We interviewed lots of comics creators at Boston Comic Con this year, including several independent artists creating exciting work that should have more eyes on it. Anne Szabla, creator of Bird Boy, still works her day job and crafts striking artwork at night after working long hours. We interviewed her about the process of indie creation and her long-term dream of making comics her full-time gig.
Here’s the transcript for the video.
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My name is Anne Szabla, and I’ve been working on a comic called Bird Boy for the last five years now. It is going to be published next year. It is about a little boy who lives in a tribe of very big people, and so to prove himself, he goes into the super-big forest and meets with all of these gods and beast and crazy creatures, and has all sorts of crazy adventures.
My typical day is, I go to work, and I get really frustrated that I’m not working on my comic! Then I come home full of all sorts of energy to make the comic, and then I just go at it with a crazy fury until two in the morning.
My dream project would probably be to keep working on Bird Boy just as long as I can. Just, as my day job, which has always been the hope. Hopefully, someday I’ll get there.
You can get a hundred good reviews and you’re like, “oh! That’s really cool!” But if you get that one bad review, you’re like, “oh, my day is ruined.” It doesn’t matter how many good reviews you get along with it. I tend to — I take it into my heart, while I’m working, and I try to go, “Okay, now I’m going to prove them wrong,” by working even harder. It kind of fuels the fire.
I think we should have female characters in every way, every kind of person you could be. A female character — a hero, an anti-hero, a villain, or anything like that? There shouldn’t be any limitations on a genre for a female character to be.
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