April 2, 2024 • 44 mins
This week on Transcending Comics, we're joined by an up-and-coming writer of LGBTQ YA horror comics, Lorry Jamison!
We discuss their anthology series, Nightshade, which so far includes Party Animals and Blush. We also get into the many inspirations behind their comics, including our shared nostalgia for Goosebumps and Young Avengers, as well as real-world local haunts!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:17):
Welcome to Transcending Comics, a podcast dedicated to trans representation
in comic books, manga, and webtoons, both on panel and behind the scenes.
I'm your host, Tommy, and joining me today is an up-and-coming writer and illustrator
in the realm of young adult horror comics.
Their first comic, Party Animals, was published earlier this year through Craven
Comics, and their latest graphic novel, Blush, will be releasing right around
(00:38):
the time this episode goes live.
Both comics take place in their Nightshade anthology series of young adult horror
graphic novels with LGBTQ representation and themes.
Outside of the world of comics, they've also contributed art to various forms
of interactive storytelling, including the Choose Your Adventure-style story game, After the Storm.
With no further ado, I'd like to welcome today's guest, Laurie Jamison.
(01:00):
Welcome to the show, Laurie. Thank you so much for having me. Hello.
Is this your first time being on a comics podcast specifically?
Specifically yes yes indeed i guess other
podcasts well i during the pandemic i
was on a few rupaul's drag race related podcasts to
talk that and also plug art so this is
a very exciting change of pace yeah i have never seen an episode of rupaul's
(01:24):
drag race but i have now listened to a podcast about an episode of rupaul's
drag race since yeah doing my research for the show but yeah so i know I know
your first graphic novel had a Kickstarter campaign that helped you with the launch.
I'm curious, did your latest one, Blush, also have a Kickstarter?
Or is that going directly through a publisher this time? That's right.
(01:45):
So my first comic, Party Animals, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign with
the help of Craven Comics, my publisher.
And this second time around for the follow-up, Blush, that is also being released
through Craven Comics, but exclusively as a digital comic. Whereas Party Animals,
the Kickstarter campaign was to help fund the print run and get that up and running.
(02:06):
And so with this and the next few installments, the goal is to release them
digitally on a faster basis to kind of help capture more audience.
Do things at a bit of a quicker pace and take a break from Kickstarter campaigns.
We definitely want to come around to collecting it all in print once it is wrapped
(02:27):
up, but I'm trying to do that every few months with the new release would take
quite a lot of extra time.
So I'm very excited to be able to keep focusing on the comics and the storytelling
and Kickstarter will still be there and we're ready again.
So tell us a bit about how you got here with your comics and specifically like through Craven Comics.
(02:47):
I know they're kind of an up and comer in the realm of LGBTQ comics.
So like, honestly, Party Animals was my introduction to them.
It's a smaller indie publisher.
They really focus on LGBTQ materials.
It felt very serendipitous. How we came into connecting with one another was
really through the magic of Instagram.
I originally Party Animals was I was pitching it as something much longer.
(03:11):
You know, the comic itself is 44, 45 pages, and then including a lot of bonus
sketches and behind the scenes concepts and writing.
And so I kind of think of them more as graphic novellas, if that's even a word
or a term in the lexicon here.
But before I had reached that point, I was kind of pitching this as a much longer
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project and researching any and all independent publishers that I could and
connecting to them through social media, through email, and seeing really who responded.
And Craven was a very quick, dynamic response.
They were so eager to help foster another LGBTQ voice for their comics.
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They tend to publish a lot more in the superhero realm, and they were looking
for something very different, but still focused on the same goals and identities ultimately.
And so it was very exciting to connect with them, kind of explain the concept of the project.
And in doing so, I, comics are, well, graphic novels are a lot.
(04:15):
And you can tell through interviewing and talking with creatives,
it's a very intense process from start to finish. And so in kind of preparing
this pitch together, I really just wanted to go ahead and start drawing stuff.
I was just antsy to work on this story and bring it to life rather than going
through hundreds of pages of thumbnails and sketches and pencils and inks and
(04:38):
coloring and whatnot. whatnot.
And so through this pitching process, I realized that I really wanted this story
to be a lot more direct and dynamic that way and faster paced.
And so I worked with Craven, we determined a more suitable page length.
And sort of the trade off was that these following entries I'm going to be making,
these additional digital comics are.
(05:00):
Going to be the same length, but they'll still add up to a graphic novel-sized
book after five or six entries or so.
So I'm still getting to experience that process, but kind of build up and develop
the skills necessary for full-length graphic novels.
I know in the back of Party Animals, you mentioned Goosebumps as being one of
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the inspirations of your comic.
And I've always appreciated how that handled children's
horror and like really managed to be just the right
amount of scary for kids so as you're now approaching
the same genre i'm curious like what your
process is like of finding that fine
line between like being scary enough to appeal
(05:42):
to horror fans but also not too scary for
a ya audience absolutely yeah i i
loved i can talk about goosebumps for the entire podcast
cats don't tell me right yeah that's
that's like the bonus patreon behind the scenes version
it was a series that i had such that
had such a profound effect on me growing up i vividly recall devouring those
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books in my public library and when i was talking with craven working on what
this project would look like and kind of realizing like i it doesn't have to
necessarily be this this several hundred page magnum opus all at once.
In fact, it would be more sustainable to scale back and find a faster version of the story to tell.
(06:27):
I turned back to Goosebumps, to the sort of childhood favorite.
I love that it, despite the tone being a little cheesy in some of the books,
sometimes a bit more intense, I love the self-contained accessibility of it.
I loved how how engaging the protagonists were.
It was very easy to get absorbed into that book.
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And so those kind of qualities, I really tried to emulate in these comics.
And I find that horror fans, and as a horror fan myself, there's...
I mean, we will we will enjoy any and all horror in no matter what context,
whether that is for a much more adult audience, whether that's more accessible to a younger crowd.
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We're much more engaged in material. So I was I wanted to make sure that maybe
the non-horror fans or the younger readers could still engage in the story and
it wouldn't be too intense.
I also find that the medium of comics is very interesting for horror in that
you don't have sound as kind of a tool in your creative tool belt.
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Motion is also limited in that it is a static page or a panel.
And so sort of a lot of the tools that can create jump scares that can kind
of make horror effective are limited in comics.
And so I think on the one hand, that can kind of help to make something horrifying
more accessible to a wider audience.
(07:54):
But it also is an interesting creative challenge then. How does that page flip
really engage the reader or the content itself?
How can you kind of sell that conceptually?
So I find that the medium itself has been very exciting to work in for this
genre to try to translate.
Late yeah as far as your goosebumps memories go
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do you have any particular favorites from that franchise
oh my gosh i mean where do i begin so there was in addition to the book series
they had that tv show that really cheesy 90s tv show which did you ever watch
any of that yeah i'd rent vhs tapes of it because i was able to watch goosebumps
well after it was still on tv oh yeah Yeah, that's the thing.
(08:39):
It was all over Blockbuster when those still existed.
And so saying that now, I definitely remember I was, I think I was seven.
I had just turned seven, and I was finally old enough, according to my mom,
to rent It Was Welcome to Dead House, which was the goosebumps for listeners
not as familiar with this series as we are.
(09:01):
That was the entry in which I believe family moves into a new neighborhood,
this old creepy Victorian house.
The neighbors themselves are a little distant, a little cold, a little weird.
And throughout the story, you learn that they are essentially zombies.
They are undead and they're sort of preying upon new neighbors who come in and
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kind of sucking out their life force, essentially. Not as gruesome as like.
Zombies eating flesh or anything but the the
tv show was very intense and so i do recall
finally turning seven my mom saying i was old enough to watch this sitting down
to watch it and being so freaked out it was so captivating i couldn't turn away
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but i wanted to and that was a feeling i loved with horror and i think that's
a feeling that i've always strove to recreate on the comics,
whether or not it's a horror hound, you're a lot more squeamish,
that intensity and that attraction is really exciting to try and recreate and capture in comics.
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So I always want to make work that's engaging, that the reader can't turn away
from, even if they may want to.
Yeah, it's funny, much like your series starting with a werewolf story in Party Animals,
my first goosebumps episode was a
werewolf of fever swamp so that's and
i'm sure that i watched that too that probably had a
(10:28):
nice subconscious effect on my creative psyche
when i was making this comic originally actually party
animals and for those who don't know it is sort
of well it is about a high school house party that gets crashed by a group of
teen werewolves and it is up to these two queer students in their grade to save
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their classmates and also quickly realize their feelings for each other that
are sort of bubbling beneath the surface,
but are also very obvious because they're teens.
But when creating this story, originally, when I was working on the longer graphic
novel version, it was much different, and I would say, more generic.
(11:10):
And I think that instinctively I was trying to think like, okay,
if I want to get published, it has to be like X, Y, and Z exactly.
It has to fit within this very limited scope.
And that's what I was pitching it as. And it wasn't until I got connected with
Craven Comics and talked more about it and also faced some rejection letters
(11:33):
that I realized, oh, I need to lean into the weirdness of this.
I need to make this very specific to me, to what I like to draw, to my creative voice.
And so I really leaned into the house party as the sort of narrative device
that happens across the whole story throughout.
And so I really think that leaning into this concept really was a strength that
(11:55):
helped the story overall. Yeah.
And I'm curious, with the Nightshade entries so far,
horror in general seems to be the one genre that can leave you on something
of a cliffhanger, or if not, like, an outright cliffhanger, then a moment where
there's still a lot more interesting stuff to happen.
How do these characters process what they just witnessed? And so I'm curious.
(12:16):
That's a great question.
Yeah, like, are we ever going to see these characters pop up again in later
entries, or is each one going to be totally separate characters in situations? situations?
Ultimately, my goal is to have them connect.
Nightshade I'm envisioning to be six entries in total,
where the first four to five are more self-contained, but the more you read,
(12:38):
the more clues will be laid in, the more connections you'll find,
and the more that you'll see these characters reoccurring.
Well, I guess I can go ahead and it's fine. The script for the third and the
fourth one, these two comics I'm working on next, do feature characters returning,
do have some really fun callbacks.
And ultimately my goal is to have each story kind of take place within a shared universe.
(13:03):
These characters will return, realize that it's a little suspicious that all
of these spooky shenanigans are happening in a very identical radius within
their hometown, essentially, within this peer group.
And there will be a narrative reason for that.
So I'm very excited to explore that. Another anthology that I think also didn't
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really influence my comics output, ironically, is American Horror Story,
which I don't know. Have you watched any of that?
Yeah, I've seen the good seasons or I've seen one and three and some of the anthology seasons.
Seasons yeah that's and i think that's
that's worth mentioning too is it's very hit or miss also
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very adult but if anything kind of going through that showed me what i didn't
didn't want to do as a creative in the genre you know i found myself watching
these episodes and going well i would have done it this way or i would have
focused on this instead and so i really tried to take all All of these feelings,
track them, and infuse that into the comics I'm making now.
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Not in terms of subject matter, because this is very YA teen-friendly,
but in terms of the storytelling decisions.
I found that to be a very informative show.
And something I find interesting is like in both books so far,
we see mentions that like there's a bit of online community or at least connectedness
of like the vampires know there's other vampires or like the werewolves find
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a werewolf serum on the Internet.
Will we ever see more of like the inner workings of monster society or monster
community in this world?
Or will we be keeping the focus just on the teens? Absolutely.
I think, and for party animals, this, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler
because it doesn't really revolve around the climax or anything.
(14:55):
The teen characters who do become werewolves, they create moonshine based on
a special internet recipe that specifically turns them into werewolves,
not just any old moonshine.
And I have this distinct memory of sitting there on my bed, typing on my computer
and the thought occurred to me and it was just too much fun of a pun.
They're werewolves, it's moonshine.
(15:16):
It's fun. And so I wanted to lean into that campy element as well.
And it's fun to see what organically comes up versus what I have been planning since the beginning.
So that moonshine bit, having my vampires in this follow-up story blush be very internet savvy.
Those are very organic elements that I think came from being a person who's
(15:39):
very online almost too much.
And also just as I was getting into the finer details of the story,
these details would become more concrete.
So absolutely, I think it's a very rich, robust world that I get to build within these comics.
And there'll be some very exciting shenanigans as more and more of these horrifying
(16:01):
events happen, almost overlapping with each other.
Yeah, so knowing we've got the next two scripts already in progress,
what can you tell us about the next volume of Nightshade?
Well, I will say the third one has been fully drawn, colored, lettered.
This one is ready to go. I'm working on the fourth next and then scripting the fifth. Yeah.
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So I like to keep, it's just fun to work on. I like to keep ahead.
And that was also part of the Kickstarter campaign process was I just got too
antsy to work on the next story. I was too excited.
And so Kickstarter requires a lot of involvement in that process day to day.
So I was excited to transition to developing more of these stories.
(16:45):
And now to answer your question, actually, and not go off on a total tangent.
The third one, it's going to revolve around haunted house actors.
Not like a haunted haunted house, but what do you go to on Halloween?
And so I won't reveal the title just yet,
but it does revolve around haunted house actors and the hijinks that ensue when
(17:08):
actual ghosts and spirits will show up and kind of see these characters making a mockery of them,
kind of playing pretend of these very real creatures that inhabit this world.
So it's a lot of fun chase scenes ensue. It's very interesting.
It also kind of acknowledges what really appeals to me about horror, I think.
(17:29):
Like why myself and so many people are so invested in a genre that on the surface
seems really grotesque and weird, but has a lot to offer underneath the surface. this.
Now, as far as like researching that next graphic novel, are you one for like
visiting either like seasonal haunted houses or like allegedly haunted areas around your city?
(17:53):
Yeah, I am a huge fan of haunted houses. If anything, it's trying to convince
friends, my partner, anyone to go with me.
Therein lies the challenge. But I love that experience and I love doing local
history and researching that, I think there's so much to be found just underneath
the surface that absolutely influences my work.
(18:13):
I mean, for example, The Exorcist, the original one, was based on a case in
St. Louis, where I currently reside here.
Some of the details were changed. It was a little boy instead of Linda Blair in real life.
But the priest was from a local university here, and the house is still intact
and is kind of a tourist destination now.
(18:34):
Now on local haunts though since you're st louis
based have you ever been to the city museum there oh my
gosh of course it's so much fun yeah oh
i love that place like i mean st louis is
like five hours from me but there was a year where i did
make that trek twice within a couple months because it's that
cool oh very nice it is oh it's
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so much fun and so for listening also it's this sort
of it's not really a museum in any
sense of the word it is like this indoor adult-sized
playground of like repurpose scrap
material from just various parts
of the city that they all put together clean off
and form into like a giant jungle
(19:16):
gym and it's in a massive building it's so much fun it is wild like there's
a cave network you can genuinely get lost in inside oh absolutely and you have
it's it's a passage for anyone visiting saint louis like the general vibe I'd describe it as is like,
it's, it's like something you would see in a Disney channel movie and be like, ah,
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I wish that was real, but somehow no one is marketing this and pushing it like it's Disneyland.
And so it's not super overcrowded. It's awesome.
But it's oh, my gosh, there's so many nooks and crannies. You really like it
is a full workout just to get into everything there. It's so much fun.
But the reason I bring it up is, have you ever heard about like the haunting
(20:00):
there or like the various haunts? No, that not yet.
I heard there's been some rumored spiritual activity.
Do you have any more more information?
Yeah. Yeah. So apparently the building it's in used to be like one of those
child labor shoe factories back before labor laws existed.
And like a few kids and or orphans died there.
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And it's real messed up. But now that sounds pretty fitting for a lot of buildings in St.
Louis, unfortunately, there's not surprised there.
There's area that like there's a train track that only kids are allowed to ride
on just because it's small.
Yes, I'm a little jealous, but that's beside the point. But multiple kids have
reported seeing this little girl in like a pink, like Victorian dress that like
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will talk to them or wave at them.
And that is not part of the train track.
Like there's no girl doll looking like that or like a paid actress or anything.
And the one adult conductor that drives it around, I don't think reports seeing it.
But it's like multiple separate incidents with different kids mentioning seeing this girl.
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And like a staff member there was telling me about it and
that's the kind of haunt that always freaks me out
it's not like the people go and then they
get creeped out by the things they've heard it's the instance where
multiple people have mentioned this thing without ever hearing about it and
like that's when i think okay this might genuinely be haunted yeah it's a too
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specific of a context for all of these children to just make up on their own
yeah no wonder i haven't come across it because Because clearly the ghost is
not interested in 20-somethings.
But yeah, for those listening, if you're anywhere in the Midwest,
go to the City Museum in St. Louis.
It's one of the coolest places and most underrated ones at that.
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It's amazing and you might see a ghost. So, you know, fun on two levels.
Oh, and I will offer as well, I guess a fun...
It's not really a St. Louis insider tip, but I feel like this goes a bit unnoticed.
The City Museum has a whole rooftop Ferris wheel, Amusement Park-esque display
at the very top of the building that usually gets obscured because no one is
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looking up there or there's other random objects around.
But it's a very cool look at the city to go there at night on the Ferris wheel
and get the entire city in front of you as well.
So if you're going, you might as well make a day out of it and really get to
see the city all lit up at night then.
So it's like been a good five years or so since I've been to St.
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Louis. So for the next time I make a trip down, do you have any suggestions?
Like, I was presenting as a cis guy last time I was in St. Louis and a straight one at that.
So like, as far as the queer scene in St. Louis goes, is there anything you
would suggest? Oh my gosh, yes.
St. Louis has a very exciting queer scene, which was very gratifying for me,
especially kind of like learning more about my identity in college and then
(23:00):
staying here after college and discovering all of this.
There's i want to give a shout out to the metro trans umbrella
group a local non-profit here that i've done
quite a bit of volunteering for in the past but they're always putting on
a lot of different events whether that's like queer networking at a local brewery
whether that is like a telethon event that is an actual like they have to fill
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out 24 hours worth of content for a telethon to raise funds versus a good old-fashioned
drag show they always have a lot lot going on.
And then another place to recommend is it is called the Crack Fox.
This is a real venue in downtown St. Louis, where they have some of the most fun drag shows.
And since the pandemic, they have been coming back with a vengeance almost.
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They're here, they're queer, they're doing all sorts of fun events over there.
Gallery shows, drag performances.
There's a lot of exciting local talent to see there as well.
So there's always a lot going on. You just have to do a little digging,
I guess, on Instagram to figure out when it's happening.
Now, as far as other inspirations for your comics go, I know also in the back
(24:11):
of Party Animals, you mentioned Young Avengers, which really made me happy because
that was like one of my first comics ever that I followed as it was coming out.
And we just talked about it a couple episodes ago on like
a Loki focused episode so i'd love
to hear more about like your exposure to the young avengers and like if
you've read the karen gillen series as well and yeah just
(24:32):
your connection to superheroes so for for listeners
here the print version of party animals has a few
essays that i wrote about my experience with comics and queerness and horror
as well as a whole lot of sketches but i do write about how as a child reading
the original run of the young avengers comics from Marvel was sort of my first
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encounter with queerness in comics.
I think prior to that, it was all very spandex-heavy, fighting,
heterosexual, very heterosexual characters.
And this one, you know, had a lot of spandex and fighting, but it had a very
tender queer romance at the center of it.
And I just remember it resonating with me in a way that I couldn't describe
(25:14):
because I was very young and I was learning about myself in the process.
So I didn't even know yet.
But it was very beautiful, and it really stuck with me, and kind of provided
some much-needed representation of just gay and queer people existing, especially in a
in a community space that I wasn't seeing a lot of that around.
(25:35):
And so as I grew up, I kind of went in and out with superhero comics,
but I really came back to the whole medium in a big way,
especially in college, where I had a lot of professors who were guiding me towards
very queer and very inclusive comics.
So I could really see how wide, how much depth and how wide that field really
(25:56):
was in terms of content and creators and characters.
And that is when I came back to the Kieran Gillen run, which was wild and fascinating.
And I got so into his Tumblr as well while reading it, because that was almost
like, it felt like a very crucial text of seeing all of his posts about the
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comic and his inspirations and references.
And it was such a fun, like, amalgamation of popular culture and character arcs
and queerness and concepts.
It was just so exciting and i i'm sure
the mcu version will leave a lot to be desired but i
hope that they reference the the overt
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weirdness of those those fun comics more as far as like those queer and inclusive
comics you got exposed to in college any highlights you can shout out on the
show because like i am still learning the world of graphic novels since it's
not as easy to plow into like Like with Marvel and DC comics,
there's kind of a famous canon of like what's important.
(27:02):
But when it comes to like independent and self-published graphic novels,
it's like just what do you find at your library or what do people tell you about?
So I'm always on the lookout.
Absolutely. And that's kind of the joy of it is there's so much and there's
no real wrong way to go about getting into material, finding things that resonate.
I think kind of a queer classic at this point is Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
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The graphic novel about her burgeoning
queerness along with learning about her
dad's kind of hidden queerness as well but this is going back into his past
right as he is passing away so grappling with a lot of feelings and emotions
in a very unique way on in the the comics medium that one was very gorgeous
(27:48):
there's of course Nimona by N.D.
Stevenson which just had that very very cool Netflix movie That is also one
that is very casual in its queerness, its inclusion, and it's just fun.
You know, I think what I love about finding queer comics is there's no limit
(28:09):
to what they can look like and how they can read.
There's so many emotions to explore and to depict, and no two queer comics are the same.
And I also have to give a very special shout out to, it's the graphic novel Bloom. Loom.
It's by Kevin J. Panetta and Savannah Gannuccio. I'm looking off at my phone
(28:29):
here to make sure I got the details right.
It was a young adult graphic novel by First Second Comics that came out a few
years ago now, I think pre-pandemic.
But it is a comic that has a very big influence on what I'm making now. It is a queer romance.
It's monochromatic. It's this very gorgeous blue color, this very aquamarine almost.
(28:49):
And now with my comics, another kind of feature is each one has its own monochromatic color scheme.
So you have party animals with this very lush purple
color that kind of helps convey the intensity
of the nighttime and the party atmosphere that it's all
taking place in then with blush you have this very dark crimson which it's vampire
(29:10):
themed so it's kind of fitting color wise but it also kind of signifies something
more romantic which is the big focus of that story and so the graphic novel
bloom absolutely had an influence on me stylistically to kind of help I'll create
that atmosphere that I wanted.
Weirdly, I just started reading Fun Home this month, so I already had you there.
But I'll have to look into Bloom. I've not heard of that one before.
(29:32):
Nice. Small world. It's meant to be.
Now, as far as like your other professional artwork goes, I know you've done
art for a couple different apps like After the Storm and at least one other kind of story based app.
I'd like to know about how you got involved in that and if that's something
you still try to stay involved in at all. So that's more, I guess,
(29:54):
more in the realm of the freelance illustration I do in addition to comics.
So After the Storm was this mobile app game, this text-based,
choose-your-own-adventure-style narrative that I did illustrations for.
It was through a platform called Choice of Games, I believe,
and so that's where you can find it in the App Store within that platform. platform.
(30:16):
I've done that. I've done another smaller version of that that was more of a heist theme as well.
And this is with one of my really close friends. This was sort of born out of
the pandemic and kind of a need just to create, just to focus on something else
instead of the world around us.
And so I think that that drive has continued as I've made those.
(30:38):
I do a lot of of illustration for clients here in St. Louis.
Something I really love to do, I'm part of this artist collective called Friends
for Good, which does these bi-annual, twice a year gallery shows that are often
themed around promoting small businesses,
(30:59):
local landmarks, different kind of St.
Louis-oriented subjects that we all, we being a group of artists,
will create posters for and and then help raise funds for different charities
in the area based on printing out those posters, whether that's screen printing or otherwise.
So opportunities like that to kind of create in your own world,
but still try to make an impact on the community has really been a guiding force
(31:23):
through all of my illustration.
And then I get to take a break, turn to comics and draw some weird monsters.
So you've now done work as like a professional artist then and also been the
entire creative process of making your own comics.
That does make me wonder like do you feel
any pull toward like in your future work shifting towards
(31:44):
just drawing your comics or just writing and working with a fellow artist or
do you think you'll want to keep it like self-contained of you both draw and
write all of your future comics i i think i'm just open to any and all possibilities
here i think that creating Creating Party Animals and Blush, as I have now,
kind of came about just through my own natural working process of wanting just
(32:10):
to make a bunch of stuff and kind of pull it all together and determine the narrative from there.
But I'm absolutely open to writing and drawing.
I'm currently also working on a top secret middle grade based comic project
in which I am just drawing and someone else is writing, which will be announced
at the end of the year. I think I can kind of hint at it here, at least.
(32:34):
But each process always has its own interesting challenges, whether that's interpreting
someone else's voice and thoughts through your drawings versus doing it all
on your own and kind of figuring out what do you actually want to make?
What is the narrative? And trying to really hone in on the key elements of the
story to really communicate.
(32:54):
As far as working with collaborators in the future, do
you have a a process for how you find who you want to
work with or like what would you say draws
you to doing the artwork for someone else's project absolutely i think our process
now is really just making any and all connections i can whether that's social
media whether that's in person whether that's through the cartoonist co-op that
(33:19):
both of us are a member of and how i came across your fabulous podcast.
Initially, I really tried to remain open to any and all possibilities.
I like to think that hopefully it's the universe lining things up in a way that is meant to be.
And, you know, I've had something very organic, like with my current publisher, Craven Comics,
(33:40):
where I was really just sending out as much
content as I could and getting a response and then really clicking with with
them on kind of the mindset of making comics and of queer representation and
that being the guiding force of everything they were making versus getting paired
up or getting sought after by an outside person.
(34:00):
So I think it's, I really just try to remain open to any and all possibilities.
I think that it's never been more accessible to do so online and I really want
to take advantage of that.
Now, I know we have at least four more Nightshade books planned in the pipeline.
The timeline now, we have two.
Well, one is out. One will be out by the time this episode releases,
(34:25):
which it'll be officially out on March 27th for anyone frantically checking
to make sure that it is there. It will be there if it's not.
And from there, the goal is then to do ultimately six entries,
kind of have a distinct start, middle and end
in terms of a larger three-act structure of
anthology stories that still fit into an overarching narrative
(34:47):
and then collecting that into one big graphic novel and
returning to kickstarter with a much bigger book to print and promote through
that through those means so beyond the next four nightshade books like what
else would you say you're hoping to do with your comics career or there are
any particular goals you're aspiring to outside of nightshade Oh my gosh, yes. Where do I begin?
(35:10):
I love creating. I love making comics, whether that's exclusively drawing,
writing and drawing, just writing.
I want to just keep creating, reaching out to different publishers, connecting.
Horror, I think, is a very fascinating genre that obviously has captured my
attention that I want to continue working in. But,
(35:32):
I'm absolutely open to other genres, especially as they relate to queer representation.
I think that's always a guiding force in whatever it is I do, creative-wise.
So yes, more comics, connecting with more creatives, collaborating more,
submitting and promoting comics wherever I can, and world domination overall.
(35:55):
So I just want to keep creating and just see wherever that takes me and just buckle up for the ride.
Now, having grown up on superhero comics, could you see yourself ever finding
yourself in that space, like writing for Marvel or DC or even like independent
publishing, like in the realm of superheroes?
Yeah, I would be if anyone from Marvel and DC is listening, I am absolutely
(36:18):
open to working with you. Very into this.
Yeah, I think that my own kind of creative voice is very much influenced by
a lot more independent comics. But I still have a very strong foundation,
at least growing up in this kind of superhero realm.
And so it's when I look on, I look at very fondly, I'm still very into and very engaged with.
(36:40):
I see them as just different ways of storytelling within the same medium,
similar languages, almost similar elements to play with.
And so I just see it as another facet of comic storytelling.
So absolutely, superheroes are fun.
It would be a great. As far as monthly comics or really new releases in general,
(37:02):
is there anything you want to plug as far as what you're reading as of late
or what you keep an eye on? Oh my gosh, what have I been reading as of late?
A lot, actually. Let me pull it up on the side here.
I know we have not talked about manga at all on this episode yet,
but I just finished a very excellent and, dare I say, underrated manga,
(37:25):
at least in the States, that I think deserves some more attention.
Now, are you a big manga person at all? No.
I'm a budding manga person. I wish I had been more exposed growing up,
but there's a few I follow.
I love Chainsaw Man, currently reading. Oh, that's a good one.
Go Go Loser Ranger slash Ranger Reject, possibly to cover that on my other podcast.
(37:47):
But there's a few I'm tracking. It's just, it's hard now that I'm following
multiple comic mediums.
And yeah, I'm still trying to find a good trans manga to try and cover on the show someday.
Exactly. Well, I am about to add to that confusion, by recommending something
else in this new comics field.
But I was recently reading this, at least the first volume of this manga series,
(38:10):
really for my local book club, but also it's just really interesting.
It's called Tokyo These Days by Taiyo Matsumoto.
And I bring this up because it's very fitting for your show almost.
It is about this longtime manga editor who is finally retiring,
but still has this creative drive inside of him.
(38:31):
And so it's him reconciling with several decades of very financially successful
manga stories, but maybe they're a bit creatively more shallow.
And so he's feeling the need to figure out what a deeper story would be,
what he actually wants to tell, who he wants to work with, and kind of captures
(38:52):
this very interesting nature of comics making.
And sort of the push and pull between art and commercialism and following your
instinct versus what is trending, what is popular with an audience and with publishers.
It is a very fascinating book.
It's also pretty short, so it's a very quick read, but fascinating.
(39:13):
Leaves you with a lot of questions about the nature
of creating and storytelling so i i feel
like it might it would be great for a podcast like this but also
would leave you with so many other questions i guess
a whole other podcast episode now i do like to wrap us up with a wild card question
of the week tailored to the guest and or their interests and so for you specifically
(39:36):
if you could adapt one existing horror story or a Goosebumps book into a graphic novel, what would it be?
And I will say it doesn't have to be like a direct one-to-one adaptation.
You can take liberties or it could be a follow-up or spinoff, whatever.
But yeah, what story or specifically Goosebumps book would you want to get to
(39:58):
play in the world of? Oh my gosh.
That is like, that is a dream come true right there. haunted
mask comes off the top of my classic Goosebumps
story in which the Halloween mask that a
little girl buys at a Halloween store starts like fusing
to her face and becomes like real it's like
a weird sentient creature almost it's a
(40:19):
little Venom-esque in like a superhero
parallel that one is so interesting I
feel like all I feel like any and all Goosebumps stories
could use a lot more queerness that is that was kind of the
driving force behind my comics now of taking this
taking the concept of goosebumps but making it a lot more inclusive like
the representation that i wanted to see growing up yeah haunted basque werewolf
(40:43):
skin there was one where like this little boy's grandparents they were werewolves
but they would like literally wear these pelts that would fuse to them so they
could turn into these creatures that would just be so much fun to draw.
That's so weird and fascinating.
Oh my gosh. And then, I mean, there's so much horror that I think would translate
(41:04):
so well to the printed page.
I think another, well, we haven't talked about this yet, but one of the essays
in my Party Animals book is about the child's play movies specifically within
the horror genre and how their queerness really influenced me as a creative.
That's like like chucky for example the killer doll
(41:24):
ironically has a canonically genderqueer
gender fluid child and it's the
the queerness in those movies is so fascinating and so
interesting to analyze but it's just such a fun
frivolous world that i think would make for
an amazing comic so also if
anyone from the child's book franchise is listening i am
(41:46):
very much available for adaptations adaptations have you
seen the uh child's play series tv show
oh my gosh yes it's coming back i
think april is part two of this third
season that show is so much fun oh my
gosh only seen the first season but yeah like
trans rights chucky is in there and or like knowing chucky is an ally but then
(42:09):
yeah i got a queer kid gender fluid nothing i love him so much hearing this
It's like New York gangster voice saying gender fluid is it has been stuck in
my head ever since I saw that episode.
That is also a show that I feel like it has such a good balance of humor and
horror and kills and gore, but a lot of heart at the center of it,
(42:32):
which I think is absolutely translating, or at least I'm trying to translate into my comics.
All right. Well, Lori, it's been awesome having you on the show.
As far as following you going forward, where can our listeners find you and
how can we support the later chapters of Nightshade? Thank you. Yeah.
So I am on social media at Lori Jameson. That's L-O-R-R-Y-J-A-M-I-S-O-N.
(42:57):
That last name spelled a bit phonetically. On Instagram, threads now.
I'm getting figuring out threads, that whole fun thing.
TikTok, not so much Twitter slash X based on the insane politics going on in that platform.
So Instagram, threads, and TikTok, where you can find out all of my news about
(43:19):
my current comic releases, upcoming releases,
additional illustration projects, and prints that I have for sale,
and all sorts of fun, spooky adventures.
I like to tease all the projects I work on, so some very fun things to be found over there.
All right, well, it's been a pleasure having you, and we're really looking forward
(43:39):
to seeing what else is to come in Nightshade and your work going forward.
Thank you so much this has been so much fun i love talking comics horror all
of that good stuff anytime.
If the listeners at home have requests or recommendations for comics or creators
you'd like us to cover in the future, you can send them our way on social media.
You can find us on the Transcending Comics Instagram and Facebook page,
(44:00):
on Twitter as at Transcend Comics, or email us at transcendingcomics at gmail.com.
We'd like to thank you again for giving our podcast a chance and give a shout
out to Ray Day Parade for designing our logo.
Our intro and outro music this week is A Little Soul and You've Been Starring by Carlson.
You can check out more of his music on carlson.com. on.
Join us again next week as we continue transcending boundaries and exploring
(44:22):
the colorful world of trans, non-binary, and genderqueer representation in comic books of all kinds.
As the curtains fall on this episode of Transcending Comics,
remember that comics have the power to inspire change in countless worlds,
including our own. Keep reading!
Music.
Music.
(00:17):
Welcome to Transcending Comics, a podcast dedicated to trans representation
in comic books, manga, and webtoons, both on panel and behind the scenes.
I'm your host, Tommy, and joining me today is an up-and-coming writer and illustrator
in the realm of young adult horror comics.
Their first comic, Party Animals, was published earlier this year through Craven
Comics, and their latest graphic novel, Blush, will be releasing right around
(00:38):
the time this episode goes live.
Both comics take place in their Nightshade anthology series of young adult horror
graphic novels with LGBTQ representation and themes.
Outside of the world of comics, they've also contributed art to various forms
of interactive storytelling, including the Choose Your Adventure-style story game, After the Storm.
With no further ado, I'd like to welcome today's guest, Laurie Jamison.
(01:00):
Welcome to the show, Laurie. Thank you so much for having me. Hello.
Is this your first time being on a comics podcast specifically?
Specifically yes yes indeed i guess other
podcasts well i during the pandemic i
was on a few rupaul's drag race related podcasts to
talk that and also plug art so this is
a very exciting change of pace yeah i have never seen an episode of rupaul's
(01:24):
drag race but i have now listened to a podcast about an episode of rupaul's
drag race since yeah doing my research for the show but yeah so i know I know
your first graphic novel had a Kickstarter campaign that helped you with the launch.
I'm curious, did your latest one, Blush, also have a Kickstarter?
Or is that going directly through a publisher this time? That's right.
(01:45):
So my first comic, Party Animals, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign with
the help of Craven Comics, my publisher.
And this second time around for the follow-up, Blush, that is also being released
through Craven Comics, but exclusively as a digital comic. Whereas Party Animals,
the Kickstarter campaign was to help fund the print run and get that up and running.
(02:06):
And so with this and the next few installments, the goal is to release them
digitally on a faster basis to kind of help capture more audience.
Do things at a bit of a quicker pace and take a break from Kickstarter campaigns.
We definitely want to come around to collecting it all in print once it is wrapped
(02:27):
up, but I'm trying to do that every few months with the new release would take
quite a lot of extra time.
So I'm very excited to be able to keep focusing on the comics and the storytelling
and Kickstarter will still be there and we're ready again.
So tell us a bit about how you got here with your comics and specifically like through Craven Comics.
(02:47):
I know they're kind of an up and comer in the realm of LGBTQ comics.
So like, honestly, Party Animals was my introduction to them.
It's a smaller indie publisher.
They really focus on LGBTQ materials.
It felt very serendipitous. How we came into connecting with one another was
really through the magic of Instagram.
I originally Party Animals was I was pitching it as something much longer.
(03:11):
You know, the comic itself is 44, 45 pages, and then including a lot of bonus
sketches and behind the scenes concepts and writing.
And so I kind of think of them more as graphic novellas, if that's even a word
or a term in the lexicon here.
But before I had reached that point, I was kind of pitching this as a much longer
(03:32):
project and researching any and all independent publishers that I could and
connecting to them through social media, through email, and seeing really who responded.
And Craven was a very quick, dynamic response.
They were so eager to help foster another LGBTQ voice for their comics.
(03:53):
They tend to publish a lot more in the superhero realm, and they were looking
for something very different, but still focused on the same goals and identities ultimately.
And so it was very exciting to connect with them, kind of explain the concept of the project.
And in doing so, I, comics are, well, graphic novels are a lot.
(04:15):
And you can tell through interviewing and talking with creatives,
it's a very intense process from start to finish. And so in kind of preparing
this pitch together, I really just wanted to go ahead and start drawing stuff.
I was just antsy to work on this story and bring it to life rather than going
through hundreds of pages of thumbnails and sketches and pencils and inks and
(04:38):
coloring and whatnot. whatnot.
And so through this pitching process, I realized that I really wanted this story
to be a lot more direct and dynamic that way and faster paced.
And so I worked with Craven, we determined a more suitable page length.
And sort of the trade off was that these following entries I'm going to be making,
these additional digital comics are.
(05:00):
Going to be the same length, but they'll still add up to a graphic novel-sized
book after five or six entries or so.
So I'm still getting to experience that process, but kind of build up and develop
the skills necessary for full-length graphic novels.
I know in the back of Party Animals, you mentioned Goosebumps as being one of
(05:21):
the inspirations of your comic.
And I've always appreciated how that handled children's
horror and like really managed to be just the right
amount of scary for kids so as you're now approaching
the same genre i'm curious like what your
process is like of finding that fine
line between like being scary enough to appeal
(05:42):
to horror fans but also not too scary for
a ya audience absolutely yeah i i
loved i can talk about goosebumps for the entire podcast
cats don't tell me right yeah that's
that's like the bonus patreon behind the scenes version
it was a series that i had such that
had such a profound effect on me growing up i vividly recall devouring those
(06:06):
books in my public library and when i was talking with craven working on what
this project would look like and kind of realizing like i it doesn't have to
necessarily be this this several hundred page magnum opus all at once.
In fact, it would be more sustainable to scale back and find a faster version of the story to tell.
(06:27):
I turned back to Goosebumps, to the sort of childhood favorite.
I love that it, despite the tone being a little cheesy in some of the books,
sometimes a bit more intense, I love the self-contained accessibility of it.
I loved how how engaging the protagonists were.
It was very easy to get absorbed into that book.
(06:47):
And so those kind of qualities, I really tried to emulate in these comics.
And I find that horror fans, and as a horror fan myself, there's...
I mean, we will we will enjoy any and all horror in no matter what context,
whether that is for a much more adult audience, whether that's more accessible to a younger crowd.
(07:10):
We're much more engaged in material. So I was I wanted to make sure that maybe
the non-horror fans or the younger readers could still engage in the story and
it wouldn't be too intense.
I also find that the medium of comics is very interesting for horror in that
you don't have sound as kind of a tool in your creative tool belt.
(07:33):
Motion is also limited in that it is a static page or a panel.
And so sort of a lot of the tools that can create jump scares that can kind
of make horror effective are limited in comics.
And so I think on the one hand, that can kind of help to make something horrifying
more accessible to a wider audience.
(07:54):
But it also is an interesting creative challenge then. How does that page flip
really engage the reader or the content itself?
How can you kind of sell that conceptually?
So I find that the medium itself has been very exciting to work in for this
genre to try to translate.
Late yeah as far as your goosebumps memories go
(08:16):
do you have any particular favorites from that franchise
oh my gosh i mean where do i begin so there was in addition to the book series
they had that tv show that really cheesy 90s tv show which did you ever watch
any of that yeah i'd rent vhs tapes of it because i was able to watch goosebumps
well after it was still on tv oh yeah Yeah, that's the thing.
(08:39):
It was all over Blockbuster when those still existed.
And so saying that now, I definitely remember I was, I think I was seven.
I had just turned seven, and I was finally old enough, according to my mom,
to rent It Was Welcome to Dead House, which was the goosebumps for listeners
not as familiar with this series as we are.
(09:01):
That was the entry in which I believe family moves into a new neighborhood,
this old creepy Victorian house.
The neighbors themselves are a little distant, a little cold, a little weird.
And throughout the story, you learn that they are essentially zombies.
They are undead and they're sort of preying upon new neighbors who come in and
(09:24):
kind of sucking out their life force, essentially. Not as gruesome as like.
Zombies eating flesh or anything but the the
tv show was very intense and so i do recall
finally turning seven my mom saying i was old enough to watch this sitting down
to watch it and being so freaked out it was so captivating i couldn't turn away
(09:45):
but i wanted to and that was a feeling i loved with horror and i think that's
a feeling that i've always strove to recreate on the comics,
whether or not it's a horror hound, you're a lot more squeamish,
that intensity and that attraction is really exciting to try and recreate and capture in comics.
(10:06):
So I always want to make work that's engaging, that the reader can't turn away
from, even if they may want to.
Yeah, it's funny, much like your series starting with a werewolf story in Party Animals,
my first goosebumps episode was a
werewolf of fever swamp so that's and
i'm sure that i watched that too that probably had a
(10:28):
nice subconscious effect on my creative psyche
when i was making this comic originally actually party
animals and for those who don't know it is sort
of well it is about a high school house party that gets crashed by a group of
teen werewolves and it is up to these two queer students in their grade to save
(10:49):
their classmates and also quickly realize their feelings for each other that
are sort of bubbling beneath the surface,
but are also very obvious because they're teens.
But when creating this story, originally, when I was working on the longer graphic
novel version, it was much different, and I would say, more generic.
(11:10):
And I think that instinctively I was trying to think like, okay,
if I want to get published, it has to be like X, Y, and Z exactly.
It has to fit within this very limited scope.
And that's what I was pitching it as. And it wasn't until I got connected with
Craven Comics and talked more about it and also faced some rejection letters
(11:33):
that I realized, oh, I need to lean into the weirdness of this.
I need to make this very specific to me, to what I like to draw, to my creative voice.
And so I really leaned into the house party as the sort of narrative device
that happens across the whole story throughout.
And so I really think that leaning into this concept really was a strength that
(11:55):
helped the story overall. Yeah.
And I'm curious, with the Nightshade entries so far,
horror in general seems to be the one genre that can leave you on something
of a cliffhanger, or if not, like, an outright cliffhanger, then a moment where
there's still a lot more interesting stuff to happen.
How do these characters process what they just witnessed? And so I'm curious.
(12:16):
That's a great question.
Yeah, like, are we ever going to see these characters pop up again in later
entries, or is each one going to be totally separate characters in situations? situations?
Ultimately, my goal is to have them connect.
Nightshade I'm envisioning to be six entries in total,
where the first four to five are more self-contained, but the more you read,
(12:38):
the more clues will be laid in, the more connections you'll find,
and the more that you'll see these characters reoccurring.
Well, I guess I can go ahead and it's fine. The script for the third and the
fourth one, these two comics I'm working on next, do feature characters returning,
do have some really fun callbacks.
And ultimately my goal is to have each story kind of take place within a shared universe.
(13:03):
These characters will return, realize that it's a little suspicious that all
of these spooky shenanigans are happening in a very identical radius within
their hometown, essentially, within this peer group.
And there will be a narrative reason for that.
So I'm very excited to explore that. Another anthology that I think also didn't
(13:26):
really influence my comics output, ironically, is American Horror Story,
which I don't know. Have you watched any of that?
Yeah, I've seen the good seasons or I've seen one and three and some of the anthology seasons.
Seasons yeah that's and i think that's
that's worth mentioning too is it's very hit or miss also
(13:47):
very adult but if anything kind of going through that showed me what i didn't
didn't want to do as a creative in the genre you know i found myself watching
these episodes and going well i would have done it this way or i would have
focused on this instead and so i really tried to take all All of these feelings,
track them, and infuse that into the comics I'm making now.
(14:10):
Not in terms of subject matter, because this is very YA teen-friendly,
but in terms of the storytelling decisions.
I found that to be a very informative show.
And something I find interesting is like in both books so far,
we see mentions that like there's a bit of online community or at least connectedness
of like the vampires know there's other vampires or like the werewolves find
(14:34):
a werewolf serum on the Internet.
Will we ever see more of like the inner workings of monster society or monster
community in this world?
Or will we be keeping the focus just on the teens? Absolutely.
I think, and for party animals, this, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler
because it doesn't really revolve around the climax or anything.
(14:55):
The teen characters who do become werewolves, they create moonshine based on
a special internet recipe that specifically turns them into werewolves,
not just any old moonshine.
And I have this distinct memory of sitting there on my bed, typing on my computer
and the thought occurred to me and it was just too much fun of a pun.
They're werewolves, it's moonshine.
(15:16):
It's fun. And so I wanted to lean into that campy element as well.
And it's fun to see what organically comes up versus what I have been planning since the beginning.
So that moonshine bit, having my vampires in this follow-up story blush be very internet savvy.
Those are very organic elements that I think came from being a person who's
(15:39):
very online almost too much.
And also just as I was getting into the finer details of the story,
these details would become more concrete.
So absolutely, I think it's a very rich, robust world that I get to build within these comics.
And there'll be some very exciting shenanigans as more and more of these horrifying
(16:01):
events happen, almost overlapping with each other.
Yeah, so knowing we've got the next two scripts already in progress,
what can you tell us about the next volume of Nightshade?
Well, I will say the third one has been fully drawn, colored, lettered.
This one is ready to go. I'm working on the fourth next and then scripting the fifth. Yeah.
(16:22):
So I like to keep, it's just fun to work on. I like to keep ahead.
And that was also part of the Kickstarter campaign process was I just got too
antsy to work on the next story. I was too excited.
And so Kickstarter requires a lot of involvement in that process day to day.
So I was excited to transition to developing more of these stories.
(16:45):
And now to answer your question, actually, and not go off on a total tangent.
The third one, it's going to revolve around haunted house actors.
Not like a haunted haunted house, but what do you go to on Halloween?
And so I won't reveal the title just yet,
but it does revolve around haunted house actors and the hijinks that ensue when
(17:08):
actual ghosts and spirits will show up and kind of see these characters making a mockery of them,
kind of playing pretend of these very real creatures that inhabit this world.
So it's a lot of fun chase scenes ensue. It's very interesting.
It also kind of acknowledges what really appeals to me about horror, I think.
(17:29):
Like why myself and so many people are so invested in a genre that on the surface
seems really grotesque and weird, but has a lot to offer underneath the surface. this.
Now, as far as like researching that next graphic novel, are you one for like
visiting either like seasonal haunted houses or like allegedly haunted areas around your city?
(17:53):
Yeah, I am a huge fan of haunted houses. If anything, it's trying to convince
friends, my partner, anyone to go with me.
Therein lies the challenge. But I love that experience and I love doing local
history and researching that, I think there's so much to be found just underneath
the surface that absolutely influences my work.
(18:13):
I mean, for example, The Exorcist, the original one, was based on a case in
St. Louis, where I currently reside here.
Some of the details were changed. It was a little boy instead of Linda Blair in real life.
But the priest was from a local university here, and the house is still intact
and is kind of a tourist destination now.
(18:34):
Now on local haunts though since you're st louis
based have you ever been to the city museum there oh my
gosh of course it's so much fun yeah oh
i love that place like i mean st louis is
like five hours from me but there was a year where i did
make that trek twice within a couple months because it's that
cool oh very nice it is oh it's
(18:54):
so much fun and so for listening also it's this sort
of it's not really a museum in any
sense of the word it is like this indoor adult-sized
playground of like repurpose scrap
material from just various parts
of the city that they all put together clean off
and form into like a giant jungle
(19:16):
gym and it's in a massive building it's so much fun it is wild like there's
a cave network you can genuinely get lost in inside oh absolutely and you have
it's it's a passage for anyone visiting saint louis like the general vibe I'd describe it as is like,
it's, it's like something you would see in a Disney channel movie and be like, ah,
(19:38):
I wish that was real, but somehow no one is marketing this and pushing it like it's Disneyland.
And so it's not super overcrowded. It's awesome.
But it's oh, my gosh, there's so many nooks and crannies. You really like it
is a full workout just to get into everything there. It's so much fun.
But the reason I bring it up is, have you ever heard about like the haunting
(20:00):
there or like the various haunts? No, that not yet.
I heard there's been some rumored spiritual activity.
Do you have any more more information?
Yeah. Yeah. So apparently the building it's in used to be like one of those
child labor shoe factories back before labor laws existed.
And like a few kids and or orphans died there.
(20:22):
And it's real messed up. But now that sounds pretty fitting for a lot of buildings in St.
Louis, unfortunately, there's not surprised there.
There's area that like there's a train track that only kids are allowed to ride
on just because it's small.
Yes, I'm a little jealous, but that's beside the point. But multiple kids have
reported seeing this little girl in like a pink, like Victorian dress that like
(20:47):
will talk to them or wave at them.
And that is not part of the train track.
Like there's no girl doll looking like that or like a paid actress or anything.
And the one adult conductor that drives it around, I don't think reports seeing it.
But it's like multiple separate incidents with different kids mentioning seeing this girl.
(21:09):
And like a staff member there was telling me about it and
that's the kind of haunt that always freaks me out
it's not like the people go and then they
get creeped out by the things they've heard it's the instance where
multiple people have mentioned this thing without ever hearing about it and
like that's when i think okay this might genuinely be haunted yeah it's a too
(21:29):
specific of a context for all of these children to just make up on their own
yeah no wonder i haven't come across it because Because clearly the ghost is
not interested in 20-somethings.
But yeah, for those listening, if you're anywhere in the Midwest,
go to the City Museum in St. Louis.
It's one of the coolest places and most underrated ones at that.
(21:52):
It's amazing and you might see a ghost. So, you know, fun on two levels.
Oh, and I will offer as well, I guess a fun...
It's not really a St. Louis insider tip, but I feel like this goes a bit unnoticed.
The City Museum has a whole rooftop Ferris wheel, Amusement Park-esque display
at the very top of the building that usually gets obscured because no one is
(22:17):
looking up there or there's other random objects around.
But it's a very cool look at the city to go there at night on the Ferris wheel
and get the entire city in front of you as well.
So if you're going, you might as well make a day out of it and really get to
see the city all lit up at night then.
So it's like been a good five years or so since I've been to St.
(22:38):
Louis. So for the next time I make a trip down, do you have any suggestions?
Like, I was presenting as a cis guy last time I was in St. Louis and a straight one at that.
So like, as far as the queer scene in St. Louis goes, is there anything you
would suggest? Oh my gosh, yes.
St. Louis has a very exciting queer scene, which was very gratifying for me,
especially kind of like learning more about my identity in college and then
(23:00):
staying here after college and discovering all of this.
There's i want to give a shout out to the metro trans umbrella
group a local non-profit here that i've done
quite a bit of volunteering for in the past but they're always putting on
a lot of different events whether that's like queer networking at a local brewery
whether that is like a telethon event that is an actual like they have to fill
(23:23):
out 24 hours worth of content for a telethon to raise funds versus a good old-fashioned
drag show they always have a lot lot going on.
And then another place to recommend is it is called the Crack Fox.
This is a real venue in downtown St. Louis, where they have some of the most fun drag shows.
And since the pandemic, they have been coming back with a vengeance almost.
(23:48):
They're here, they're queer, they're doing all sorts of fun events over there.
Gallery shows, drag performances.
There's a lot of exciting local talent to see there as well.
So there's always a lot going on. You just have to do a little digging,
I guess, on Instagram to figure out when it's happening.
Now, as far as other inspirations for your comics go, I know also in the back
(24:11):
of Party Animals, you mentioned Young Avengers, which really made me happy because
that was like one of my first comics ever that I followed as it was coming out.
And we just talked about it a couple episodes ago on like
a Loki focused episode so i'd love
to hear more about like your exposure to the young avengers and like if
you've read the karen gillen series as well and yeah just
(24:32):
your connection to superheroes so for for listeners
here the print version of party animals has a few
essays that i wrote about my experience with comics and queerness and horror
as well as a whole lot of sketches but i do write about how as a child reading
the original run of the young avengers comics from Marvel was sort of my first
(24:53):
encounter with queerness in comics.
I think prior to that, it was all very spandex-heavy, fighting,
heterosexual, very heterosexual characters.
And this one, you know, had a lot of spandex and fighting, but it had a very
tender queer romance at the center of it.
And I just remember it resonating with me in a way that I couldn't describe
(25:14):
because I was very young and I was learning about myself in the process.
So I didn't even know yet.
But it was very beautiful, and it really stuck with me, and kind of provided
some much-needed representation of just gay and queer people existing, especially in a
in a community space that I wasn't seeing a lot of that around.
(25:35):
And so as I grew up, I kind of went in and out with superhero comics,
but I really came back to the whole medium in a big way,
especially in college, where I had a lot of professors who were guiding me towards
very queer and very inclusive comics.
So I could really see how wide, how much depth and how wide that field really
(25:56):
was in terms of content and creators and characters.
And that is when I came back to the Kieran Gillen run, which was wild and fascinating.
And I got so into his Tumblr as well while reading it, because that was almost
like, it felt like a very crucial text of seeing all of his posts about the
(26:18):
comic and his inspirations and references.
And it was such a fun, like, amalgamation of popular culture and character arcs
and queerness and concepts.
It was just so exciting and i i'm sure
the mcu version will leave a lot to be desired but i
hope that they reference the the overt
(26:39):
weirdness of those those fun comics more as far as like those queer and inclusive
comics you got exposed to in college any highlights you can shout out on the
show because like i am still learning the world of graphic novels since it's
not as easy to plow into like Like with Marvel and DC comics,
there's kind of a famous canon of like what's important.
(27:02):
But when it comes to like independent and self-published graphic novels,
it's like just what do you find at your library or what do people tell you about?
So I'm always on the lookout.
Absolutely. And that's kind of the joy of it is there's so much and there's
no real wrong way to go about getting into material, finding things that resonate.
I think kind of a queer classic at this point is Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
(27:26):
The graphic novel about her burgeoning
queerness along with learning about her
dad's kind of hidden queerness as well but this is going back into his past
right as he is passing away so grappling with a lot of feelings and emotions
in a very unique way on in the the comics medium that one was very gorgeous
(27:48):
there's of course Nimona by N.D.
Stevenson which just had that very very cool Netflix movie That is also one
that is very casual in its queerness, its inclusion, and it's just fun.
You know, I think what I love about finding queer comics is there's no limit
(28:09):
to what they can look like and how they can read.
There's so many emotions to explore and to depict, and no two queer comics are the same.
And I also have to give a very special shout out to, it's the graphic novel Bloom. Loom.
It's by Kevin J. Panetta and Savannah Gannuccio. I'm looking off at my phone
(28:29):
here to make sure I got the details right.
It was a young adult graphic novel by First Second Comics that came out a few
years ago now, I think pre-pandemic.
But it is a comic that has a very big influence on what I'm making now. It is a queer romance.
It's monochromatic. It's this very gorgeous blue color, this very aquamarine almost.
(28:49):
And now with my comics, another kind of feature is each one has its own monochromatic color scheme.
So you have party animals with this very lush purple
color that kind of helps convey the intensity
of the nighttime and the party atmosphere that it's all
taking place in then with blush you have this very dark crimson which it's vampire
(29:10):
themed so it's kind of fitting color wise but it also kind of signifies something
more romantic which is the big focus of that story and so the graphic novel
bloom absolutely had an influence on me stylistically to kind of help I'll create
that atmosphere that I wanted.
Weirdly, I just started reading Fun Home this month, so I already had you there.
But I'll have to look into Bloom. I've not heard of that one before.
(29:32):
Nice. Small world. It's meant to be.
Now, as far as like your other professional artwork goes, I know you've done
art for a couple different apps like After the Storm and at least one other kind of story based app.
I'd like to know about how you got involved in that and if that's something
you still try to stay involved in at all. So that's more, I guess,
(29:54):
more in the realm of the freelance illustration I do in addition to comics.
So After the Storm was this mobile app game, this text-based,
choose-your-own-adventure-style narrative that I did illustrations for.
It was through a platform called Choice of Games, I believe,
and so that's where you can find it in the App Store within that platform. platform.
(30:16):
I've done that. I've done another smaller version of that that was more of a heist theme as well.
And this is with one of my really close friends. This was sort of born out of
the pandemic and kind of a need just to create, just to focus on something else
instead of the world around us.
And so I think that that drive has continued as I've made those.
(30:38):
I do a lot of of illustration for clients here in St. Louis.
Something I really love to do, I'm part of this artist collective called Friends
for Good, which does these bi-annual, twice a year gallery shows that are often
themed around promoting small businesses,
(30:59):
local landmarks, different kind of St.
Louis-oriented subjects that we all, we being a group of artists,
will create posters for and and then help raise funds for different charities
in the area based on printing out those posters, whether that's screen printing or otherwise.
So opportunities like that to kind of create in your own world,
but still try to make an impact on the community has really been a guiding force
(31:23):
through all of my illustration.
And then I get to take a break, turn to comics and draw some weird monsters.
So you've now done work as like a professional artist then and also been the
entire creative process of making your own comics.
That does make me wonder like do you feel
any pull toward like in your future work shifting towards
(31:44):
just drawing your comics or just writing and working with a fellow artist or
do you think you'll want to keep it like self-contained of you both draw and
write all of your future comics i i think i'm just open to any and all possibilities
here i think that creating Creating Party Animals and Blush, as I have now,
kind of came about just through my own natural working process of wanting just
(32:10):
to make a bunch of stuff and kind of pull it all together and determine the narrative from there.
But I'm absolutely open to writing and drawing.
I'm currently also working on a top secret middle grade based comic project
in which I am just drawing and someone else is writing, which will be announced
at the end of the year. I think I can kind of hint at it here, at least.
(32:34):
But each process always has its own interesting challenges, whether that's interpreting
someone else's voice and thoughts through your drawings versus doing it all
on your own and kind of figuring out what do you actually want to make?
What is the narrative? And trying to really hone in on the key elements of the
story to really communicate.
(32:54):
As far as working with collaborators in the future, do
you have a a process for how you find who you want to
work with or like what would you say draws
you to doing the artwork for someone else's project absolutely i think our process
now is really just making any and all connections i can whether that's social
media whether that's in person whether that's through the cartoonist co-op that
(33:19):
both of us are a member of and how i came across your fabulous podcast.
Initially, I really tried to remain open to any and all possibilities.
I like to think that hopefully it's the universe lining things up in a way that is meant to be.
And, you know, I've had something very organic, like with my current publisher, Craven Comics,
(33:40):
where I was really just sending out as much
content as I could and getting a response and then really clicking with with
them on kind of the mindset of making comics and of queer representation and
that being the guiding force of everything they were making versus getting paired
up or getting sought after by an outside person.
(34:00):
So I think it's, I really just try to remain open to any and all possibilities.
I think that it's never been more accessible to do so online and I really want
to take advantage of that.
Now, I know we have at least four more Nightshade books planned in the pipeline.
The timeline now, we have two.
Well, one is out. One will be out by the time this episode releases,
(34:25):
which it'll be officially out on March 27th for anyone frantically checking
to make sure that it is there. It will be there if it's not.
And from there, the goal is then to do ultimately six entries,
kind of have a distinct start, middle and end
in terms of a larger three-act structure of
anthology stories that still fit into an overarching narrative
(34:47):
and then collecting that into one big graphic novel and
returning to kickstarter with a much bigger book to print and promote through
that through those means so beyond the next four nightshade books like what
else would you say you're hoping to do with your comics career or there are
any particular goals you're aspiring to outside of nightshade Oh my gosh, yes. Where do I begin?
(35:10):
I love creating. I love making comics, whether that's exclusively drawing,
writing and drawing, just writing.
I want to just keep creating, reaching out to different publishers, connecting.
Horror, I think, is a very fascinating genre that obviously has captured my
attention that I want to continue working in. But,
(35:32):
I'm absolutely open to other genres, especially as they relate to queer representation.
I think that's always a guiding force in whatever it is I do, creative-wise.
So yes, more comics, connecting with more creatives, collaborating more,
submitting and promoting comics wherever I can, and world domination overall.
(35:55):
So I just want to keep creating and just see wherever that takes me and just buckle up for the ride.
Now, having grown up on superhero comics, could you see yourself ever finding
yourself in that space, like writing for Marvel or DC or even like independent
publishing, like in the realm of superheroes?
Yeah, I would be if anyone from Marvel and DC is listening, I am absolutely
(36:18):
open to working with you. Very into this.
Yeah, I think that my own kind of creative voice is very much influenced by
a lot more independent comics. But I still have a very strong foundation,
at least growing up in this kind of superhero realm.
And so it's when I look on, I look at very fondly, I'm still very into and very engaged with.
(36:40):
I see them as just different ways of storytelling within the same medium,
similar languages, almost similar elements to play with.
And so I just see it as another facet of comic storytelling.
So absolutely, superheroes are fun.
It would be a great. As far as monthly comics or really new releases in general,
(37:02):
is there anything you want to plug as far as what you're reading as of late
or what you keep an eye on? Oh my gosh, what have I been reading as of late?
A lot, actually. Let me pull it up on the side here.
I know we have not talked about manga at all on this episode yet,
but I just finished a very excellent and, dare I say, underrated manga,
(37:25):
at least in the States, that I think deserves some more attention.
Now, are you a big manga person at all? No.
I'm a budding manga person. I wish I had been more exposed growing up,
but there's a few I follow.
I love Chainsaw Man, currently reading. Oh, that's a good one.
Go Go Loser Ranger slash Ranger Reject, possibly to cover that on my other podcast.
(37:47):
But there's a few I'm tracking. It's just, it's hard now that I'm following
multiple comic mediums.
And yeah, I'm still trying to find a good trans manga to try and cover on the show someday.
Exactly. Well, I am about to add to that confusion, by recommending something
else in this new comics field.
But I was recently reading this, at least the first volume of this manga series,
(38:10):
really for my local book club, but also it's just really interesting.
It's called Tokyo These Days by Taiyo Matsumoto.
And I bring this up because it's very fitting for your show almost.
It is about this longtime manga editor who is finally retiring,
but still has this creative drive inside of him.
(38:31):
And so it's him reconciling with several decades of very financially successful
manga stories, but maybe they're a bit creatively more shallow.
And so he's feeling the need to figure out what a deeper story would be,
what he actually wants to tell, who he wants to work with, and kind of captures
(38:52):
this very interesting nature of comics making.
And sort of the push and pull between art and commercialism and following your
instinct versus what is trending, what is popular with an audience and with publishers.
It is a very fascinating book.
It's also pretty short, so it's a very quick read, but fascinating.
(39:13):
Leaves you with a lot of questions about the nature
of creating and storytelling so i i feel
like it might it would be great for a podcast like this but also
would leave you with so many other questions i guess
a whole other podcast episode now i do like to wrap us up with a wild card question
of the week tailored to the guest and or their interests and so for you specifically
(39:36):
if you could adapt one existing horror story or a Goosebumps book into a graphic novel, what would it be?
And I will say it doesn't have to be like a direct one-to-one adaptation.
You can take liberties or it could be a follow-up or spinoff, whatever.
But yeah, what story or specifically Goosebumps book would you want to get to
(39:58):
play in the world of? Oh my gosh.
That is like, that is a dream come true right there. haunted
mask comes off the top of my classic Goosebumps
story in which the Halloween mask that a
little girl buys at a Halloween store starts like fusing
to her face and becomes like real it's like
a weird sentient creature almost it's a
(40:19):
little Venom-esque in like a superhero
parallel that one is so interesting I
feel like all I feel like any and all Goosebumps stories
could use a lot more queerness that is that was kind of the
driving force behind my comics now of taking this
taking the concept of goosebumps but making it a lot more inclusive like
the representation that i wanted to see growing up yeah haunted basque werewolf
(40:43):
skin there was one where like this little boy's grandparents they were werewolves
but they would like literally wear these pelts that would fuse to them so they
could turn into these creatures that would just be so much fun to draw.
That's so weird and fascinating.
Oh my gosh. And then, I mean, there's so much horror that I think would translate
(41:04):
so well to the printed page.
I think another, well, we haven't talked about this yet, but one of the essays
in my Party Animals book is about the child's play movies specifically within
the horror genre and how their queerness really influenced me as a creative.
That's like like chucky for example the killer doll
(41:24):
ironically has a canonically genderqueer
gender fluid child and it's the
the queerness in those movies is so fascinating and so
interesting to analyze but it's just such a fun
frivolous world that i think would make for
an amazing comic so also if
anyone from the child's book franchise is listening i am
(41:46):
very much available for adaptations adaptations have you
seen the uh child's play series tv show
oh my gosh yes it's coming back i
think april is part two of this third
season that show is so much fun oh my
gosh only seen the first season but yeah like
trans rights chucky is in there and or like knowing chucky is an ally but then
(42:09):
yeah i got a queer kid gender fluid nothing i love him so much hearing this
It's like New York gangster voice saying gender fluid is it has been stuck in
my head ever since I saw that episode.
That is also a show that I feel like it has such a good balance of humor and
horror and kills and gore, but a lot of heart at the center of it,
(42:32):
which I think is absolutely translating, or at least I'm trying to translate into my comics.
All right. Well, Lori, it's been awesome having you on the show.
As far as following you going forward, where can our listeners find you and
how can we support the later chapters of Nightshade? Thank you. Yeah.
So I am on social media at Lori Jameson. That's L-O-R-R-Y-J-A-M-I-S-O-N.
(42:57):
That last name spelled a bit phonetically. On Instagram, threads now.
I'm getting figuring out threads, that whole fun thing.
TikTok, not so much Twitter slash X based on the insane politics going on in that platform.
So Instagram, threads, and TikTok, where you can find out all of my news about
(43:19):
my current comic releases, upcoming releases,
additional illustration projects, and prints that I have for sale,
and all sorts of fun, spooky adventures.
I like to tease all the projects I work on, so some very fun things to be found over there.
All right, well, it's been a pleasure having you, and we're really looking forward
(43:39):
to seeing what else is to come in Nightshade and your work going forward.
Thank you so much this has been so much fun i love talking comics horror all
of that good stuff anytime.
If the listeners at home have requests or recommendations for comics or creators
you'd like us to cover in the future, you can send them our way on social media.
You can find us on the Transcending Comics Instagram and Facebook page,
(44:00):
on Twitter as at Transcend Comics, or email us at transcendingcomics at gmail.com.
We'd like to thank you again for giving our podcast a chance and give a shout
out to Ray Day Parade for designing our logo.
Our intro and outro music this week is A Little Soul and You've Been Starring by Carlson.
You can check out more of his music on carlson.com. on.
Join us again next week as we continue transcending boundaries and exploring
(44:22):
the colorful world of trans, non-binary, and genderqueer representation in comic books of all kinds.
As the curtains fall on this episode of Transcending Comics,
remember that comics have the power to inspire change in countless worlds,
including our own. Keep reading!
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