April 26, 2024 • 42 mins
This week we're joined by Niki Smith and Ollie Hicks, two incredible creators currently collaboration on a trans-inclusive sapphic comics anthology 'Succulent', which is currently live on Kickstarter!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/khaoskreator/succulent-trans-inclusive-sapphic-comics-anthology?ref=discovery
We learn about the origins of the upcoming project, and get into the inspirations of Niki and Ollie's previous works. You may recognize Niki from books like 'The Deep and Dark Blue,' 'Crossplay,' and 'Golden Hours." Ollie also has some incredible comics under their belt, like 'Grand Slam Romance,' 'Butch Bros,' and 'Henchman's Day Off.'
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(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 today I'm joined by Nikki Smith and Ollie Hicks,
two incredible creators calling in from across the sea for the show's first ever double interview.
Nikki Smith has contributed a wide variety of talents to the comics industry,
(00:38):
from writing and drawing her own young adult graphic novels like The Deep and
Dark Blue and Golden Hours, to spicy erotic comics like Bruised Fruit and Crossplay,
and even making artistic contributions to the Adventure Zone comics and The Witch Boy.
Ollie Hicks has also contributed to comics of all shapes and sizes,
from short comics to webcomics, zines, and graphic novels, with notable books
(01:00):
like the widely praised Grand Slam Romance to funny and sexy comics like Butch
Bros and Henchmen Stay Off.
Their work is equal parts relatable and absurd in all the best ways possible.
These two incredible talents are working alongside co-editor Tab Kimpton to
bring together an incredible collection of sexy comics, Succulent,
a trans-inclusive sapphic comics anthology, which has an ongoing Kickstarter
(01:24):
campaign at the time of this episode's release.
Here to discuss their contributions to the book are today's guests,
Nikki and Ollie. Welcome to the show, guys. Hello.
So tell us a bit about how the two of you came together for this project.
This is your first time collaborating together, right? Yeah,
well, I think Nikki and Tab had already sort of started cooking the project anthology.
(01:45):
And then, yeah, so y'all started together on the anthology first.
I'll let you go first. Yeah, I've known Tab for years.
I've known Tab's comics, especially for years. They were some of the first webcomics
I read when I was a tiny queer teen looking for queer webcomics in the very early 2000s.
And recently, Tab started doing a series of erotic comic anthologies,
(02:07):
starting with Come Together, which is all European comic creators after Brexit,
and about coming together, you know, sexily.
And after that, he followed it up with Ambrosia and Nectar and Nether Realms.
And those are all various queer, trans, non-binary titles, erotic comics.
(02:28):
And he wanted to follow that up with a sapphic anthology.
And he got in touch with me and then brought Ollie on board to be our third co-editor.
Very nice. And I've noticed that this book has a good 19 different contributors
all working on 12 different stories.
So I'm curious how you went about finding and choosing contributors to this
(02:49):
book and what that process looks like. You want to handle that?
Okay. So basically, we put out a call for contributors.
So we came together. We discussed what we thought the book sort of remit was. We sort of wrote...
Some copy sort of envision in different ways the theme could be
reinterpreted and then we sort of put
(03:09):
it out and sort of see sort of what sort of stories people sort of
contributed in terms of ideas so we initially got
I think it was almost a hundred people submitted
ideas and we had a huge all-day meeting
where we went through and sort of thought which
stories we were sort of really felt we were like
(03:30):
a different take on the theme which sort of creators we
were like we have to work with them like they're going to present something really unique
and so from that we sort of slowly slowly slowly
whittled it down to the 12 stories
that we have in the anthology yeah and
tab done something unique where he likes to give writers
and artists the chance to apply separately and
(03:52):
get paired up to work on the anthology because it
can be a lot like a really big hurdle for unknown
writers to become prepared with.
An artist already on board so we got
some really fun writer only pitches and
then we gave you know them a bunch of artist options that
we really thought fit the story well and they you know
(04:13):
found someone they really wanted to work with and that was its own
extra fun process tell us a bit about
the two comics that you're both contributing this time
let's start with you nikki my comic is called prickly
pear it is a mileage curse oh
yeah definitely it is a hate book in the middle of the desert there are bruises
(04:36):
and biting and lots of smirking butchers getting sweaty and accidentally catching
prickly pears with their bare hands now ollie tell us a little bit about the
plant sitter okay so my one's also.
About like butch idiots so my
one is about a sort of horny plant sitter who gets
the opportunity to look after a silver fox
(04:58):
dyke daddy's plant collection unfortunately they
overwater the daddy's like sort of prized
sentient cactus and they have to sort of go to a slightly
extreme length in order to bring the cactus back from the
brink you've mentioned the dumb butches
is a common in both of your comics and ollie i've
noticed that you especially managed to inject your
(05:20):
own personal brand of humor into the mix
with delightful results even in your sexy stories
so will this same sense of humor then be on display in the plant sitter oh yeah
no that's not a serious story at all it's uh it's really silly i'm very much
like i guess i'm quite i'm a comedian i would come from comedy it's sort of
like where i started writing and so i always feel more confident and comfortable in comedy anyway.
(05:46):
Yeah, that was the one comic that when I was reading through,
sometimes I'd be like, this one's wild. Who wrote this?
And I'd be like, oh, no, wait, that was me. Now, if this one's too personal,
I can edit this out later. No worries.
But I wanted to ask, like, in your own life, do you have any thoughts on the
role humor plays within intimacy, especially as a comedian?
(06:06):
Like, I'm curious how that influences the way you write stories like this.
Yeah, I'm so silly all the time. like i
mean like yeah i don't want to get too much into
it because my wife will be like you can't put us on blast like this
in on a podcast but i am
silly and like i feel like some people take sex very seriously and
i'm just a silly goofball clown and ladies that
(06:29):
applies to all areas trying to
think of a night of a cool way i can say this without like being too
much of a clown on main but yeah no i feel like
there's a playfulness in queer identity especially that
i feel like is actually very undervalued and little
understood in heteronormative society and I
feel that extends to things like sexual expression
(06:50):
and I feel like a lot of the times people maybe take in
heteronormative society take sex quite seriously not to
completely pit us against the head but like I feel like there's a
seriousness around sex sometimes when sex is silly and goofy and sometimes it
can be like you know amazing and sad and tragic and like there's all these these
different things that sort of happen in sex but one of the things that happens
(07:12):
is that sex can be really silly and can be really funny and that's like part of.
Me one of the joys of sex is it can be a funny time,
Now, Nikki, I've noticed that with your comics, you often play with a color
palette that's heavily influenced by one color, most notably in indigo and in the deep and dark blue.
(07:34):
So will you be using a similar color effect in Prickly Pear,
or will this be a new kind of art style?
I absolutely do, but that's because the entire anthology has a limited color palette.
The whole book is colored with the various tones from the Let's Be in a Flag. bag.
So for my comic, I stuck to the sunset side, so the reds and yellows and oranges,
(07:57):
as opposed to the pinks and violets, which is supposed to sort of stand for the butcher.
Side of the lesbian spectrum.
So very fitting because it takes place in a desert under the hot blazing sun.
But I had a lot of fun coloring it and not
trying to stick with natural lighting or anything like
(08:17):
that so it really takes on some more extreme
coloring i think now one of the most distinct
things i've noticed about your art style is the way you
draw characters blushing by like using
the red lines across the face and i found this to be used like really effectively
through your comics and i think it makes your characters just seem really visually
(08:38):
endearing and i'm curious about how this artistic signature of yours came about
i'm sure it's the very basic The basic root of it is just that I grew up reading a lot of manga.
There's a lot of blushing in manga. And then, yeah, at some point,
I really like working with limited palettes and bringing in spot colors like that.
(08:58):
And warm blushes, I think, really sort of stand out.
A lot in pop so i had fun with that yeah i
especially noticed it in crossplay and 11
slash 11 days i think is maybe my favorite
use i've seen of this in your work thank you now question
for you both i've noticed that both of you have a bit of
(09:19):
a history of taking your short stories or short comics and getting the chance
to turn them into full-length graphic novels ollie i know that you and emma
oosterhaus had a particularly wild journey in turning your 17-page zine for
Grand Slam Romance into a now graphic novel series.
So can you tell us a little bit about that experience and how that opportunity came to be?
(09:43):
Yeah, that was the wildest experience of my life. So I was at Thought Bubble,
which is a UK comic convention.
I wasn't supposed to be there. Basically, two guys I knew, David Robertson and
Joan Edam, they were tabling at the con and Joan had to drop it out because
his partner was having a baby.
So David was like, do you want to be my table mate?
And I was like yeah sure I'll show up so I wasn't like on the list
(10:05):
on the map or anything like that I was just sort of hanging out and Emma
had some shiva prints so I like flew them up on the table because I'm a good
sort of partner I was like yeah here's my girlfriend's prints and yeah this
woman came over looked at the shiva prints and then saw Grand Slam Romance and
was sort of talking to me asking me a couple questions about it and I was like
yeah sure and she was like I've got like like, an imprint in the States. I was like, okay, cool.
(10:29):
Like, sure you do. And she was like, yeah, like, maybe I'll talk to you about
it. I was like, yeah, cool. And then, like, I...
Then like a couple hours later, Emma texted me and goes, why has Mariko Tamaki
just followed me on Twitter? What have you done? Who have you talked to?
What, like, what have you done? And I was like, oh, what? Because like comics,
I feel like it's one where you never know what people look like.
(10:50):
As an industry, I don't know what anybody looks like unless I meet them in person.
So I was just, at one point I asked her where she was tabling. I was so embarrassed.
Like, because you're like, oh, you seem cool. Where are you tabling?
She's like, no, I don't have a table. I was like, okay, weird.
I don't know. all right each to their own and so
from that initial twitter interchange uh mariko
(11:11):
asked us to pitch the book so we sort of had this crazy two
weeks sort of stretch where we sort of threw together a pitch document
not knowing anything and then like sort of eventually out
of that a graphic novel deal got on the table and we were able to sort of make
it now nikki in a similar way i've seen that your short comic indigo from love
in all forms clearly seems to share a similar more visual style and similar
(11:34):
themes with the book you would later develop with The Deep and Dark Blue.
Could you tell us a bit about how you went about reworking just a six-page silent
comic into a full-length fantasy graphic novel?
I've done a lot of anthologies sort of over the years and I always have fun
sort of working with either a themed anthology or you know just a limited number
(11:56):
of pages and that sort of restriction helps me come up with a lot of like ideas
and push me in different directions.
So I really enjoyed this idea behind the short comic Indigo,
which is all about this vivid blue dye and a young trans girl who sort of yearns
to be part of the world of the women who are working with it.
And then a few years later, middle grade graphic novels were starting to become more openly queer.
(12:23):
And that was like beginning to be acceptable to pitch publishers,
especially with Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag, which has a young,
gender nonconforming kid as the main character.
And I decided to go ahead and try and do a pitch myself for a full-length book.
And so I developed The Deep and Dark Blue sort of with that same basic idea
(12:47):
of the die as the heart of it, but then went in a completely different fantasy
direction and turned it into something totally different.
My original pitch for the book was also this limited grayscale color palette
with a spot blue, but my publisher really wanted a full color book.
But even in the finished book, I tried to only use blue when the twins are dealing with magic.
(13:12):
The source of the magic is this blue dye. So even then, in this full color book,
I still worked in my limited palette.
Now, on the deep and dark blue, I couldn't help but notice a number of parallels
between its premise and the plot of
the movie some like it hot my girlfriend just showed me
that this year so it's been kind of at the forefront of my mind so i'm
(13:34):
curious if this was like an intentional reworking of
that story and its tropes or is that just a complete coincidence
i don't think i've ever seen that so yeah
some like it hot is like an old film with marilyn
and monroe and it features two guys that
are also like being pursued by his characters
(13:55):
yeah and similarly like one of
them when they integrate into this group of female performers
like one's clearly taking to it more than the
other and like gets to feel themselves and like even
when i read the summary of the deep and dark bloom
like oh my gosh is this is this some like it hot that's
awesome i need to check this one out so that's why
(14:15):
i had my eyes on this in there yeah really deep down
i saw that with one of my
best friends when i was a teenager who later came out as trans as well and so
maybe it was very deep in my subconscious as an idea yeah but yeah i really
wanted the the twins in the deep and dark blue to have that clear sign for readers like one of.
(14:39):
These kids is definitely trans like this is
not a you know going back to being cis
and happy and straight at the end sort of story like all the
books that i grew up reading about gender adventures as
a kid where i really wanted to to show that parallel grace is incredibly happy
where she is while her brother is not it's a very different experience for them
(15:01):
both with these like having now both had the experience of getting to adapt
your previous work into longer later works and graphic novels.
Is there any particular short comics of yours or especially in like your erotic
work in various anthologies that you ever want to revisit and maybe try and
remake into a longer story?
(15:24):
Oh, I mean, generally I try and be like, well, when it's done, it's done.
But there's one I'm like looking on right now, which is like a 60-pager,
but I'm like, I want this to be a full-length graphic novel.
But I'm trying, I'm like, stop it, just do the 60 pages and get it out.
I'm working on a comic about Christian teens who are very gay and at a festival.
(15:46):
And it's sort of like, I was like, there's lots of Christian trauma comics,
but where's the funny Christian trauma comics?
I'm like it's not funny being horny and
getting christian so i'm sort of
exercising my teenage demons with that one it's 60 pages at the moment but i'm
like oh i want this to be a bullet graphic novel so yeah when you say festival
(16:09):
is this like a music festival scenario oh no it's a christian festival because
you have christian summer festivals it's like the worst okay.
I hate you hard but like it's the worst is
this a british thing maybe this is just a
british thing we used to like go on summer like
they all had names like summer madness and autumn soul and
(16:31):
like you would go and like just camp in a tent and there'd
be like a big christian speaker or something you'd have
worship bands and then there'd be like little bits there
was this one that's just like really it was called like you'd have like little
so pop-up shacks and stuff and one was called the
love shack and it was like actually like a stealth abstinence
shack and that was the worst experience i
(16:52):
was like no caught so yeah i'm
just doing a comic about that i i was curious because like
i've heard stories at the music festivals i
frequent that if people invite you onto their
bus for a sandwich and a cookie don't go
because it's some weird christian offshoot cult
that's like taking people back and putting them
(17:14):
into sandwich work or like making them work for some kind of christian sandwich
shop and i i can't believe it's real but multiple people have shared this story
that's yeah no that's terrible what also like the sandwich and the cookie is
such a suspicious setup though.
Especially because it actually is like
(17:35):
a sandwich or sandwich servitude like yeah i
feel like i just need to do my part and let any other festival goers
out there to know like be wary of bus sandwiches and cookies stay safe out there
don't i think even if they're not christian don't take anybody up on a sandwich
and a cookie and a bus deal like that just is the most like just don't go onto
(17:55):
buses with people you don't know and accept food from them.
Moving this back to Nikki, as far as your other anthology work and short comics,
is there anything else you'd love to rework and expand into a longer comic,
graphic novel, anything like that?
Oh, right now I don't think so. My graphic novel crossplay, which is also Erotica
that you mentioned, did also start as shorter, smutty comics.
(18:20):
And I pitched a few of my comics to Spike at Iron Circus Comics,
and she was like why don't we turn crossplay into
a full book and so we did and that
one is about a group of friends at
a anime convention basically figuring out sexuality and feelings and gender
(18:41):
and all those things through fandom so you know wearing their first wig or their
first binder or you know trying on different pronouns for the day and just a
supportive environment but also So sexy times.
Now, in writing crossplay, were you drawing from like any kind of lived experience
as a cosplayer or like things you observed at conventions?
(19:05):
I just felt from my limited experience, this felt like a very real convention
experience put to comic form.
I definitely went to a lot of conventions growing up, but I was more the quiet
artist and not the like 3D stuff and art and clothes and all that are beyond me.
Completely but i have so many
(19:25):
friends who you know did self-expression through cosplay
and i really wanted to draw that sort of
love for fandom but i will never draw
a comic set at a convention ever again because that was okay do either of you
at least have a go-to costume for like parties conventions or other costumed
events no not anymore i gave it up because i was so bad nobody Nobody knew who
(19:50):
I was. The last one I did was Super Horse.
Like Super Girl's horse? Yeah, Super Girl's pet horse. He's a boyfriend.
And he turns into a cowboy. Yeah, classic. He's one of my favorite things that's
ever happened in comics.
So it went as Super Horse. And like one old man was just like, are you Super Horse?
But everyone else was just like, I don't know what's going on.
What did your costume look like though?
(20:11):
It looked like a mess because I can't sew. It was just like a horse hat.
I think it was a cape maybe.
So you didn't get a second person behind you in the classic two-person horse costume?
No, maybe... Couple's costume. Maybe next couple's cosplay, super horse and super girl.
I don't think I could convince Emma to do that. But if there's a lasso involved?
(20:33):
I think it could be fun, but I feel like also, again, so niche that everyone
would just be like, what is happening? Now, I've noticed that both of you do
a good job subtly introducing fantasy elements in otherwise grounded stories in your work.
Ollie, I especially like the way that you introduced elements of magical girl
stories into a sports graphic novel with Grand Slam Romance.
(20:57):
So could you tell us a bit about how you
decided what elements of magical girl anime
and comics you'd bring into this work and like
how you would make this fit in a world with otherwise human
characters yeah so basically the way grand slam romance
came about was that me and emma were like want to
do a comic together because we both did comics separately we're like
(21:17):
we should do something together so emma wanted to do a magical
girl comic and i wanted to do sports so that's
the first thing is that i'm emma's the magical girl fan
but i'm the person who writes the scripts so like
i think so basically we sort of
i don't remember what research or world building we sort
(21:37):
of decide because it was originally just 19 pages we
were just like and then this will happen that'll be funny and then we sort
of had to expand it for one graphic novel so we're like okay so this is sort
of the rules and then we had to do another two graphic novels and we're like
oh no we really the world building we should have plotted this all out from
the beginning so the way it sort of i guess the way it sort of came together
(21:58):
was i guess the system was just kind of like.
What is the most overpowered way you can do
something for the lowest actual real life stakes and that was
sort of the rules was so originally like in the 19 page
one it was like softball was a bit more like you could
get 600 000 million runs or something like that and
it was a bit more all oped and then what sort
(22:19):
of happened in the graphic novel was that it sort of then sort of
shifted where it's like you could have these gigantic sort of bleach style
explosive sort of displays but it had to be for something
very low stakes like mostly they just use their
powers for sex i would say but like but like to score one
run in softball so i guess it was just sort of like it's mostly informed i think
by comedy or what the plot has to or where the plot has to go in a similar vein
(22:43):
uh The deep and dark blue I noticed makes selective and kind of deliberate use
of the few occasions that magic is used through the book.
Nikki, could you tell us like how you decided how far you wanted to go into
the realm of fantasy in that story and world?
Sure. So the Deep and Dark Blue, the source of magic is this blue dye.
(23:04):
And the way it's implemented or used is through weaving or spinning or fiber arts, pretty much.
Because I wanted to sort of center it around quote-unquote women's work and
this world that Grace wanted to be part of, but also for, you know,
secret other reasons that she earned to be part of this world.
(23:27):
And so I didn't want to, I don't really love info dumping in stories,
so I wanted to keep it pretty vague.
Aside from that, there's, I think, seven different sort of aspects to this,
the communion of blue this order of women who who work
the fiber arts there's healing and spinning and
weaving and the people who look
(23:50):
after the herds for the wool and also the dyers creating the dye and all this
stuff i left it open enough that if you know sequels ever happen i can explore
more of that in those but i didn't want to like make myself try to explain everything
in detail tale in the book itself,
that it's there for the story and the rest the reader can expand upon as imagination wants to.
(24:18):
Are there currently any set plans for a sequel for the book or is that kind
of backburner ideas at the moment?
Backburner ideas right now. I did have a pitch a couple years ago.
I think in 2019, I pitched a sequel like right as this one was coming out.
But the publisher decided to go with The Golden Hour instead because they wanted
(24:38):
to see how The Deep and Dark Blue worked.
And then I got busy with other projects. But I'm very glad that did not work
out because I would have spent 2020 working on a book about a illness epidemic.
And I just I feel like I sort of escaped that by the skin of my teeth.
On the use of trans characters in your work, Olly, I have to say I really love
(25:00):
the way that you introduced the concept of a transmasc magical girl in Grand Slam Romance.
Could you tell us about like how you went about
the design process for the character of wolfgang and
like their development as a character throughout the story oh
yeah well wolfgang is just a butch lesbian
so i don't i don't sort of read
(25:20):
wolfgang as a trans math character i think it's out
of my hands if people want to interpret her
that way they can but we always sort of just we always were
just like wolfgang's a butch lesbian was how we sort of envisioned
her but if you want do you want me to still
talk about wolfgang or not yeah i mean i'd still
love the character's design like it's very non-traditional from
(25:42):
what i've seen elsewhere with magical girls like honestly the whole short top
like i think i may have thought that was a binder and a first impressions i'm
like oh that's kind of badass okay so i mean like this is she we were like this
is a butch lesbian and it is the character most people like oh like do uh do Do you be like,
okay, but like genderqueer in some way. And we were like, oh,
(26:02):
we've always just seen her as a lesbian.
But like, I honestly don't care how people want to read Wolfgang. I think it's all fine.
And so basically the design of Wolfgang is all from the side of things.
So the way me and Emma collaborate is like extremely sort of close on story stuff.
And then I sort of go do the script. She kind of goes in the way.
(26:23):
There's like a thousand different designs of the characters.
And she was very much wanted every character in Grand Slam to have like their own iconography.
So mickey has a has a heart astra as a
star wolfgang she wanted to have a diamond and then she
sort of brought in elements of like she kind of because wolfgang
is like a clubber so she kind of wanted to bring in elements of sort of like
leather and sort of like hard sort of like almost going into the fetish community
(26:44):
sort of like with the harnesses and stuff like that and wear and she also wanted
to have sort of neons for all of that so she kind of wanted wolfgang to be like
quite like sort of a hard aesthetic character because i think wolfgang puts on like a very
hard front, but is also quite a little goofball.
And then that's sort of like how we developed Wolfgang.
(27:06):
And then in book two, we do have a transmasc magical character,
Rock, which basically what's happened is I will be like, what's the coolest
guy I can think of that I really want to be?
And then Emma will be like, is it this? I'm like, yes.
So I think it's probably more of that in book two. But like,
yeah, that's how we came up with Wolfgang.
(27:26):
I was just like, who's the coolest dude I can think of?
I was like, it's Wolfgang. Now, Nikki, as for trans rep in your comics,
I've really thought you've done an incredible job with your portrayal of trans
characters in the deep and dark blue and cross play and incorporating trans
and genderqueer characters of all kinds and bruised fruit.
(27:47):
And I'd love to know how you go about respectfully and faithfully portraying
queer and trans experiences outside of your own lived experiences in your books.
I always work really closely with just close friends and family members of mine.
And I also work with just authenticity readers who I don't know personally,
(28:08):
who can bring their own completely separate perspective to my stories,
just to make sure that I am not stepping on any toes or doing anything stupid without thinking.
Thinking and they've been really wonderful to
work with i worked with may rude journalist and
writer for i think she works for them
right now i'm not sure about that where she's currently at but on the deep and
(28:32):
dark blue and she was an enormous help and i would work with her again if in
a heartbeat if i get to do sequels ever but working with other people or authenticity
readers is a really a huge help for sure.
Back to Ollie with Grand Slam Romance. I think maybe my favorite thing about
the book was that I didn't think it really fit any of the two or three typical
(28:55):
narratives that I see in every sports film that seems to come out.
And its structure is really unlike any sports story I've seen elsewhere.
Could you tell us about how you went about telling a sports story that seems
to break this mold so much?
Yeah, well, starting off, I never played sports as a kid.
And my interest in doing a sports foot
(29:17):
story was purely from sports fanfic au's
so i came to this purely from a first angle but
i was like the uniforms are hot and then
like emma had to sit me down and be like okay this is a softball game this
is how it works i was like oh this is
really complicated and then like once she bought
me like a softball as a present i was like this is you just like you've
(29:39):
gotta learn more about softball so i do actually have like i do
read softball i read multiple books in the woods but
anyway um the way you sort of structured it is i guess
the reason it doesn't play out like a sports story is because the way it's
actually i kind of structure it in my head is it's
a character drama so it probably plays out
more like a traditional romance it's more focused on
(29:59):
like on how the characters sort of interact with each other and the sports is
sort of like oh okay so the way it works is did
you ever read like steve neill's work on
the musical which is also used a lot in porn studies so
no okay so um the musical genre basically
is like the way music is introduced is in like this explosion
of singing and dancing and it's the way so it's like when they're like the emotions
(30:24):
are at their most high that's when you have singing and dancing and there's
like a really influential paper I read once when I was a student that like in
porn the sex happens like in a musical where the emotions are high and I'm I'm a musical fan.
So the way I think of it, it's like a musical. So it's sort of like,
I use sort of use it to sort of structure.
Yeah. For like moments of huge emotion. That is,
(30:47):
is not at all the answer i expected but i
can definitely see some of that at play like i
mean the inversion of the antagonist is like an
underdog halfway through i think kind of fits that archie
i love archie comics and i'm a veronica fan and
i think veronica's the underdog and that's why grand slam
is structured the way it is because i'm like what if the veronica character
(31:07):
gets everything that they want and deserve and that's
been a pretty big inspiration for you throughout your comics
right with Archie comics so I'd love to
hear a bit about how that's played out throughout your career I think
the way I feel about Archie is like it's really
classic sort of love triangle like one of like the most classic 20th century
(31:28):
love triangles and also Archie comics is I was thinking about what one of my
greatest comics of all time would be the other day and I was like it should
be Archie comics because like you know when you read those lists always like
oh love and Rockets. I'm like, Love and Rockets wouldn't be there without Archie comics.
Archie is like, just, I don't know how to describe why I love Archie comics the way I do.
I just feel like there's something very iconic about the characters,
(31:49):
the way they sort of just endlessly reset, the way they sort of move through
time, but don't move through time.
But also because it's like this sort of camp piece of Americana is like,
in many ways, like I think like is as a British person who sort of accesses
America through Hollywood and now through my American wife.
Like Archie is like a very classic form of Americana and like even to the stage
(32:12):
like when you get the old Archie comics but I have like a little bit of a collection
of old Archie comics and you get sort of the frayed pages you also have the
Dan DiCarlo art which is like so iconic,
so like the way Dan DiCarlo draws and inks things was like really influential to me for a while,
and I don't know I think like in many ways the characters are so empty and they mean nothing.
(32:33):
So they mean everything and they're so full and they reset
all the time they're constantly contradictory so you can read anything you want into
the characters so and it's like all about sort of like this
classic view of the suburbs which isn't ever true
and i'm off on sorry you you're like sports magical girls i'm like actually
like what my nerd topics are i don't really know how to explain why i think
(32:59):
it's just something i got really obsessed with especially with riverdale because
i was already into archie but then And Rivendell was just like, yes,
I love this so much because complete garbage.
And I love garbage. And I think it just sort of was a time when I was doing
my PhD in like classic American comics.
So it was just something that I was reading a lot of. And so that sort of like
just ended up influencing a lot of my work.
(33:19):
By all means, feel free to gush about Archie and musicals as much as you want on here.
I think for a podcast that has as much queer subject matters, mine does.
Because surprisingly i don't think we've touched on either of those topics at
all in my like 20 episodes now so thank
you for bringing that much needed representation to the podcast holly.
(33:40):
Now nikki i'm curious about your artistic
work as well and like what's been the major inspirations
for you in your art style as it's developed over
the years oh gosh going back to those roots again
the manga the way early web
comics artists on live journal that i
found back in the day just seeing indie
(34:03):
artists growing up together on the internet and like supporting each other and
sort of their styles feeding each other and bouncing back and forth i think
was always a really big inspiration for me and i would you know try and mimic
the the photoshop coloring
styles that they did in my own work and sort of find my feet doing coloring that way.
(34:25):
Because for a long time I would try and stick with like black and white comics
because I didn't feel confident doing color or I would do the limited palette
where I would just have the one spot color in there and sort of getting a lot
of inspiration everywhere.
I love Jillian Tamaki and Marika Chowaki.
Yeah just a whole lot of weird comics
(34:45):
i read a ton of yuri especially growing up to
lesbian manga now i know that you've played a pretty wide role as far as like
what kind of contributions you've made to comics like from either both writing
and drawing them yourself to like contributing flat artwork or inking and i'm
curious like about how you feel like do you prefer to take the reins of
(35:09):
the story and like do it all yourself or do
you kind of like to just only have to worry about the
artwork icon some of your other books i definitely
prefer to do my own stories like
100 writing them drawing them and
i'm also doing colors so if it's my own story
i want to be just if at all possible doing my
(35:30):
own thing whenever i can get the chance but comics don't
doesn't pay particularly well so a lot
of the times you you fill in the gaps between books
with say flatting jobs on other
books or inking jobs for friends and things like that so I've sort of done a
little bit of everything I guess at this point I've also I started editing some
(35:53):
comics for Filthy Figments which is an erotic comics web collective it's a subscription
site that's where I got my start really making comics.
They did like 600 at least pages in their archives over 10 years, something like that.
That's where Crossplay originally serialized before it came out of the book.
And even after I stopped having time to draw new comics for them,
(36:16):
I would help out by editing sort of as they brought on new artists.
And then getting the chance to work with Tab on this one was really fun too and working with Ali.
It was a blast. It was probably the smoothest collaboration I've ever had.
We would meet up, just video or voice calls, regularly working through all the
(36:38):
work on the book that we had to check off and figuring out the artists.
And it was a ton of fun just as the pages came in.
Now, when it comes to a book like Succulent that had hundreds of submissions for stories,
did you have any kind of system for how you went through these and like how
(36:59):
you decided which ones would make it into the list or like even how to narrow
down such a large submission size?
Yeah i think we just had a very basic sort
of rating system where we were just sort of we'd rate the
story ideas we'd rate the art ideas and then we'd sort of
like it would because there was so many people it
was like if it wasn't at least a seven it just
(37:20):
had to sort of like we were like we can't discuss this because we've got
so many things to discuss so like everything that was
like a seven and up got discussed and it would be
like we'd sort of just talk
through the ideas is like basically like how unique was
it a perspective that there's also like an actual like fixed condition
but this is sort of what how we ended up sort of sorting stuff out was like
(37:40):
so like how unique an idea is this for the and like
for the theme is it really taking on board things of the theme is it like sort
of doing something that's kind of interesting something that tab is like really
good at doing which i hadn't even thought about before was like what's the variety
of the sex act like like is it all going to be exactly the same sort of thing
then that's not going to make for any interest in their body.
(38:01):
So sort of like, just sort of
keeping an eye on all these different elements. And I think as a result.
We got like a really sort of varied art style but also like
i think varied sort of story style i think we've got
some like really sweet sort of i call
them sweet which feels like which feels like not quite the right word but sort
of once they really make you go that's really beautiful like about
like sort of long lost love or like move it like just sort
(38:24):
of like these beautiful relationships or you've got stuff which is just kind of
funny and a hoot and then you've got like nikki's story which is
just dirty and like it's
just this great sort of combination of like i don't know everything think
you'd want to read in a erotic anthology as for
like sifting through all that work uh was there ever any
desire discussion of like okay we've got so much
(38:45):
good here like do we need to make another anthology or
repurpose some of these stories elsewhere i think tab
contacted a couple of favorites to
put into the next anthology that's
coming this fall which is it's actually a dual anthology
for the same reason feast and greed which are
polyamorous comics so there's
(39:07):
one all ages anthology and one erotic comic anthology
because he's like there are not enough polycomics out there let's make two books
the comics that we got submitted to succulent that he thought fit really well
he contacted them to me for that yeah i was specifically wondering about that
with With the wide variety of representation we've seen in these anthologies so far.
(39:29):
If we would get a polyamorous one at some point in the future.
And that's really exciting to hear.
Maybe Tab will have to come on the show to talk about that one come this fall.
Yeah, there are some polycomics in Succulent as well. Oh, very cool. Yeah, definitely.
Before I bring this to the final question of the week, I did at least want to
ask if there's any final thoughts around Succulent you wanted to share as far
(39:52):
as bumping up the Kickstarter or your experience with that so far?
We are just about 69%, which is amazing.
It is exactly one week since we launched.
It has been going really, really well.
It's been really great to see the reaction. yeah it's been
a really good opening day and then like it's just
continued to fund really steadily since then and i
(40:14):
think we've had a great reaction because it is like a
great book and like the creative teams that
are like really strong and yeah
i just think i think it's a great book and i feel like sapphics always be
thirsty and there's never enough thirsty sapphic content to ever where
the appetite like yeah sometimes you
get a little typecast as like pure and we
(40:37):
are this book it's not pure it's really dirty
and really fun now on that thought then uh
for today's wild card final question of the week i've got to ask what plant
is sexiest no idea like a georgia rakeef pomegranate i mean i don't spend my
(40:57):
life thinking about cactus for the moment we sort of launched upon Succulent
as the idea, I was just like, it's gotta be a cactus.
Like you've just got it. Someone's gotta fuck a cactus in this book and I will
be the person to do it. I'm brave.
And I don't know why that's what it came to me, but I think it's the danger.
The danger of it. Yeah, that is really hard.
I'll accept, like, fruits, vegetables, any kind of vegetation if it helps, Nikki.
(41:20):
Yeah, I mean, I'll go with that Yuri classic, right? The lily. Mmm.
Think it back. Very anime, very nice. But as we wrap up, I really just wanted
to thank you so much for reaching out to me and taking the time to come on the show.
I had a great time researching your work and
really feel I get helped expand my comic horizons
in the process and so for our listeners at home that would like to do the same
(41:43):
where can they find you both and your work online I'm Nikki and IKI hyphen smith.com
and then Nikki Smith comics on most social media at this point I'm at Dr.
Ollie Hicks on Instagram and Twitter and I think
also blue sky and i'm ollie hicks
comics on etsy if you want to get my self-published stuff
(42:04):
all right well 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 on twitter
is at transcend comics or email us at transcending comics
at gmail.com i'd like to thank you for giving our podcast a
chance and give a special shout out to ray day parade for designing our
logo our intro and outro music this week is a little
(42:26):
soul and you've been starring by carlson you can
check out more of his music on carlson.com join us again next time as we continue
transcending boundaries and exploring 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 the comics have the power to
inspire change in countless worlds including our own.
(42:47):
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 today I'm joined by Nikki Smith and Ollie Hicks,
two incredible creators calling in from across the sea for the show's first ever double interview.
Nikki Smith has contributed a wide variety of talents to the comics industry,
(00:38):
from writing and drawing her own young adult graphic novels like The Deep and
Dark Blue and Golden Hours, to spicy erotic comics like Bruised Fruit and Crossplay,
and even making artistic contributions to the Adventure Zone comics and The Witch Boy.
Ollie Hicks has also contributed to comics of all shapes and sizes,
from short comics to webcomics, zines, and graphic novels, with notable books
(01:00):
like the widely praised Grand Slam Romance to funny and sexy comics like Butch
Bros and Henchmen Stay Off.
Their work is equal parts relatable and absurd in all the best ways possible.
These two incredible talents are working alongside co-editor Tab Kimpton to
bring together an incredible collection of sexy comics, Succulent,
a trans-inclusive sapphic comics anthology, which has an ongoing Kickstarter
(01:24):
campaign at the time of this episode's release.
Here to discuss their contributions to the book are today's guests,
Nikki and Ollie. Welcome to the show, guys. Hello.
So tell us a bit about how the two of you came together for this project.
This is your first time collaborating together, right? Yeah,
well, I think Nikki and Tab had already sort of started cooking the project anthology.
(01:45):
And then, yeah, so y'all started together on the anthology first.
I'll let you go first. Yeah, I've known Tab for years.
I've known Tab's comics, especially for years. They were some of the first webcomics
I read when I was a tiny queer teen looking for queer webcomics in the very early 2000s.
And recently, Tab started doing a series of erotic comic anthologies,
(02:07):
starting with Come Together, which is all European comic creators after Brexit,
and about coming together, you know, sexily.
And after that, he followed it up with Ambrosia and Nectar and Nether Realms.
And those are all various queer, trans, non-binary titles, erotic comics.
(02:28):
And he wanted to follow that up with a sapphic anthology.
And he got in touch with me and then brought Ollie on board to be our third co-editor.
Very nice. And I've noticed that this book has a good 19 different contributors
all working on 12 different stories.
So I'm curious how you went about finding and choosing contributors to this
(02:49):
book and what that process looks like. You want to handle that?
Okay. So basically, we put out a call for contributors.
So we came together. We discussed what we thought the book sort of remit was. We sort of wrote...
Some copy sort of envision in different ways the theme could be
reinterpreted and then we sort of put
(03:09):
it out and sort of see sort of what sort of stories people sort of
contributed in terms of ideas so we initially got
I think it was almost a hundred people submitted
ideas and we had a huge all-day meeting
where we went through and sort of thought which
stories we were sort of really felt we were like
(03:30):
a different take on the theme which sort of creators we
were like we have to work with them like they're going to present something really unique
and so from that we sort of slowly slowly slowly
whittled it down to the 12 stories
that we have in the anthology yeah and
tab done something unique where he likes to give writers
and artists the chance to apply separately and
(03:52):
get paired up to work on the anthology because it
can be a lot like a really big hurdle for unknown
writers to become prepared with.
An artist already on board so we got
some really fun writer only pitches and
then we gave you know them a bunch of artist options that
we really thought fit the story well and they you know
(04:13):
found someone they really wanted to work with and that was its own
extra fun process tell us a bit about
the two comics that you're both contributing this time
let's start with you nikki my comic is called prickly
pear it is a mileage curse oh
yeah definitely it is a hate book in the middle of the desert there are bruises
(04:36):
and biting and lots of smirking butchers getting sweaty and accidentally catching
prickly pears with their bare hands now ollie tell us a little bit about the
plant sitter okay so my one's also.
About like butch idiots so my
one is about a sort of horny plant sitter who gets
the opportunity to look after a silver fox
(04:58):
dyke daddy's plant collection unfortunately they
overwater the daddy's like sort of prized
sentient cactus and they have to sort of go to a slightly
extreme length in order to bring the cactus back from the
brink you've mentioned the dumb butches
is a common in both of your comics and ollie i've
noticed that you especially managed to inject your
(05:20):
own personal brand of humor into the mix
with delightful results even in your sexy stories
so will this same sense of humor then be on display in the plant sitter oh yeah
no that's not a serious story at all it's uh it's really silly i'm very much
like i guess i'm quite i'm a comedian i would come from comedy it's sort of
like where i started writing and so i always feel more confident and comfortable in comedy anyway.
(05:46):
Yeah, that was the one comic that when I was reading through,
sometimes I'd be like, this one's wild. Who wrote this?
And I'd be like, oh, no, wait, that was me. Now, if this one's too personal,
I can edit this out later. No worries.
But I wanted to ask, like, in your own life, do you have any thoughts on the
role humor plays within intimacy, especially as a comedian?
(06:06):
Like, I'm curious how that influences the way you write stories like this.
Yeah, I'm so silly all the time. like i
mean like yeah i don't want to get too much into
it because my wife will be like you can't put us on blast like this
in on a podcast but i am
silly and like i feel like some people take sex very seriously and
i'm just a silly goofball clown and ladies that
(06:29):
applies to all areas trying to
think of a night of a cool way i can say this without like being too
much of a clown on main but yeah no i feel like
there's a playfulness in queer identity especially that
i feel like is actually very undervalued and little
understood in heteronormative society and I
feel that extends to things like sexual expression
(06:50):
and I feel like a lot of the times people maybe take in
heteronormative society take sex quite seriously not to
completely pit us against the head but like I feel like there's a
seriousness around sex sometimes when sex is silly and goofy and sometimes it
can be like you know amazing and sad and tragic and like there's all these these
different things that sort of happen in sex but one of the things that happens
(07:12):
is that sex can be really silly and can be really funny and that's like part of.
Me one of the joys of sex is it can be a funny time,
Now, Nikki, I've noticed that with your comics, you often play with a color
palette that's heavily influenced by one color, most notably in indigo and in the deep and dark blue.
(07:34):
So will you be using a similar color effect in Prickly Pear,
or will this be a new kind of art style?
I absolutely do, but that's because the entire anthology has a limited color palette.
The whole book is colored with the various tones from the Let's Be in a Flag. bag.
So for my comic, I stuck to the sunset side, so the reds and yellows and oranges,
(07:57):
as opposed to the pinks and violets, which is supposed to sort of stand for the butcher.
Side of the lesbian spectrum.
So very fitting because it takes place in a desert under the hot blazing sun.
But I had a lot of fun coloring it and not
trying to stick with natural lighting or anything like
(08:17):
that so it really takes on some more extreme
coloring i think now one of the most distinct
things i've noticed about your art style is the way you
draw characters blushing by like using
the red lines across the face and i found this to be used like really effectively
through your comics and i think it makes your characters just seem really visually
(08:38):
endearing and i'm curious about how this artistic signature of yours came about
i'm sure it's the very basic The basic root of it is just that I grew up reading a lot of manga.
There's a lot of blushing in manga. And then, yeah, at some point,
I really like working with limited palettes and bringing in spot colors like that.
(08:58):
And warm blushes, I think, really sort of stand out.
A lot in pop so i had fun with that yeah i
especially noticed it in crossplay and 11
slash 11 days i think is maybe my favorite
use i've seen of this in your work thank you now question
for you both i've noticed that both of you have a bit of
(09:19):
a history of taking your short stories or short comics and getting the chance
to turn them into full-length graphic novels ollie i know that you and emma
oosterhaus had a particularly wild journey in turning your 17-page zine for
Grand Slam Romance into a now graphic novel series.
So can you tell us a little bit about that experience and how that opportunity came to be?
(09:43):
Yeah, that was the wildest experience of my life. So I was at Thought Bubble,
which is a UK comic convention.
I wasn't supposed to be there. Basically, two guys I knew, David Robertson and
Joan Edam, they were tabling at the con and Joan had to drop it out because
his partner was having a baby.
So David was like, do you want to be my table mate?
And I was like yeah sure I'll show up so I wasn't like on the list
(10:05):
on the map or anything like that I was just sort of hanging out and Emma
had some shiva prints so I like flew them up on the table because I'm a good
sort of partner I was like yeah here's my girlfriend's prints and yeah this
woman came over looked at the shiva prints and then saw Grand Slam Romance and
was sort of talking to me asking me a couple questions about it and I was like
yeah sure and she was like I've got like like, an imprint in the States. I was like, okay, cool.
(10:29):
Like, sure you do. And she was like, yeah, like, maybe I'll talk to you about
it. I was like, yeah, cool. And then, like, I...
Then like a couple hours later, Emma texted me and goes, why has Mariko Tamaki
just followed me on Twitter? What have you done? Who have you talked to?
What, like, what have you done? And I was like, oh, what? Because like comics,
I feel like it's one where you never know what people look like.
(10:50):
As an industry, I don't know what anybody looks like unless I meet them in person.
So I was just, at one point I asked her where she was tabling. I was so embarrassed.
Like, because you're like, oh, you seem cool. Where are you tabling?
She's like, no, I don't have a table. I was like, okay, weird.
I don't know. all right each to their own and so
from that initial twitter interchange uh mariko
(11:11):
asked us to pitch the book so we sort of had this crazy two
weeks sort of stretch where we sort of threw together a pitch document
not knowing anything and then like sort of eventually out
of that a graphic novel deal got on the table and we were able to sort of make
it now nikki in a similar way i've seen that your short comic indigo from love
in all forms clearly seems to share a similar more visual style and similar
(11:34):
themes with the book you would later develop with The Deep and Dark Blue.
Could you tell us a bit about how you went about reworking just a six-page silent
comic into a full-length fantasy graphic novel?
I've done a lot of anthologies sort of over the years and I always have fun
sort of working with either a themed anthology or you know just a limited number
(11:56):
of pages and that sort of restriction helps me come up with a lot of like ideas
and push me in different directions.
So I really enjoyed this idea behind the short comic Indigo,
which is all about this vivid blue dye and a young trans girl who sort of yearns
to be part of the world of the women who are working with it.
And then a few years later, middle grade graphic novels were starting to become more openly queer.
(12:23):
And that was like beginning to be acceptable to pitch publishers,
especially with Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag, which has a young,
gender nonconforming kid as the main character.
And I decided to go ahead and try and do a pitch myself for a full-length book.
And so I developed The Deep and Dark Blue sort of with that same basic idea
(12:47):
of the die as the heart of it, but then went in a completely different fantasy
direction and turned it into something totally different.
My original pitch for the book was also this limited grayscale color palette
with a spot blue, but my publisher really wanted a full color book.
But even in the finished book, I tried to only use blue when the twins are dealing with magic.
(13:12):
The source of the magic is this blue dye. So even then, in this full color book,
I still worked in my limited palette.
Now, on the deep and dark blue, I couldn't help but notice a number of parallels
between its premise and the plot of
the movie some like it hot my girlfriend just showed me
that this year so it's been kind of at the forefront of my mind so i'm
(13:34):
curious if this was like an intentional reworking of
that story and its tropes or is that just a complete coincidence
i don't think i've ever seen that so yeah
some like it hot is like an old film with marilyn
and monroe and it features two guys that
are also like being pursued by his characters
(13:55):
yeah and similarly like one of
them when they integrate into this group of female performers
like one's clearly taking to it more than the
other and like gets to feel themselves and like even
when i read the summary of the deep and dark bloom
like oh my gosh is this is this some like it hot that's
awesome i need to check this one out so that's why
(14:15):
i had my eyes on this in there yeah really deep down
i saw that with one of my
best friends when i was a teenager who later came out as trans as well and so
maybe it was very deep in my subconscious as an idea yeah but yeah i really
wanted the the twins in the deep and dark blue to have that clear sign for readers like one of.
(14:39):
These kids is definitely trans like this is
not a you know going back to being cis
and happy and straight at the end sort of story like all the
books that i grew up reading about gender adventures as
a kid where i really wanted to to show that parallel grace is incredibly happy
where she is while her brother is not it's a very different experience for them
(15:01):
both with these like having now both had the experience of getting to adapt
your previous work into longer later works and graphic novels.
Is there any particular short comics of yours or especially in like your erotic
work in various anthologies that you ever want to revisit and maybe try and
remake into a longer story?
(15:24):
Oh, I mean, generally I try and be like, well, when it's done, it's done.
But there's one I'm like looking on right now, which is like a 60-pager,
but I'm like, I want this to be a full-length graphic novel.
But I'm trying, I'm like, stop it, just do the 60 pages and get it out.
I'm working on a comic about Christian teens who are very gay and at a festival.
(15:46):
And it's sort of like, I was like, there's lots of Christian trauma comics,
but where's the funny Christian trauma comics?
I'm like it's not funny being horny and
getting christian so i'm sort of
exercising my teenage demons with that one it's 60 pages at the moment but i'm
like oh i want this to be a bullet graphic novel so yeah when you say festival
(16:09):
is this like a music festival scenario oh no it's a christian festival because
you have christian summer festivals it's like the worst okay.
I hate you hard but like it's the worst is
this a british thing maybe this is just a
british thing we used to like go on summer like
they all had names like summer madness and autumn soul and
(16:31):
like you would go and like just camp in a tent and there'd
be like a big christian speaker or something you'd have
worship bands and then there'd be like little bits there
was this one that's just like really it was called like you'd have like little
so pop-up shacks and stuff and one was called the
love shack and it was like actually like a stealth abstinence
shack and that was the worst experience i
(16:52):
was like no caught so yeah i'm
just doing a comic about that i i was curious because like
i've heard stories at the music festivals i
frequent that if people invite you onto their
bus for a sandwich and a cookie don't go
because it's some weird christian offshoot cult
that's like taking people back and putting them
(17:14):
into sandwich work or like making them work for some kind of christian sandwich
shop and i i can't believe it's real but multiple people have shared this story
that's yeah no that's terrible what also like the sandwich and the cookie is
such a suspicious setup though.
Especially because it actually is like
(17:35):
a sandwich or sandwich servitude like yeah i
feel like i just need to do my part and let any other festival goers
out there to know like be wary of bus sandwiches and cookies stay safe out there
don't i think even if they're not christian don't take anybody up on a sandwich
and a cookie and a bus deal like that just is the most like just don't go onto
(17:55):
buses with people you don't know and accept food from them.
Moving this back to Nikki, as far as your other anthology work and short comics,
is there anything else you'd love to rework and expand into a longer comic,
graphic novel, anything like that?
Oh, right now I don't think so. My graphic novel crossplay, which is also Erotica
that you mentioned, did also start as shorter, smutty comics.
(18:20):
And I pitched a few of my comics to Spike at Iron Circus Comics,
and she was like why don't we turn crossplay into
a full book and so we did and that
one is about a group of friends at
a anime convention basically figuring out sexuality and feelings and gender
(18:41):
and all those things through fandom so you know wearing their first wig or their
first binder or you know trying on different pronouns for the day and just a
supportive environment but also So sexy times.
Now, in writing crossplay, were you drawing from like any kind of lived experience
as a cosplayer or like things you observed at conventions?
(19:05):
I just felt from my limited experience, this felt like a very real convention
experience put to comic form.
I definitely went to a lot of conventions growing up, but I was more the quiet
artist and not the like 3D stuff and art and clothes and all that are beyond me.
Completely but i have so many
(19:25):
friends who you know did self-expression through cosplay
and i really wanted to draw that sort of
love for fandom but i will never draw
a comic set at a convention ever again because that was okay do either of you
at least have a go-to costume for like parties conventions or other costumed
events no not anymore i gave it up because i was so bad nobody Nobody knew who
(19:50):
I was. The last one I did was Super Horse.
Like Super Girl's horse? Yeah, Super Girl's pet horse. He's a boyfriend.
And he turns into a cowboy. Yeah, classic. He's one of my favorite things that's
ever happened in comics.
So it went as Super Horse. And like one old man was just like, are you Super Horse?
But everyone else was just like, I don't know what's going on.
What did your costume look like though?
(20:11):
It looked like a mess because I can't sew. It was just like a horse hat.
I think it was a cape maybe.
So you didn't get a second person behind you in the classic two-person horse costume?
No, maybe... Couple's costume. Maybe next couple's cosplay, super horse and super girl.
I don't think I could convince Emma to do that. But if there's a lasso involved?
(20:33):
I think it could be fun, but I feel like also, again, so niche that everyone
would just be like, what is happening? Now, I've noticed that both of you do
a good job subtly introducing fantasy elements in otherwise grounded stories in your work.
Ollie, I especially like the way that you introduced elements of magical girl
stories into a sports graphic novel with Grand Slam Romance.
(20:57):
So could you tell us a bit about how you
decided what elements of magical girl anime
and comics you'd bring into this work and like
how you would make this fit in a world with otherwise human
characters yeah so basically the way grand slam romance
came about was that me and emma were like want to
do a comic together because we both did comics separately we're like
(21:17):
we should do something together so emma wanted to do a magical
girl comic and i wanted to do sports so that's
the first thing is that i'm emma's the magical girl fan
but i'm the person who writes the scripts so like
i think so basically we sort of
i don't remember what research or world building we sort
(21:37):
of decide because it was originally just 19 pages we
were just like and then this will happen that'll be funny and then we sort
of had to expand it for one graphic novel so we're like okay so this is sort
of the rules and then we had to do another two graphic novels and we're like
oh no we really the world building we should have plotted this all out from
the beginning so the way it sort of i guess the way it sort of came together
(21:58):
was i guess the system was just kind of like.
What is the most overpowered way you can do
something for the lowest actual real life stakes and that was
sort of the rules was so originally like in the 19 page
one it was like softball was a bit more like you could
get 600 000 million runs or something like that and
it was a bit more all oped and then what sort
(22:19):
of happened in the graphic novel was that it sort of then sort of
shifted where it's like you could have these gigantic sort of bleach style
explosive sort of displays but it had to be for something
very low stakes like mostly they just use their
powers for sex i would say but like but like to score one
run in softball so i guess it was just sort of like it's mostly informed i think
by comedy or what the plot has to or where the plot has to go in a similar vein
(22:43):
uh The deep and dark blue I noticed makes selective and kind of deliberate use
of the few occasions that magic is used through the book.
Nikki, could you tell us like how you decided how far you wanted to go into
the realm of fantasy in that story and world?
Sure. So the Deep and Dark Blue, the source of magic is this blue dye.
(23:04):
And the way it's implemented or used is through weaving or spinning or fiber arts, pretty much.
Because I wanted to sort of center it around quote-unquote women's work and
this world that Grace wanted to be part of, but also for, you know,
secret other reasons that she earned to be part of this world.
(23:27):
And so I didn't want to, I don't really love info dumping in stories,
so I wanted to keep it pretty vague.
Aside from that, there's, I think, seven different sort of aspects to this,
the communion of blue this order of women who who work
the fiber arts there's healing and spinning and
weaving and the people who look
(23:50):
after the herds for the wool and also the dyers creating the dye and all this
stuff i left it open enough that if you know sequels ever happen i can explore
more of that in those but i didn't want to like make myself try to explain everything
in detail tale in the book itself,
that it's there for the story and the rest the reader can expand upon as imagination wants to.
(24:18):
Are there currently any set plans for a sequel for the book or is that kind
of backburner ideas at the moment?
Backburner ideas right now. I did have a pitch a couple years ago.
I think in 2019, I pitched a sequel like right as this one was coming out.
But the publisher decided to go with The Golden Hour instead because they wanted
(24:38):
to see how The Deep and Dark Blue worked.
And then I got busy with other projects. But I'm very glad that did not work
out because I would have spent 2020 working on a book about a illness epidemic.
And I just I feel like I sort of escaped that by the skin of my teeth.
On the use of trans characters in your work, Olly, I have to say I really love
(25:00):
the way that you introduced the concept of a transmasc magical girl in Grand Slam Romance.
Could you tell us about like how you went about
the design process for the character of wolfgang and
like their development as a character throughout the story oh
yeah well wolfgang is just a butch lesbian
so i don't i don't sort of read
(25:20):
wolfgang as a trans math character i think it's out
of my hands if people want to interpret her
that way they can but we always sort of just we always were
just like wolfgang's a butch lesbian was how we sort of envisioned
her but if you want do you want me to still
talk about wolfgang or not yeah i mean i'd still
love the character's design like it's very non-traditional from
(25:42):
what i've seen elsewhere with magical girls like honestly the whole short top
like i think i may have thought that was a binder and a first impressions i'm
like oh that's kind of badass okay so i mean like this is she we were like this
is a butch lesbian and it is the character most people like oh like do uh do Do you be like,
okay, but like genderqueer in some way. And we were like, oh,
(26:02):
we've always just seen her as a lesbian.
But like, I honestly don't care how people want to read Wolfgang. I think it's all fine.
And so basically the design of Wolfgang is all from the side of things.
So the way me and Emma collaborate is like extremely sort of close on story stuff.
And then I sort of go do the script. She kind of goes in the way.
(26:23):
There's like a thousand different designs of the characters.
And she was very much wanted every character in Grand Slam to have like their own iconography.
So mickey has a has a heart astra as a
star wolfgang she wanted to have a diamond and then she
sort of brought in elements of like she kind of because wolfgang
is like a clubber so she kind of wanted to bring in elements of sort of like
leather and sort of like hard sort of like almost going into the fetish community
(26:44):
sort of like with the harnesses and stuff like that and wear and she also wanted
to have sort of neons for all of that so she kind of wanted wolfgang to be like
quite like sort of a hard aesthetic character because i think wolfgang puts on like a very
hard front, but is also quite a little goofball.
And then that's sort of like how we developed Wolfgang.
(27:06):
And then in book two, we do have a transmasc magical character,
Rock, which basically what's happened is I will be like, what's the coolest
guy I can think of that I really want to be?
And then Emma will be like, is it this? I'm like, yes.
So I think it's probably more of that in book two. But like,
yeah, that's how we came up with Wolfgang.
(27:26):
I was just like, who's the coolest dude I can think of?
I was like, it's Wolfgang. Now, Nikki, as for trans rep in your comics,
I've really thought you've done an incredible job with your portrayal of trans
characters in the deep and dark blue and cross play and incorporating trans
and genderqueer characters of all kinds and bruised fruit.
(27:47):
And I'd love to know how you go about respectfully and faithfully portraying
queer and trans experiences outside of your own lived experiences in your books.
I always work really closely with just close friends and family members of mine.
And I also work with just authenticity readers who I don't know personally,
(28:08):
who can bring their own completely separate perspective to my stories,
just to make sure that I am not stepping on any toes or doing anything stupid without thinking.
Thinking and they've been really wonderful to
work with i worked with may rude journalist and
writer for i think she works for them
right now i'm not sure about that where she's currently at but on the deep and
(28:32):
dark blue and she was an enormous help and i would work with her again if in
a heartbeat if i get to do sequels ever but working with other people or authenticity
readers is a really a huge help for sure.
Back to Ollie with Grand Slam Romance. I think maybe my favorite thing about
the book was that I didn't think it really fit any of the two or three typical
(28:55):
narratives that I see in every sports film that seems to come out.
And its structure is really unlike any sports story I've seen elsewhere.
Could you tell us about how you went about telling a sports story that seems
to break this mold so much?
Yeah, well, starting off, I never played sports as a kid.
And my interest in doing a sports foot
(29:17):
story was purely from sports fanfic au's
so i came to this purely from a first angle but
i was like the uniforms are hot and then
like emma had to sit me down and be like okay this is a softball game this
is how it works i was like oh this is
really complicated and then like once she bought
me like a softball as a present i was like this is you just like you've
(29:39):
gotta learn more about softball so i do actually have like i do
read softball i read multiple books in the woods but
anyway um the way you sort of structured it is i guess
the reason it doesn't play out like a sports story is because the way it's
actually i kind of structure it in my head is it's
a character drama so it probably plays out
more like a traditional romance it's more focused on
(29:59):
like on how the characters sort of interact with each other and the sports is
sort of like oh okay so the way it works is did
you ever read like steve neill's work on
the musical which is also used a lot in porn studies so
no okay so um the musical genre basically
is like the way music is introduced is in like this explosion
of singing and dancing and it's the way so it's like when they're like the emotions
(30:24):
are at their most high that's when you have singing and dancing and there's
like a really influential paper I read once when I was a student that like in
porn the sex happens like in a musical where the emotions are high and I'm I'm a musical fan.
So the way I think of it, it's like a musical. So it's sort of like,
I use sort of use it to sort of structure.
Yeah. For like moments of huge emotion. That is,
(30:47):
is not at all the answer i expected but i
can definitely see some of that at play like i
mean the inversion of the antagonist is like an
underdog halfway through i think kind of fits that archie
i love archie comics and i'm a veronica fan and
i think veronica's the underdog and that's why grand slam
is structured the way it is because i'm like what if the veronica character
(31:07):
gets everything that they want and deserve and that's
been a pretty big inspiration for you throughout your comics
right with Archie comics so I'd love to
hear a bit about how that's played out throughout your career I think
the way I feel about Archie is like it's really
classic sort of love triangle like one of like the most classic 20th century
(31:28):
love triangles and also Archie comics is I was thinking about what one of my
greatest comics of all time would be the other day and I was like it should
be Archie comics because like you know when you read those lists always like
oh love and Rockets. I'm like, Love and Rockets wouldn't be there without Archie comics.
Archie is like, just, I don't know how to describe why I love Archie comics the way I do.
I just feel like there's something very iconic about the characters,
(31:49):
the way they sort of just endlessly reset, the way they sort of move through
time, but don't move through time.
But also because it's like this sort of camp piece of Americana is like,
in many ways, like I think like is as a British person who sort of accesses
America through Hollywood and now through my American wife.
Like Archie is like a very classic form of Americana and like even to the stage
(32:12):
like when you get the old Archie comics but I have like a little bit of a collection
of old Archie comics and you get sort of the frayed pages you also have the
Dan DiCarlo art which is like so iconic,
so like the way Dan DiCarlo draws and inks things was like really influential to me for a while,
and I don't know I think like in many ways the characters are so empty and they mean nothing.
(32:33):
So they mean everything and they're so full and they reset
all the time they're constantly contradictory so you can read anything you want into
the characters so and it's like all about sort of like this
classic view of the suburbs which isn't ever true
and i'm off on sorry you you're like sports magical girls i'm like actually
like what my nerd topics are i don't really know how to explain why i think
(32:59):
it's just something i got really obsessed with especially with riverdale because
i was already into archie but then And Rivendell was just like, yes,
I love this so much because complete garbage.
And I love garbage. And I think it just sort of was a time when I was doing
my PhD in like classic American comics.
So it was just something that I was reading a lot of. And so that sort of like
just ended up influencing a lot of my work.
(33:19):
By all means, feel free to gush about Archie and musicals as much as you want on here.
I think for a podcast that has as much queer subject matters, mine does.
Because surprisingly i don't think we've touched on either of those topics at
all in my like 20 episodes now so thank
you for bringing that much needed representation to the podcast holly.
(33:40):
Now nikki i'm curious about your artistic
work as well and like what's been the major inspirations
for you in your art style as it's developed over
the years oh gosh going back to those roots again
the manga the way early web
comics artists on live journal that i
found back in the day just seeing indie
(34:03):
artists growing up together on the internet and like supporting each other and
sort of their styles feeding each other and bouncing back and forth i think
was always a really big inspiration for me and i would you know try and mimic
the the photoshop coloring
styles that they did in my own work and sort of find my feet doing coloring that way.
(34:25):
Because for a long time I would try and stick with like black and white comics
because I didn't feel confident doing color or I would do the limited palette
where I would just have the one spot color in there and sort of getting a lot
of inspiration everywhere.
I love Jillian Tamaki and Marika Chowaki.
Yeah just a whole lot of weird comics
(34:45):
i read a ton of yuri especially growing up to
lesbian manga now i know that you've played a pretty wide role as far as like
what kind of contributions you've made to comics like from either both writing
and drawing them yourself to like contributing flat artwork or inking and i'm
curious like about how you feel like do you prefer to take the reins of
(35:09):
the story and like do it all yourself or do
you kind of like to just only have to worry about the
artwork icon some of your other books i definitely
prefer to do my own stories like
100 writing them drawing them and
i'm also doing colors so if it's my own story
i want to be just if at all possible doing my
(35:30):
own thing whenever i can get the chance but comics don't
doesn't pay particularly well so a lot
of the times you you fill in the gaps between books
with say flatting jobs on other
books or inking jobs for friends and things like that so I've sort of done a
little bit of everything I guess at this point I've also I started editing some
(35:53):
comics for Filthy Figments which is an erotic comics web collective it's a subscription
site that's where I got my start really making comics.
They did like 600 at least pages in their archives over 10 years, something like that.
That's where Crossplay originally serialized before it came out of the book.
And even after I stopped having time to draw new comics for them,
(36:16):
I would help out by editing sort of as they brought on new artists.
And then getting the chance to work with Tab on this one was really fun too and working with Ali.
It was a blast. It was probably the smoothest collaboration I've ever had.
We would meet up, just video or voice calls, regularly working through all the
(36:38):
work on the book that we had to check off and figuring out the artists.
And it was a ton of fun just as the pages came in.
Now, when it comes to a book like Succulent that had hundreds of submissions for stories,
did you have any kind of system for how you went through these and like how
(36:59):
you decided which ones would make it into the list or like even how to narrow
down such a large submission size?
Yeah i think we just had a very basic sort
of rating system where we were just sort of we'd rate the
story ideas we'd rate the art ideas and then we'd sort of
like it would because there was so many people it
was like if it wasn't at least a seven it just
(37:20):
had to sort of like we were like we can't discuss this because we've got
so many things to discuss so like everything that was
like a seven and up got discussed and it would be
like we'd sort of just talk
through the ideas is like basically like how unique was
it a perspective that there's also like an actual like fixed condition
but this is sort of what how we ended up sort of sorting stuff out was like
(37:40):
so like how unique an idea is this for the and like
for the theme is it really taking on board things of the theme is it like sort
of doing something that's kind of interesting something that tab is like really
good at doing which i hadn't even thought about before was like what's the variety
of the sex act like like is it all going to be exactly the same sort of thing
then that's not going to make for any interest in their body.
(38:01):
So sort of like, just sort of
keeping an eye on all these different elements. And I think as a result.
We got like a really sort of varied art style but also like
i think varied sort of story style i think we've got
some like really sweet sort of i call
them sweet which feels like which feels like not quite the right word but sort
of once they really make you go that's really beautiful like about
like sort of long lost love or like move it like just sort
(38:24):
of like these beautiful relationships or you've got stuff which is just kind of
funny and a hoot and then you've got like nikki's story which is
just dirty and like it's
just this great sort of combination of like i don't know everything think
you'd want to read in a erotic anthology as for
like sifting through all that work uh was there ever any
desire discussion of like okay we've got so much
(38:45):
good here like do we need to make another anthology or
repurpose some of these stories elsewhere i think tab
contacted a couple of favorites to
put into the next anthology that's
coming this fall which is it's actually a dual anthology
for the same reason feast and greed which are
polyamorous comics so there's
(39:07):
one all ages anthology and one erotic comic anthology
because he's like there are not enough polycomics out there let's make two books
the comics that we got submitted to succulent that he thought fit really well
he contacted them to me for that yeah i was specifically wondering about that
with With the wide variety of representation we've seen in these anthologies so far.
(39:29):
If we would get a polyamorous one at some point in the future.
And that's really exciting to hear.
Maybe Tab will have to come on the show to talk about that one come this fall.
Yeah, there are some polycomics in Succulent as well. Oh, very cool. Yeah, definitely.
Before I bring this to the final question of the week, I did at least want to
ask if there's any final thoughts around Succulent you wanted to share as far
(39:52):
as bumping up the Kickstarter or your experience with that so far?
We are just about 69%, which is amazing.
It is exactly one week since we launched.
It has been going really, really well.
It's been really great to see the reaction. yeah it's been
a really good opening day and then like it's just
continued to fund really steadily since then and i
(40:14):
think we've had a great reaction because it is like a
great book and like the creative teams that
are like really strong and yeah
i just think i think it's a great book and i feel like sapphics always be
thirsty and there's never enough thirsty sapphic content to ever where
the appetite like yeah sometimes you
get a little typecast as like pure and we
(40:37):
are this book it's not pure it's really dirty
and really fun now on that thought then uh
for today's wild card final question of the week i've got to ask what plant
is sexiest no idea like a georgia rakeef pomegranate i mean i don't spend my
(40:57):
life thinking about cactus for the moment we sort of launched upon Succulent
as the idea, I was just like, it's gotta be a cactus.
Like you've just got it. Someone's gotta fuck a cactus in this book and I will
be the person to do it. I'm brave.
And I don't know why that's what it came to me, but I think it's the danger.
The danger of it. Yeah, that is really hard.
I'll accept, like, fruits, vegetables, any kind of vegetation if it helps, Nikki.
(41:20):
Yeah, I mean, I'll go with that Yuri classic, right? The lily. Mmm.
Think it back. Very anime, very nice. But as we wrap up, I really just wanted
to thank you so much for reaching out to me and taking the time to come on the show.
I had a great time researching your work and
really feel I get helped expand my comic horizons
in the process and so for our listeners at home that would like to do the same
(41:43):
where can they find you both and your work online I'm Nikki and IKI hyphen smith.com
and then Nikki Smith comics on most social media at this point I'm at Dr.
Ollie Hicks on Instagram and Twitter and I think
also blue sky and i'm ollie hicks
comics on etsy if you want to get my self-published stuff
(42:04):
all right well 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 on twitter
is at transcend comics or email us at transcending comics
at gmail.com i'd like to thank you for giving our podcast a
chance and give a special shout out to ray day parade for designing our
logo our intro and outro music this week is a little
(42:26):
soul and you've been starring by carlson you can
check out more of his music on carlson.com join us again next time as we continue
transcending boundaries and exploring 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 the comics have the power to
inspire change in countless worlds including our own.
(42:47):
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!