Lisa K. Weber, Kelly Sue Milano, Lynly Forrest | Hex11

COMIXOLOGY: CONVERSATIONS is an interview-type show with comic book writers, artists, colorists, letterers, storytellers, and just about anyone making or reading amazing books. Portions of the interview have been abridged for maximum hilarity and you can FIND LINKS TO THE BOOKS MENTIONED HERE. Enjoy our conversation with Lisa K. Weber, Kelly Sue Milano, Lynly Forrest!

Kara Szamborski: Welcome back, Matt.

Matt: Hello.

Kara: We’re at San Diego, coming to you, not live. Sunday, last day, things are crazy.

We are speaking with the fabulous creative team of Hex11, available on comiXology Submit. We’ve got Lisa K Weber. We’ve got Kelly Sue Milano.

Kelly Milano: Hi, there.

Kara: We’ve got Lynly Forrest. Welcome, everyone.

Lynly Forrest: Hello. Thanks for having us.

Kara: No problem. I just discovered this book yesterday.

Saw your guys’ booth.

Lynly: Better late than never.

Kara: Exactly, drawn in by the magic. What’s your pitch? Why should people be reading this book?

Lynly: Our quick pitch is, it’s Harry Potter meets Blade Runner.

Kara: Sold.

Lynly: It works every time. The longer story is, we’ve got a very epic world, but we’re telling a very human story. Elanor is a hero. She’s a young witch in training. She studies under the tutelage of a master witch named Vera. They’re in a world where magic has been discovered, like a new technology.

The scientists that work for the powers that be have discovered enough about magic, and what makes it possible, that they’ve been able to harness it, and commodify it. Once when magic was the realm of just those who were naturally born with the talent, now if you have enough money you can play the game. It’s made things a bit oppressive for our naturals, if you will.

For this first story arc, it’s basically Elanor being strong willed, as our young heroes always are. She’s got a little bit of an anger management problem.

She’s bold, and interested in making a difference. She gets involved in some things she shouldn’t. It leads her to understand a couple of things.

One, she’s way more inherently powerful than she realized. Two, there’s a nefarious plot being hatched by those in charge, and they’re going to have to do something to make sure the power of magic stays in the hands of those who respect it and know how to use it, and that those who don’t, make sure they do not get a hold of it.

That’s the story.

Kara: I have to say, I got the first four issues from you guys. I devoured them. I read all of them so fast, and when I got to the last page of issue four I was like, “Where’s the rest of it? Where was this when I was a teenager?”

Where did the idea for this come from?

Lisa Weber: The first seeds of it came into my head maybe as many as 15 years ago. I was finishing art school, and just started creating these characters. It’s funny, they stayed in there, and the world developed as I kept on taking in more entertainment influences, but also real world influences. I love reading about scientific advances, and the like.

It all just started gelling into this world that made sense. The story was ready to be told finally, after taking in all of these influences. I talked about it with Lynly, and we decided to go for it.

Lynly: We did.

Lisa: Then Kelly Sue came on.

Kelly: Here I am.

Lisa: It was then, to borrow a word from “Hex11”, magic.

Matt: I read the book this morning. It’s gorgeous, It’s stunning. Your art is beautiful. I was fascinated to find out what is your work process together. When you started writing, or come up with a story, how does it shift gears to script, and getting the whole package finished?

Kelly: I love that question because we don’t work traditionally like a comic book team. When we were first developing the book, Lisa had already had this incredible back story, and all of these beautiful character briefs. Being able to develop it together has been so much fun.

The way that we will work it when we have the next issue is, we have what we call a jam session, where we sit down, and we talk about the notes that we want to hit for this issue, how those notes will then thread out into the larger arcs that we have for our volumes.

We talk about the feeling that we want to have in the issue, and the feelings that our characters are experiencing throughout whatever it is that they’re experiencing in any different episode.

I will write a first draft of the script. I tend to do what I call overwriting, which is I will write a lot. I will write a lot of dialogue, or I’ll write a lot of scene notes, and then we have our creative status where we will pare it down, and distill it. Then we get it down to our final draft.

Lisa lays it out, and it’s always amazing to find that the things that we have brainstormed, and all of the extra things that get pared out as we are working on the issue are all still there in feeling, and in form. It’s really great. So much of our process is tandem.

Lisa: We go back and forth a lot.

Kelly: A lot.

Lynly: We do a lot of collaborating.

Kelly: Absolutely. We each have our hands in each other’s realms a little bit, which is really, really, really cool. It’s a way of work that is new to me, and it has been serving us so well. It’s just so much fun.

Lisa: It is.

Lynly: We’re very lucky, just to add that, because the three of us all do have very different talents, but we’re very proud, and respectful, and we’re fans of each other, which allow us to come together, and collaborate in a way that’s not conflictive, but really effective. It does make every day pretty awesome.

Kara: What was the design process like for all the characters? Every one of them has such a distinct look. And, uh, I’m real sorry, I’m just going to say it: That demon is SO HOT.

Lisa: Yes! We did it.

Lynly: We’re so psyched that it worked.

Lisa: I know. It’s so gratifying. The design process, it’s interesting because these characters lived in my brain for such a long time. It was weird when I first started drawing them, like really, really, “OK, we’re going to make them real now, and make them move, and have words come out of their mouths,” to make sure that they were going to come across as attractive.

Not just physically attractive, but like you want to know them, that they’re able to portray personalities, and emotions that will make you relate to them and want to know more about them. The design process is just figuring out how they’re all going to work to, like I said, emote, but also work in scenes with each other. I loved color theory.

So, as far as making them distinctive in the palette, and everything, I like to think about that. “Who’s going to come bouncing off this page, because of the background color,” and stuff like that. It’s all by design. It’s always thinking about the design.

Matt: Kara, yesterday, gave me the pitch for the book, and I just remember distinctively, “And maybe a super sexy demon also.”

Kara: That’s how I’ve been pitching it to all my coworkers.

Lisa: That’s awesome. Thank you.

Kelly: That’s awesome.

Lynly: We try not to objectify, but if you want to that’s totally OK.

Lynly: We don’t mind.

Kelly: We don’t mind at all.

Lynly: We like to treat all of our characters with respect, but then again, it’s nice to have a super sexy demon play out.

Kara: It’s just that underlying sexual tension that may or may not be there between the two main characters. I’m already writing the fanfic in my head. Don’t worry about.

Lynly: We encourage fan fiction.

Kelly: We do.

Lynly: 100 percent.

Kelly: We cannot wait to read it.

Lynly: I just want to toot her horn for a second, Lisa’s horn, because she doesn’t always do it herself, but she is remarkably talented at portraying humanity in a two dimensional format. I think that’s why people do relate so well to the characters, is that her…The smallest detail tells you a hundred stories about this person that’s telling you whatever immediate issues. She’s so good, even with our little dragon cats.

Kara: Can you tell us about those? You’re all covered in them.

Lynly: Yeah. I don’t know how something so small, but you can see fully their little personalities, what their intentions are. That’s really one of her fortés, aside from color, and just her amazing creative brain. She portrays emotion, and intention incredibly well, and I think it speaks volumes in the book, no doubt.

Kelly: Definitely.

Lisa: Thanks Lynn.

Lynly: You’re welcome girl.

Kara: Really. You’ve got a little dalek demon cat on there. You got a Loki demon cat.

Lisa: We started putting these little dragon kitties as this extra little detail in the book. They’re the science experiment that’s gone wrong, and they were released into the wild, and now they run around as strays. The braver, or crazier people in the Hex keep them as pets, and stuff like that. We just thought they were so stinking cute, we started dressing them up for conventions. We have little dalek kitties that say, “ex-purr-minate.”

Because we love puns too.

Kelly: Oh, do we ever. We love a pun.

Lynly: We are just shameless. We love “Doctor Who,” as well, so we’ve got, “Meowlons-y!” and, "Geronimeow.”

Lisa: It’s our own chance to totally nerd out in the nerdiest way really.

Matt: How has the response been to the book? When you go to conventions, or you have people come up to you and say what they think about it?

Kelly: It’s been amazing. Overwhelming.

Lisa: It’s been really fantastic.

Lynly: It’s been fantastic.

Kelly: It has. We have a lot of return fans. We debuted our first issue Halloween of last year at Comikaze in L.A. This is our seventh show. We’ve stayed pretty local in the southwest coast circuit. At every show we do, we have more and more people coming back to find us, specifically, to come back and either buy the next issue, or bring us issues they bought online for us to sign, or just to come back and tell us how much they love it. The response that we’ve been getting from a lot of younger, I will say 15 to 18 year old girls, has been remarkable. I don’t want to pigeonhole the…

Lynly: The response from adult men is also been remarkable.

Kelly: Exactly. I don’t want to leave out the adult men. There have been a few instances where we’ve had these young girls come up to us, and talk to us about how we’ve inspired them to pursue their own artistic pursuits. They leave us all these really wonderful messages on Facebook and Twitter.

Lisa: We’ve got two good ones. There was a girl that we met at Comikaze. She had asked me, when we were there, about art school. She wasn’t sure if she was going to do it. She didn’t know what to expect, or didn’t know if she could have a career in art, so I started telling her my experience. I went to art school…I worked very, very hard after art school to make sure that I could have a career in art. It’s not easy, but it’s absolutely worth doing. I told her my experience.

We saw her again at Long Beach, and she was like, “I just want you to know that after talking to you, you totally inspired me to go to art school. I’m going to the Art Institute in San Francisco right now, and it’s because of you.” That was incredibly rewarding.

Kelly:Really, really amazing.

Lisa: Then just at this con…

Kelly: Just at this con, we met this young girl. She came up, she was checking out everything, super stoked on the dragon kitties, was really into the comic. She bought our first issue.

That night, she sends us this – I just have to read it because I want to get it right – she comments on one of our Instagram photos, and says, “We met earlier today, and I’m letting you know that after finishing number one, that I’m getting the rest of it tomorrow. You guys have actually inspired me and a friend of mine to practice our skills, so that one day we can make a comic as interesting, and really pretty as yours.”

Lynly: It’s the best.

Kelly: At that point, you put in all of this time, you sacrificed so many things to be able to do this. You’re in the hustle of the show, which is exhausting, and it’s an ask of body and mind, and you’re just like, “That’s it. We won.”

Lynly: “We did it.”

Kelly: “We did it” We did exactly what we set out to do, and it’s remarkable.

Lynly: It really is. The impact on the people, it makes all the difference in the world.

Matt: The few issues that you guys have out, what are your long term, big picture plans? Do you have those in place now, and have started to put those in motion?

Lynly: We’ve got issue five on its way. It’ll be ready by the middle of September for Long Beach, and then we are going to wrap the volume one up with issue six, will be done by Comikaze at the end of October. We will have volume one done, and we’ll have a volume one trade, our plan is, out by the holidays, for all of your holiday shopping needs.

After the first of next year, we’re going to start on volume two. We’ve got volume two, and three already mapped. That’s our long term goal. Our hope is it keeps going. It’s taken on a life of its own. These characters have certainly started writing themselves, so to speak, as you hear many writers comment. If people keep reading it, we’ll keep making it.

We do have other good things coming though. We are a publisher. We’ve got, if I may pitch shamelessly, Kelly Sue’s got a new graphic novel that we’re producing called “Divorce, A Love Story”.

It’s going to be great. Lisa’ll be illustrating that.

Matt: I’m going to get that for me and my wife.

Lynly: We think it’ll make a great gift. We are developing a whole dragon kitties thing that will come after the first of the year. We also taken a couple of scripts on from very talented writers who, we’re hoping that we’ll be in a position after we get volume one done, and we can turn our focus to broaden it a bit. Then we’ll be able to bring out some new talent, and start putting out some new titles. That’s what next year’s going to hold if everything works like it’s supposed to.

Kara: That’s awesome. I don’t know when you guys sleep.

Lynly: Best laid plans, or whatever.

Kelly: We don’t sleep.

Lisa: Who needs it?

Kelly: Who needs it? We can sleep any time.

Kara: That was a pretty intense release schedule. You talked briefly about your process for creating each new issue, but how much time does that actually take from starting to talk about it, to when you actually have the print version in your hands, or the digital version in front of you in the store?

Lynly: On average it’s six to eight weeks. Lisa only has the two hands, and one of them actually draws, so we do work all the time.

The cool thing is because of the way that their, Kelly and Lisa’s, process works, Kelly can go…She goes always one script ahead. She was on five, right when we ended, she stopped the drawing for four, and she took a day, and she was back, five’s on, getting it done.

We’ve got a bit of a workhorse schedule, or what have you, but she’s going to be up drawing every day anyway. She’s a professional illustrator. It’s what she does for her life. Luckily she is really good at it, and she’s very efficient, and she continues to innovate.

Lisa: Being a professional illustrator, I’ve learned a lot of things about…

Lynly: Tips and tricks.

Lisa: …tips and tricks about productivity that I apply to this.

Lynly: Issue two was a little longer than issue three. Issue two had lots of dialogue, and that ended up being a bit cumbersome to draw, but issue three was tons of action, so that moved very fast.

Lisa: They are all kind of evening out.

Lynly: She’s always one step ahead, so it’s just filling the gap, and obviously being a start up, and just being the three of us, plus Samantha Carrasco, who is our very talented color assistant. It would be magical if we had some help for Lisa.

We could use a background artist. We could use the money to pay someone respectfully for their time. Us all being artists, and struggling at some point or another, we just are not going to take advantage of someone’s talents. We’re trying to get to the point to where we can actually pay someone to do something real.

Come next year, I think we’re going to be in a position where hopefully we can do that.

Kara: I love how enthusiastic you guys are about this. What kinds of books inspired you when you were younger to choose this kind of career path?

Lisa: We’ll let Kelly Sue start on that one.

Kelly: Oh, good.

Gosh, you know, I was born a nerd. I was born a nerd in a sense that I tend to latch on to things, and am enthusiastic to the max, which I think is really the definition of being a nerd, any time that there’s one thing that just gets you going.

I think I was born a Batman fan, so I fell into the world of Tim Burton’s Batman series as a young person. From there, I fell in love with the culture of comic books.

It wasn’t until I read The Watchmen that I was like, “Wow, this is a whole deal,” because I’d never experienced anything like that before. Then of course I dove in, and it was the Sandman, and it was V for Vendetta, and it was, oh my gosh, so many books that are falling through my head right now that I can’t think of. Saga.

At the time that I was writing, I was going to school to write for TV. I was like, “Wow, this is actually a lot like comic books.”

That’s what inspired me to be as excited as I was about jumping into this project, and all of that behind me. It’s, I’m so enthusiastic I can’t even make my mouth work when I talk about it.

Lisa: As far as early influences for me, I grew up watching the Jim Henson movies, Labyrinth, and Dark Crystal. I was always more drawn to the darker, weirder side of things. I was reading Stephen King before I probably should have.

The first comic book series that ended up in my hand was Sandman. That was when I first got interested in making comics because I was like, “Oh, I can do really, really interesting things in this format.” I just kept gleaning all I could from the darker side of things.

Lynly: Beautifully darker side of things. I am a storyteller, and I love great stories. I’m not new to comic books in the sense that I’ve always been aware that they were there. I had brothers, I knew what was going on. I saw all the Tim Burton Batman movies, and loved them too.

Kelly: I’m telling you.

Matt: Greatest movie of all time.

Kelly: Thank you, yes.

Lynly: I’m really interested in telling great stories. I love visual art. I love creative insight, and unique voices. I grew up reading The Hobbit and all of the Lord of the Rings trilogies. My parents loved beautiful children’s books. My mother still buys me children’s books, ones that are Caldecott winners, or what have you. I had a ton of really amazing, beautiful visual stories in front of me that I’ve always responded to.

Also, I’m a singer. I love a great lyric. I love anything that can really convey truth, and emotion, and connects with others. I’m inspired by the world. If we can take what we experience on the daily, or the things that we learn on a daily, and turn it into something visually beautiful that connects with people, then I think we’re doing what we set out to do.

Matt: Mission accomplished. It’s a beautiful book, it’s very fun. I read it last night. It’s really awesome to hear that it’s inspiring people to chase their own dreams.

Lynly: Definitely.

Matt: That’s awesome to hear. Thank you very much for taking your time out. Hopefully, when volume two or three drops, we can meet again.

Lynly: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to hear our stories.

Lisa: Thank you for having us.

Kelly: We do appreciate it.

Matt: Thank you.

Lisa: No, thank you.

Kara: Thank you all.