{"id":993,"date":"2022-09-02T15:07:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/?p=993"},"modified":"2022-09-02T16:31:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T16:31:18","slug":"two-sketchbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/two-sketchbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Sketchbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Today, I’m thrilled to present a conversation with prolific cartoonist and illustrator Rebecca Mock<\/a>, hot off the heels of their recent Eisner win for\u00a0Salt Magic<\/i><\/a> – and even hotter on the heels of their upcoming graphic novella with Bulgilhan Press<\/a>, Die Horny!<\/i><\/a>\u00a0Does that work? Let’s say it works!!<\/p>

Grab your favorite beverage, settle into a cozy nook, and join us as we discuss magnet art school experiences, self-judgment, letting loose… and one very special\u00a0Sonic the Hedgehog<\/a><\/i>\u00a0fan forum. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This interview touches on adult topics and imagery, and has been lightly edited for brevity. ^_^<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hi! First, who are you?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Hello, I am Rebecca Mock, a comic book artist and known nerd.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Thank you for coming! It is such a pleasure to speak with you. I desperately wanted to ask you about all the wonderful things you sent, so I\u2019ll start off with bishonen Shadow. Please tell me everything.<\/span><\/p>

It\u2019s October 2003. I kept all of my sketches from middle school and high school in this giant sketchbook, and so I would cut out the pieces of paper I drew them on and tape them in chronological order into this sketchbook. And I have it. This is it.<\/p>

(They pull out The Sketchbook. It is enormous.)<\/i><\/p>

There\u2019s a Lisa Frank folder addendum with more. This is mostly comics, including a Sonic comic.<\/p>

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A pencil drawing of Shadow the Hedgehog as a human, circa October 2003. He is gorgeous.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Oh my goodness. That is incredible. You were prolific.<\/span><\/p>

I went to an art school and we weren\u2019t allowed to put cartoony or anime stuff in our school sketchbooks, but we were required to keep sketchbooks and draw constantly for school, so I was just used to it. You were encouraged to draw in your other classes – it was great for that. I couldn\u2019t process things unless I was drawing at the same time. So, wonderful education setup, but a lot of what I was drawing in my classes was not art stuff, it was anime. Constantly.<\/p>

It was great cartooning practice, motivating to work on anatomy and storytelling and all this good stuff, and there was a period of time in high school when a really good friend of mine was into Sonic and sort of dragged me in. She was really into furry art and I also loved furry art and had a fursona with her, but also she was really into drawing Sonic characters in canon, and my thing was that I could draw really realistic anatomically correct people because of school. So I would turn lots of characters into basically bishonen and bishojo, just make them hot. And so, the whole Sonic cast, there\u2019s versions of them as cute anime characters.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Including Shadow.<\/span><\/p>

Including Shadow! I would draw him in a black sleeveless turtleneck, and I gave him demon wings and stripey hair and those big goth Hot Topic boots.<\/p>

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They were very of the time. Was there anything else that was inspiring you in this direction? Like, the wings make me think a little of\u00a0<\/span>DN Angel<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Oh, I didn\u2019t actually watch or read DN Angel,<\/i> I was aware of it, but there were a lot of anime with demon aesthetics.\u00a0Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle<\/i><\/a>\u00a0started coming out in the middle of high school and I got absolutely obsessed. And\u00a0Wish<\/i><\/a>,<\/i> CLAMP\u2019s angel and demon\u00a0<\/i>Jojo\u2019s Bizarre Adventure<\/i><\/a>\u00a0fancomic that turned into its own comic.<\/p>

With the egg!<\/b><\/p>

With the egg! And the chibi versions. And all of the sexual tension that never got resolved and that was what was so nice about it. I was obsessed with giving all the characters angel or demon wings.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A masterpiece!! I would have taped this to my wall in a place of honor!!!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I feel that so deeply, just something about that period specifically, you\u2019ve gotta give them wings.<\/b><\/p>

And fairy wings. They all need to have wings. The specifically furry characters I had with my friends were cat furries, but they had different wings based on what secondary animal they were based on. We all had dragon forms, so one of them had dragon wings and mine had fairy wings and she turned into a fairy dragon, but they were also cat people, so they were cat dragons. And nothing is better than that. Nothing is smarter than that.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Truly. We\u2019re gonna make up this cool story, we all have personas – I assume you drew a lot of art. Did you have any comics, did you have any collaborative stuff going on? How did you express those stories?<\/b><\/p>

This is going back to middle school, sixth grade. It was this OC world we both drew fanart for. And I think the idea was that it was gonna be a comic, the way people say that, but it was an excuse to draw your characters. I was just a character in her story, so I was drawing fanart for her, essentially.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

That\u2019s so fun! You got into fanart pretty young.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, sixth grade was when it happened. I met Sara, we sat down in the 200 building on the way to class, and she was like, have you heard of this thing called anime? I love\u00a0<\/span>Pokemon!<\/i><\/a>\u00a0Let\u2019s talk more about it.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

So Sara was also your gateway into anime.<\/span><\/p>

Yes. She was the one who first explained what it was and how to pronounce it. And she handed me a Pokemon<\/span> manga. Pokemon<\/span> had just come out, remember? It started airing, and that was when everyone learned what anime was.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Yeah, it was that cartoon you watched before you knew about anime. And then your eyes opened.<\/span><\/p>

I was ruined for life.<\/p>

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An important character study.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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You mentioned that you went to middle and high school for art. Did you have to apply?<\/b><\/p>

Yes. You had to audition. I auditioned for theater and art, and I 100% did not get into theater. I tried my best.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

So you were really into creative stuff in general.<\/b><\/p>

I was very nurtured in the arts, thankfully, by wonderful parents. I had a lot of art lessons and art summer camps and after-school dance and all that stuff. I think we were of a generation where if you were of a certain class, parents were like, okay, the thing to do is to sign your kid up for nineteen things.<\/p>

Art was the one that I liked the best.<\/p>

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What kind of art were you into, at the start?<\/b><\/p>

Going into middle school, pre-corruption – I was already into comics! I was drawing comics and fairies. I was really into\u00a0Archie comics<\/a>, I would voraciously read the little digests you got at the grocery store, and Sunday comic strips.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Were you taking that into your own practice? Were you drawing a lot of comics?<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, I think comics as a form encourages you to give back, right? You see it and it feels so easy to digest and you feel like, I, as a human, am capable of doing this.<\/i> It\u2019s super-accessible, so obviously the first thing I was doing in terms of art was trying to draw characters and giving them word bubbles, and trying to draw stories that didn\u2019t last very long, they were a couple of pages, but I was already the kid in class who wouldn\u2019t stop drawing.<\/p>

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And then you got to a school that encouraged that.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, that was a big draw for the school. This environment where they would encourage you to pursue your artistic interests.<\/p>

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I feel like a big memory for me of that period of time was trying to find people who were also into what I was into. What was that like for you, at a school where everybody had a similar goal?<\/b><\/p>

It was definitely very different from the experience of people who wouldn\u2019t have gone to that kind of school. There was a distinct change in sixth grade where suddenly I was in art class every single day, and the social environment was, you walk around and look at everybody\u2019s sketchbooks and everybody is the kid in class who likes to draw, right? You\u2019re not special any more. That\u2019s the first reaction.<\/p>

And the second is, you immediately start putting a hierarchy to it. There\u2019s someone in class who\u2019s the best drawer of all of the drawers. I think the first thing I remember is, you would see someone\u2019s really good drawing and be like, ugh, I hate you! Ugh, that\u2019s so good!<\/i> That was how we would express our love for each other. That was what you said to everyone, that was how you gained respect, is that people would be angry at you because you were so talented. There was a friendly competitiveness to it. In class, you also quickly found out who was into cartoons, because they would draw them in their sketchbooks. Before the teachers could stop them and say, no, keep that separate.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

You mentioned that! Like, cartoons and anime were kind of like, don\u2019t do that.<\/b><\/p>

Middle school was a little okay, but definitely by high school they told you to separate it. By high school, immediately in freshman year, they were already gearing you up to apply to art school and start getting you on that path.<\/p>

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And at the time, that was a no-no.<\/b><\/p>

Very much. These were older teachers, they\u2019d been doing this for decades. To them, this influx of Japanese animation was like, corrupting the way that kids learned to draw. It leaves its mark on your style. I feel like it\u2019s impossible not to tell. But that was a big thing for me in high school, was faking a style and making it so that teachers couldn\u2019t tell. I had this fake art.<\/p>

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\u00a0Do you feel like that affected how you draw today?<\/b><\/p>

I still think about it. There\u2019s a self-judgment loop that happens. This is too anime, right? Even now as a comic book artist, in a culture where we literally all are obsessed with anime. You wanna be the person who – you don\u2019t want your art to feel like it\u2019s chained to that, or like you\u2019re only drawing from that, even though there\u2019s nothing wrong with it.<\/p>

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Exactly. It does feel like this weird separation, where if somebody\u2019s really into cape comics, nobody\u2019s like, stop drawing too much like Jim Lee.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, although I think I would personally judge them. If you\u2019re gonna ape someone else\u2019s style, ape a good style. Sorry. Jim Lee\u2019s very good. I just mean, western comics as a whole is not good comics to me. The pacing and everything doesn\u2019t work. Smarter things are being done in Sunday strips than cape comics.<\/p>

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It\u2019s hard to get a breather sometimes.<\/b><\/p>

That\u2019s me being very biased. We have the safety to do that now, because our industry has been irreparably changed in our favor.<\/p>

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I love it so much, that there are so many different venues somebody can go down now. It isn\u2019t just, you gotta do this one thing.<\/b><\/p>

There\u2019s a safe lane for everybody. And I feel like there\u2019s an encouragement to mix styles, and remix them, and do something that homages a lot of different artists all at the same time.<\/p>

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Exactly. I feel like it\u2019s definitely way different from when Tokyopop first started putting out OEL manga and everyone seemed a little bit judgy about it.<\/b><\/p>

So judgy! Everybody was so judgy! Oh, you do manga?<\/i><\/p>

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You mentioned homages, so I\u2019m just gonna jump ahead in your life a little bit to Die Horny, <\/i>your most recent comic,\u00a0<\/b>available for preorder now.<\/b><\/a>\u00a0You describe it as a comic for fans of Power Rangers,<\/i> 90\u2019s anime, and being open-minded, smiley face. So, first of all, I definitely feel like this is the kind of mashup-homage you were describing. It\u2019s so much fun to read.<\/b><\/p>

It\u2019s definitely the truest callback to my earliest influences that I have ever done as a comic, as an original comic. It\u2019s a love letter to things that really strongly influenced me and started me down this path.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The cover for Die Horny, available for preorder now!!!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I love that so much. Was there a spark that kind of had you going, man, this is the comic I have to make right now?<\/i><\/b><\/p>

It started as a short story that was essentially fanfiction for some specific Power Rangers<\/i> characters. The 17th series,\u00a0RPM<\/a>, was a game-changer for Power Rangers.<\/i> It was meta, it was self-referential, it was trying to be something new and different and create this darker, grittier story with more fleshed out characters – it really focused on the characters and not just the fights. It was a love letter to Power Rangers <\/i>that was not just for kids, it was also for fans. It made fun of itself, it was well-paced, the characters were so good and I was obsessed with it.<\/p>

There was this shrimpy guy who was the Green Ranger in that series, the guy who\u2019s not supposed to be a Power Ranger. He\u2019s a con artist, an ex-con, slimy, pervy, in this kids\u2019 show. He becomes one of the Power Rangers and they accept him over time – he becomes the heart of the team and it\u2019s really sweet. His story is really great. And then there\u2019s this villainess character. She\u2019s a human, but she\u2019s a cyborg. They have a dynamic – it wasn\u2019t my favorite dynamic, but I liked the idea of this character who\u2019s a hero but also a slime. A classic anime stereotype which reminded me not just of Power Rangers<\/i>, but all these anime tropes, right?<\/p>

And then this dangerous woman, this evil villainess, which is a hallmark of Power Rangers<\/i>. Every Power Rangers <\/i>series has a sexy villain. She\u2019s dangerous and she can kill you and they meet. And I wanted this alternate universe where they met first, before the Green Ranger became a Power Ranger. That\u2019s where it started. The story of how they met and everything is very different, but I wanted to also tell a story about a world where everything keeps getting worse. You don\u2019t think about it, because thinking about it is too much. It\u2019s too much existential dread. So you go about your day, even if there are giant robots and aliens destroying your city, you still go to work, right? I was writing about that feeling. I wanted it to be in the context of this character trying to survive who meets this dangerous character who\u2019s also just trying to survive, and they form a bond. It became Die Horny,<\/i> which is something very different.<\/p>

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But the underpinnings are definitely still there. I genuinely love that, there is that gentle bleakness that is underneath so much energy and fun. The two go together.<\/b><\/p>

Exactly. You gotta put them together. You gotta have fun with it.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Look! Look at it!!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In your development notes, you describe that character Iggy Bone as an archetypical perverted anime protagonist, and you cited<\/b> Vash the Stampede<\/b><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/b>Golden Boy<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/a>as inspiration. First of all, yes.<\/b><\/p>

Do you remember the OAV, him just biking? Biking with a boner? Ready to die for the next beautiful woman.<\/p>

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I doooooo! He was so upbeat, I genuinely had feelings.<\/b><\/p>

Yes! It was gorgeous!<\/p>

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What excited you about approaching that kind of character? What about them did you want to make sure you captured in Iggy himself?<\/b><\/p>

This character is horny. And it concerns everyone else. He\u2019s horny for something that is not good. So he\u2019s horny for dying. That\u2019s the joke. But I wanted to create that feeling that I get all the time, where I can\u2019t talk about my interests. Like this! Like all of this crazy nerdy stuff. I\u2019ve had that feeling since middle school. Even in an art school environment, you\u2019re still sort of like, you like furries?<\/i> You enjoy <\/i>Pokemon unironically as a freshman in high school, what\u2019s wrong with you?\u00a0<\/i>From teachers as well – you have to keep this separate. We don\u2019t want to see these horny, booby women that you like to draw, right? It\u2019s serious art from you.<\/p>

That\u2019s where it comes from. The core of the idea isn\u2019t just sex, isn\u2019t just this horny character, it\u2019s this feeling of knowing in yourself that you love something and everyone else is being really weirded out by it. I feel like anime captures that absurdity, especially classic anime, the stuff that we grew up with – the Pioneer anime like\u00a0Tenchi Muyo<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and Trigun.<\/i><\/p>

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They really super duper do. I don\u2019t know if it was the – they were really earnest about it?<\/b><\/p>

Yes. Earnest! I feel like there\u2019s something gratuitous, almost ashamed.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

They\u2019re winking at you like, we<\/i> know, you<\/i> know, but let\u2019s do it.<\/b><\/p>

We\u2019re all trash, but let\u2019s lovingly – lovingly<\/i> – animate some jiggling boobs.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Especially when it\u2019s animated. You know they had to spend so much time on it.<\/b><\/p>

The education. The level of artistry put into these shows. As an art student, as a thirteen-year-old who was already obsessed with art, who knew the history and could recognize how artistically grand these shows were. Obviously this is what you would want to do as a young kid.<\/p>

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The craft and the fun together at last.<\/b><\/p>

The immediacy of the emotional response, right? It\u2019s not just kids’ media, these are cartoons that are being made for adults.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

And you got a viewpoint into that world pretty early. So it seems like that really stuck with you. Even now, you\u2019re communicating with your past self.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, I\u2019m reaching back into the past and saying, that thing you wanted to do 20 years ago now, I\u2019m finally doing it and drawing a horny, horny comic that you would like to read.<\/p>

And I\u2019m glad to have finally closed the circle and I\u2019m excited to see how other people respond to it. Because it is, more than anything else I\u2019ve done, very much for myself and the process of drawing it was sort of me holding my head like this at my desk like, what am I doing? This is so stupid!<\/i> All of the little panels of Iggy just being like, bhhh,<\/i> big Tex Avery eyes, the overdramatization of stuff.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

That was the stuff that kept blowing me away, though. You can\u2019t not laugh.<\/b><\/p>

I think the end goal was to make myself laugh, so!<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

I love that. You mentioned that you feel like this has been the most you\u2019ve put yourself into something. I\u2019m kind of thinking it feels like you\u2019ve been working up to this for a while.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Over the past few years, it seems like you\u2019ve started delving more into these really complex, gorgeous fanworks, and I was wondering what started bringing you to that point, where you were like, this is something that I’m really excited about, that I want to put myself into?\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>

I\u2019ve thought about this – I drew\u00a0Salt Magic<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and it came out and it took years. It was, itself, a goal that I was fulfilling. I was trying to create a book that was beautiful and artistically grand, something that could be timeless that you could be impressed with twenty years down the line, that I could still be proud of. And I achieved that goal and I\u2019m proud of it.<\/p>

But when I was done, first I felt this fear that I could never draw something like that again, because it took so much out of me, and it was based on this beautiful story that\u00a0Hope<\/a>\u00a0wrote. So I was like, what am I going to do next?<\/i><\/p>

I came to this conclusion that the next thing I wanted to do was something super different. Why try to go forward with this style that\u2019s really overwrought for a specific thing? Why not do something different, freeing, for myself? Quick, I guess. In that way, it was letting go of a pretension – that my comics had to be this pinnacle of something, the very best I could do. Die Horny<\/i> is also an exercise in letting things be imperfect and letting things be loose and silly.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Salt Magic, timeless Eisner winner, available for purchase at fine bookstores everywhere.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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So you feel like you had this expectation of yourself that you were starting to recognize, as you closed out Salt Magic.<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Yeah. I\u2019m proud of the perfection that I held myself to for the book, because it became exactly what I wanted it to, but that was also imprisoning in its own way.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

That\u2019s a lot of pressure, especially for something that you\u2019re not gonna see the finished result of for a very long time.<\/b><\/p>

I started writing Die Horny<\/i> before Salt Magic<\/i> was even at the printers.\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Oh wow, so it was in progress for a while.<\/b><\/p>

Oh yeah! I think I started writing it in 2020, early 2021.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0So was it kind of an escape for you?<\/b><\/p>

It definitely started that way. It was like, freewriting – what do I want to write about?<\/i> Power Rangers fanfiction, that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do! <\/i>I like these characters, I\u2019m going to keep thinking about them.<\/p>

Iggy was the first design, and he was basically, what do I want to draw? I wanna draw something really anime! A horny anime boy and nothing is going to stop me.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

I want to go back a little bit. You mentioned that Die Horny<\/i> originally began with this bleak underpinning. I was going through some of your old interviews, and when you talked to\u00a0<\/b>Creative Boom<\/b><\/a>, you mentioned that you consider a lot of your work to be about tension and anxiety. This also felt true while I was reading your\u00a0<\/b>Promare<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0fancomic,\u00a0<\/b>Ashes<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>

I\u2019m so proud of Ashes<\/i>. I did it while I was on a break from Salt Magic<\/i>. I stopped, said I can\u2019t do this right now, and I wrote and drew a seventy-page fancomic for an anime where I let myself do all the things I told myself I wasn\u2019t allowed to do with Salt Magic.<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Is this a perfection thing, or were there other things you were thinking about too?<\/b><\/p>

It\u2019s more a style thing. But it was a bit of that – Ashes<\/i> was incredibly loose, very simple, especially in certain pages. I remember just drawing little thick line, simple characters. But it\u2019s also super hyper manga style. The layouts – totally open, everything bleeds off the edge of the page. Salt Magic<\/i> was very regimented, just because you\u2019re doing 200 pages, you need a system.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Absolutely gorgeous! Gahhhh!!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Absolutely. But I feel like Ashes<\/i> got to be very expressive in a different way because of that.<\/b><\/p>

Emotional. It\u2019s very flowy, like a music video. It\u2019s very fast, it cuts through different scenes, it\u2019s about the emotions – there\u2019s lots of dream sequences and erotic fantasies. The climax is the two characters having sex in front of a burning building.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

As one does.<\/b><\/p>

Because it\u2019s a metaphor. Also because it\u2019s hot. Literally and figuratively – I used metaphors for fire to the point of absurdity.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

But that’s what Promare<\/i> was, right?<\/b><\/p>

Exactly! They gave you permission.\u00a0Trigger<\/a>\u00a0said, we\u2019re going to do something incredibly cliche and corny and go ham with it, and let certain scenes just be really badly animated because we\u2019re just trying to get to the end.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

On that note – you mentioned in your author\u2019s note that you originally didn\u2019t like that optimism, but turned around on it.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, it was a real flip. I went and saw it in theaters. It was a fun experience. I was with people, we all cheered at the kiss.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Yes.<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Of course. But in the end, it was a simple story. It left a lot of things unexplored. And that\u2019s part of what Ashes<\/i> was, exploring the sociopolitical ramifications of what happened – in a fun way, not getting too deep, but saying these people have complex relationships that aren\u2019t all going to be fixed at the end.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

And I feel like that\u2019s something you kind of did with Die Horny<\/i>, too, where you\u2019re like, hang on, these people are sad, let\u2019s talk about it and be horny about it.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah. It\u2019s a story about after the Power Rangers<\/i> basically stop fighting, the thing that\u2019s kind of unsaid is that this is a Power Rangers<\/i> story about the villains. The Power Rangers have disappeared, they aren\u2019t around, the world is kind of fucked up. And maybe they\u2019re not the greatest heroes, and it\u2019s less about good versus evil and more about taking care of each other. I guess \u2013 unfortunately, I can\u2019t not work that kind of thing in.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Do you feel like using fanworks and your own fan experiences is a way to help you process complicated feelings? What is it about this kind of work that lets you do that?<\/b><\/p>

I love that. I think that\u2019s a beautiful way of stating it. I\u2019ve always felt that fandom is an important part of me, and I think it\u2019s a very powerful way of processing things and finding solace and happiness when everything else feels bleak. A way of connecting with people.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

That\u2019s the way to put it, isn\u2019t it? You can always go and find people who share that feeling with you.<\/b><\/p>

I was talking about this with a friend. Everybody\u2019s into the pirate show right now, right? Me especially. We all are. But there\u2019s two types of fans, especially with\u00a0Our Flag Means Death<\/i><\/a>, where the actors and creators are very accessible on Twitter to a worrying amount. I\u2019m in other fandoms, too. I\u2019m really into\u00a0Watcher<\/a>, the Youtube channel, the\u00a0Buzzfeed Unsolved<\/i><\/a>\u00a0boys. They\u2019re accessible on Twitter too, and part of the fandom is about being able to touch these creators and have this parasocial relationship with them in a way that – listen, I won\u2019t judge it, because if it makes you happy, do it.<\/p>

For me, it\u2019s not about that. I don\u2019t want a relationship with these creators, I want a relationship with everyone else. With all these other people who are obsessed to the point of mania about a thing. It\u2019s the energy that you want. Like when you go to your first comic convention and walk into the big hall and everybody there is you. The feeling of finally being in a space where everybody is the same.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Right, the groundwork has already been laid. You don\u2019t have to be like, hey, so about this thing – you can start from there.<\/b><\/p>

You don\u2019t have to do this weird, steps.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

The little dance.<\/b><\/p>

You introduce yourself to a normie and break down the walls. What are you into? What do you do? What do you do at night?<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Are you on the YouTube?<\/b><\/p>

Which YouTubers are you obsessed with, which manga have you reread recently, who are you!<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

But in a con hall, you have that already. You go up, say I like your print, and have a conversation.<\/b><\/p>

I love your costume, I love this character. That\u2019s a great feeling to get. It\u2019s also freeing to express it.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

And you talked about this a little bit earlier, too, where it\u2019s taking away that feeling of, oh, I\u2019ve gotta hide this.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah. Yeah, I don\u2019t want to separate those two sketchbooks any more. In these fandom spaces, I can just be myself. Comics is definitely – I think that\u2019s why I came into this world, and I think it\u2019s why a lot of us did.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

What are you thinking about working on next?<\/b><\/p>

I\u2019m toying with an OFMD<\/i> comic, but it\u2019ll probably be a while for me to get around to drawing it. I\u2019m trying to draw some actual smut, some actual fandom smut. I\u2019m always toying with the idea of getting back into drawing more explicit stuff, because it garners that strong reaction between people, which is great. But otherwise – I have a ballet book for children I\u2019m drawing, which is a little worrying.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Worrying in terms of oh no, I have to draw ballet, or?<\/b><\/p>

Yes. That, but also, there\u2019s a whole other conversation to be had about being a children\u2019s book illustrator and also having very adult interests and artistic pursuits and having to balance those in our society.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

That\u2019s another two sketchbooks right there.<\/b><\/p>

The two sketchbook problem remains! It\u2019s just a new two sketchbooks, but they\u2019re two Twitter accounts! I\u2019m doing the same thing! Solving the problem the same way.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Do you have an idea of how you might want to address it?<\/b><\/p>

I\u2019m dipping my toes in the water of letting it be more clear and on the level – that there are just two accounts. There are two mes. It\u2019s fun to have an alias, it\u2019s fun to have a different persona that I can go between. It\u2019s less exhausting to let them both be real. I used to try to hide one – I think I will keep it separate because I like the organization. It must be a holdover from this.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

It is satisfying though, right? Just to say, here is this me. Here is the other me. Whichever one you enjoy, that\u2019s fantastic.<\/b><\/p>

Here are two shows. Two wolves. But yeah, I think there\u2019s the question to be asked of, what\u2019s the point of separating them? Why can\u2019t you just be one person? At what point is it appropriate to say I am all of these things at once?<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

I do feel that. Where it\u2019s kind of like – I wish I could trust an audience to be able to understand these distances by themselves.<\/b><\/p>

Or to appreciate the work separately without attaching a persona to your name, with the assumption about who you are. I think that\u2019s what bothers me.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

I wonder if it\u2019s only gotten a bit more important to people as the Internet has kind of connected itself to us, where you have to promote yourself a certain way, you have to create a persona to put it out there.<\/b><\/p>

I get exhausted by having to have a persona on my work. I wish I could just be shamelessly plugging my work all the time. I\u2019m online to post work and then goodbye. But I also feel this desire to connect more, too. That\u2019s what\u2019s nice about having an online persona is that you can connect to people. Especially when we\u2019re so isolated.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

It\u2019s two wolves. But this is helpful, because I did want to scoot way ba<\/b>ck in time for a minute. I can\u2019t not ask you about the NetRaptor comic. So, speaking of the Internet \u2013<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This was\u2026 a time. There was a forum called NetRaptor. It was a Sonic fandom space. You know, back in the day, forums were these small spaces of twenty to fifty people with different random threads, and people would post a lot of roleplay threads and general chit chat threads. There was an art thread where you could post sketches of whatever you were doing. Sara was on it, and that\u2019s how I got in.<\/p>

I created this – you know the trend in light novels and anime now where people get stuck in video games? You get sucked into a virtual world, right? That\u2019s what it was. NetRaptor became this alternate virtual world. All of our OC avatars were in. And what happened in the comic was, oh god, it was the same thing. What happened in real life was that the NetRaptor website crashed, and it was unusable for a while. And then it got back up, but a lot of stuff was deleted. People\u2019s accounts were all messed up. That\u2019s a thing that would happen, because it was just one person running a website. I thought that was so interesting. If we all lived inside NetRaptor, the world, and it crashed, what happened afterward?<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

It\u2019s all coming together!<\/b><\/p>

I\u2019m just realizing, I\u2019m just telling the same story over and over again!<\/p>

So some of the characters were ghosts, because their accounts had been deleted. The main characters, Emo and LovelyBunny, were these two investigators, furry characters drawn in Sonic style. They were dropped into the world to assess damage and find missing accounts. And my avatar was corrupted. Their avatar pre-crash was this bubbly, light character, and their avatar post-crash was this evil avatar.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

YES.<\/b><\/p>

And they had angel wings! And someone else\u2019s character had two OCs, her bodyguards, who were an angel and a demon. And she was corrupted. There was a virus. Emo and LovelyBunny had to ally themselves with my character, who turned out to not actually be evil, and another character\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s character was stuck in the world somewhere and he had to find her \u2013 listen.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0I love this so much.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

And there were fusions! DragonBall Z fusions! Emo and LovelyBunny combined!<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Did you share this with other people?<\/b><\/p>

Yes! I posted pages on the forum after it rebooted, I shared it with friends in class. I have them. All drawn on notebook paper – they\u2019re in order.<\/p>

(They pull out an original comic page.)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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^_^<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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There it is!!<\/b><\/p>

These are good comics. I went backwards from this. This is it.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

How do you beat that kind of pure dedication? I feel like I\u2019m still chasing it.<\/b><\/p>

It\u2019s awesome. All Die Horny<\/i> is, is me trying to get back to this.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Like, how do I connect to my deepest self?<\/b><\/p>

Yes. Yes. The monster inside of me. The beautiful, giant monster inside of me.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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An early spread from Ashes.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Okay, so. Any advice for the cool art kids out there?<\/b><\/p>

I think about this a lot. If I could say anything to my cool art kid self, with all of the love in the world – stop trying to think of yourself as above the rules. You\u2019re really good at drawing, that\u2019s obvious to everyone who meets you. You still have a lot to learn, and it\u2019s fun to humble yourself sometimes and learn new things and try new things. Don\u2019t get stuck in the idea that you\u2019re allowed to ignore your art teacher\u2019s advice because they\u2019re below you. That sounds terrible. I\u2019m talking to a specific art kid right now, and they know who they are.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

They\u2019re like, I\u2019m not listening to you.<\/b><\/p>

Yeah, so you know, if that\u2019s true, that\u2019s fine, you\u2019ll turn out like me.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

I feel like even if you don\u2019t take something to heart right away, it\u2019s good to have heard it. You can go back to it.<\/b><\/p>

I had a huge ego, I think, as an art kid. I went to art high school, so when I came to college, I was like, I\u2019m better than all of you. But I still had so much to learn, and a lot of conceptions about art that I had to break down. The way I go about my art obviously hasn\u2019t changed much. You keep repeating the mistakes that you make early on, so it\u2019s good to break out of that system.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0What are some of the things you feel like you had to work on?<\/b><\/p>

I get stubborn in judging myself. I feel like I am stubbornly above letting myself just be imperfect. Other people can let themselves be imperfect. Somehow, you get yourself into this habit of thinking you\u2019re above that. You have to be better. You have to always be striving for the highest version of art, and other people just have it easy. Obviously, other people who don\u2019t achieve their goals just aren\u2019t trying hard enough.<\/p>

And all of this is incredibly damaging to think – it\u2019s terrible! I feel like I get stuck in that habit, where I don\u2019t realize I\u2019m doing it, because I have a double standard. I tell other people that they can just be free and be open and be loose, but I\u2019m not allowed.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

I love that you\u2019re recognizing and breaking that with your most recent projects, though. The energy that comes through really does shine.<\/b><\/p>

That was not easily achieved! That was almost literal physical pain, from my own standards, it\u2019s hard. I acknowledge that it\u2019s very hard to break out of those habits. It\u2019s a huge challenge, but you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Worth it.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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What are you trying to get all your friends into right now?<\/b><\/p>

I want everyone to watch the pirate show, but everyone already has.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

And if you haven\u2019t, how dare you.<\/b><\/p>

I feel more and more as I age that I don\u2019t want to force people to watch things that they don\u2019t really want to watch. I don\u2019t wanna give you a speech about why the show is the best thing in the world, it\u2019s not. If I love something, it\u2019s not because it\u2019s culturally significant, you know? Watch what you want to watch.<\/p>

If you want<\/i>\u00a0to get on my level right now, watch or rewatch the old army show M*A*S*H. I think it\u2019s incredibly good \u2013 this is me making it a culturally significant thing. No! It\u2019s fun! I enjoy it! It\u2019s funny, it hits my buttons specifically, if it also hits yours, let\u2019s have a conversation.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Which of your buttons?<\/b><\/p>

I feel like it\u2019s hitting all of my “gay repressed as a child” buttons. My “I\u2019m depressed and an angsty teenager” buttons. They\u2019re trapped in a terrible, impossible situation, and they\u2019re depressed about it all the time, and they make it into a funny thing. They make fun of it. Not in a malicious way. We\u2019re all stuck in this situation together, and we love each other, so we\u2019re just gonna be goofy.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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There they are!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Last \u2013 is there anything else you\u2019d like to mention?<\/span><\/p>

If you are interested in what we\u2019ve talked about with Die Horny<\/i>,\u00a0please preorder it!<\/a><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Yes!<\/span><\/p>

I want people\u00a0to preorder it<\/a>, I want people\u00a0to pick it up<\/a>, I\u2019m gonna be at SPX\u00a0<\/a>and I\u2019m very excited and nervous and terrified about it, so if you want to support it, show us! If it\u2019s not for you, don\u2019t worry about it. I wanted to make something niche, so if it\u2019s your niche, come on down.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

That is a beautiful approach.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Thanks again to\u00a0Rebecca<\/a>\u00a0for joining us – and thank you<\/i>\u00a0for reading!!\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

If you’re excited about their work and want to keep up with them, you can:<\/b><\/p>

\"\u2b50\"Find them online!<\/a><\/b><\/p>

\"\u2b50\"Support their<\/a> Patreon!<\/a><\/b><\/p>

\"\u2b50\"Preorder Die Horny!<\/a><\/b><\/p>

\"\u2b50\"Check out their<\/a> Gumroad!<\/a><\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I’m thrilled to present a conversation with prolific cartoonist and illustrator Rebecca Mock, hot off the heels of their recent Eisner win, and even hotter on the heels of their upcoming Bulgilhan Press publication Die Horny!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/xx_BishieShadow2003_xx.jpg?fit=1372%2C1586&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}