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Kirstin Steitz — featured creator
Kirstin Steitz turns out various illustrations on her blog, has self-published a few small collections, and she even ended up doing a podcast for a while. Her latest comic is called Revenants, which is a collection of short zombie stories, all drawn by local creators. She’s gladly answered some questions for us before she left town last month.
1. What are you working on now comics-wise?
I’m working on a series of sequential comics, right now. I fell upon the style during the last 24 hour comic. Typically I try to do a stream of consciousness kind of thing for the event, and four of the pages ended up being Drowning Girl. So the second one, the one I’m working on right now, in the series is about a little girl who is given the stars and the moon.
I’ve also been working on a bunch of short zombie comics with various artists. For the Revenants collection, I wrote the shorts and Katy R, David Cobb, and Andrew Kapellush worked on the art. This collection was the first time I really, truly delved into the act of writing comics, and I really loved it. Katy and I are going to, hopefully, continue collaborating on zombie comics.
I know zombies are a little… done… but I think that any medium where we get to explore a human response to our fears of the unknown and the “other”.
2. How’s your comic output been the last year? What’s helped or hindered
your output?
It’s been drastically different. I’ve been writing a lot more and working more on completion, rather than frittering around (see: every project I’ve ever started and not completed). I think this has caused my output to be a higher quality. I’ve also been trying to learn to color my comics with The Gimp, an open-source contemporary of Adobe Photoshop.
Drowning Girl was available at Rockbottom’s counter, for free. I’m not sure if they’re still in-stock. The final version of Revenants will be available as soon as I have time to print it out. Packing and moving really takes it out of a girl.
3. Read any good comics, webcomics, or graphic novels lately?
As far as webcomics, I have my old standards: Questionable Content, Scary Go Round, Diesel Sweeties, Dinosaur Comics; recently, I’m really into Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant!, and Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield’s FreakAngels. I really enjoyed the end of Y: The Last Man, and all the graphic novels the Hernandez Brother’s put out. Sloth was particularly awesome. I practically salivate when I see new Love and Rockets compilations on the shelf.
4. How about other media anything good you like lately? (video, music,
books, etc.)
I can’t tell you how much I loved the Wonder Woman movie. I was skeptical of Keri Russel voicing Wonder Woman (and who wouldn’t be, after Lucy Lawless’ job in New Frontier?) but she did a stand-up job; Nathan Fillion was a perfect Steve Trevor. The story was good, and the art was strong and clean. Although, beware the “digital copy” WB offers with the DVD, though. It’s… annoying.
5. You are fond of tattoos. How do they relate to the comic world inyour view?
The cop-out answer: Art, baby! On a personal level, my best friend, Katy R, is a tattoo artist in Columbia. She brings the stylized composition of her profession into dynamic panels with such flair, I couldn’t ask for a better artist. On top of creating amazing designs, and redesigning comic panels for tattoos, she also collaborates with me, quite a bit. We’ve known each other since we were tweenies, and have the same morbid affection for killing off main characters and ending the world. Also, she tattoos a damn good Wonder Woman pin-up.
Posted in: Featured creators