So, because I do everything ahead of time, I actually release it as a webcomic first, and then when there’s enough of it, we print it. So, when I go to print on Kickstarter, it’s kind of like a guarantee. It’s not like you’re going to have to wait three years and then maybe see a book; it’s done, it’ll get printed, and then get sent to you. It’s almost like pre-ordering the book, which is really cool.
If you have a story that you want to tell, I would say: tell it. And worry about finding an audience as you go. Kay and P started as a funny idea that I would talk with people about, like: “Oh, what about a girl whose best friend was a skeleton, but no one sees the skeleton, so is she kind of crazy and seeing stuff? Or is there something else going on?” And I just started doing a couple of pages at a time, and then people would say: “When’s the next one coming out? When’s the next one coming out? When’s the next one coming out?” So, it became a webcomic, and then the webcomics became a book.
So, if you’ve got a story that you have to tell, that you’re passionate about, just do it. Just do it, and then people will find you, which is really nice. But the only thing I would say—do as I say, not as I do—start with a shorter story. [laughs] Not like, y’know, a 60-issue epic. You’re married to it, and you love it, but God help you, it’s going to take you a long time to get through all that. So start with something short, like 8 or 12 pages. And then, when you have something finished, you can take it to people and show it to them.
If you ever want to talk to another female artist, call us! We love hearing from you. We love talking to you. We’re very cool about that. It’s not gonna be like, “Oh, it’s another girl. Eugh, get out of here.” We love talking to other people who are going through the same thing that we are. So please feel free to contact me, contact anybody—we love it. We love it!
***
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
