[upbeat triumphant theme] ♪ - Hello and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the department of mass communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today Weshoyot Alvitre, she is an Artist and Writer.

Weshoyot Alvitre, welcome to Comic Culture.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- So you are a penciler, an inker and a color artist, and you've also written some comics in children's book.

So I'm wondering switching between the disciplines between maybe doing some pencil work for someone or maybe doing some inks for someone, or maybe doing color on a book, how are you able to sort of switch between and when you're sitting down at that blank page, how far do you go with the pencils before you go to the ink or before you start maybe thinking about how the color should fit in?

- Yeah, over the years, because I've developed, doing all three tasks.

Now, when I do work, I oftentimes keep my pencils very loose.

They're not very finished pencils because I know, in my head what I'm gonna do with, through the ink stage.

And then also through the color stage.

When I first started and I was doing portfolio reviews they always wanted to see tight, super finished pencils.

And even now, if I have, I'm asked to draw that way, it makes me kind of nervous because I haven't done it in so long.

Yeah, so I think I've developed just sort of shortcuts and not having to finish everything because I do all three things.

- And is that something where perhaps it's because you feel that you're, you're losing spontaneity.

I talked to Lee weeks once and he was saying that sometimes he'll overwork an image and he says it kills the magic.

And is it something where it's it's maybe that, if I work on this one face or this one pose too much before I put inks on it, it's just not going to be the same or is it something where, just time-wise I really have to get this done because I've got a deadline.

- I think it's probably both things.

I know if I actually have to do full, completed rendered pencils it does take me quite a bit longer to do that before I hit the ink stage.

So it definitely saves on time but I also really enjoy the energy of gesture drawings.

One of my favorite things to collect is like artist's sketchbooks, not necessarily their finished art pieces because all the thinking and thought processing and playing I think goes through when there's sketches and that loose energy is something that you can kind of tap into if you go immediately from the gesture drawings to the process.

- And let's talk a little bit about the gesture drawing.

When you're putting together a page design how loose are you sort of figuring it, as it's just like the old John Bessemer, how to draw the Marvel way where it's maybe that stick figure, are you more of a you're just going to kind of sketch and the page sort of forms itself.

So when you're thinking about the script and looking at that blank page how are you sort of assembling that image in your mind and then eventually on the page?

- Well, usually I have to look at the panel count but that usually comes in first.

So if I'm working with a writer, I see how many, hopefully it's between four to six panels and nothing more than that, 'cause when it does get to be more it becomes more of a puzzle.

And then usually I'll focus on what is the key point of action on that particular page?

Or what is the most important panel to me or maybe the funnest one to draw.

And I focus on that and then treat the entire page, almost like a composition.

So once you have your action scene or your most important panel established and you kind of build the other panels off of that compositionally, so they all sort of flow.

Occasionally I'll treat it more like a film if it's very cinematic and I will just think strictly camera shots and what's the best way to tell this scene through camera action.

So it makes sense to the viewer.

And then occasionally it will be like sematic elements that you want to hit on sort of a subliminal level.

So you have to kind of consider how your reader is going to maybe pick up on those subliminal things in the imagery or the tone that you're setting or there's like a theme in the background.

So it kind of depends on each piece.

- It's interesting because you're talking about putting in something that's going to maybe be a clue to something that's happening later on or some sort of visual hint.

So I'm assuming that, you're reading through the script entirely and maybe developing that or might be something that's in the script that you're just trying to place in there.

So, when you're looking at this book you're obviously having to look at the whole thing as a complete project, rather than just, a page at a time.

So how do you sort of organize that thought?

So that way you have that through line that happens on page one and ends on page 20.

- I think from start to finish normally when I am given a script, I'll read it I'll do a first read through just to get like, okay what's happening in this, 24 pages or for the graphic novel what's happening that I'm going to have to tackle.

And then once I do the first read through, I do a secondary read through and I kind of mentally post-it note certain pages or scenes like ebbs and flows of a tide.

So there's like high points that you need to really focus on.

So those are my key components in an issue or in a graphic novel.

And then I go to the thumbnail stage and usually that actually, it takes me the longest and I kind of need the most concentration because you're not only breaking things up in a story and telling sense.

So you need to have, consecutive panels that make sense but that's kind of where your panel and page composition is gonna come in.

And then if there are thematic underlying elements that you need to tie in if it's going to be across many pages that's something that you kind of have to think of in the thumbnail stage.

So then once you get to pencils and stuff it starts to be more clear.

So yeah, there's a lot of thought process that goes into it, I think, and I don't usually work singular page.

This page is gonna be really cool or something I'm always thinking of like the grant and grander story or the grander scene to make everything, read properly.

- And, you're talking about the thumbnail stage, I guess where you're sort of putting that whole story together.

And you say that that's probably the most challenging.

It's sorta like what Hitchcock had said about, figuring out the story.

It's more fun sometimes to do that than it is to actually sit down and make the movie.

So I'm wondering when you're at that stage where doing the thumbnails again, getting back to that spontaneity, is this something where you can maybe you're working digitally and you can just expand the thumbnail and turn that into the page rough or is this something now where you're just going to sit down and you're working on paper and you've got to take something that's a little smaller now, try and blow it up on that 10 by 15 and get it just right.

- Yeah [laugh], I know that there's lots of people that shortcut that method because it's very time consuming to transfer thumbnails to pencils, to finished page size, which is, I usually work 11 by 17.

I prefer the older school methods.

I've said this a long time, but I'm kind of anti digital digital stuff makes things faster but I don't like working digitally.

It's really hard on my eyes.

I don't like the process in coloring digitally.

I much prefer an actual physical media and the same thing goes with paper.

I could learn digital media and digital inking and I really don't have any interest in doing it.

I also don't like the fact that you don't have a physical thing product afterwards.

I like to have physical art.

And so, yeah, I'm kind of old school and very stubborn.

So I do everything, I do all my thumbnails in a sketchbook and then I physically just look at those thumbnails visually and then lay them out to a larger size.

I don't use a light box.

Some people will enlarge them on a computer and then print blue lions onto their larger papers.

I've tried that method and it doesn't work for me.

I feel like it gets repetitive and kind of boring.

So I would much rather, play in the process.

And then I can also make edits if I transfer something from a thumbnail up to a larger page.

And I realize, okay, this isn't quite working.

I can make that editorial decision at that stage.

And sometimes even between the pencils and being stage, but yeah, that's why I actually go through all the mechanical physical processes of doing all these things.

And I don't use digital media for it.

- So you mentioned colors though.

So if you're doing colors for yourself or for someone else, how are you going to sort of get that onto their art or your art?

Is it the same board or are you sort of making a copy and then making a guide that - If I'm doing my own colors, I don't I haven't anybody else's work 'cause I don't consider myself at that level or nor would I necessarily want to color anybody's work besides my own.

So I do, if I'm doing hand drawn colors like one of the graphic novels that I recently did everything was painted over the actual ink.

So I had the ink stage and what I did when I finished those, as I scan the inks just in case anything terrible happened, then I would at least have a copy of the ink if I needed to, as a last resort print out or something.

But yeah, the physical colors actually went right over the inks and then sometimes I'll, do the colors first and then ink over it depending on the media and whether or not it's going to interact with digital stuff.

I scan in my inks and the color digitally.

So, but yeah, usually it's physical, it's on the paper and I don't transfer or transfer my inks in it anyway.

- We were talking about this before we started you're going to be part of a new Marvel book or series called "Indigenous Voices."

And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that and why, or rather what impact that will have.

- That's something that just sort of came up out of the blue and I'm really, really excited about it.

I have been advocating for more indigenous writers and artists in comics for many, many years after meeting Lee Francis who formed the Indigenous Comic-Con which is held every year in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He really introduced me to a circle of indigenous creatives that do comic books.

They're comic book writers, comic book artists and showed me that there's a lot of indigenous representation.

It just flies under the radar because we don't have larger publishers publishing us most of the time we're independent publishers.

So, seeing all the stereotypical work that does come out of major publishing houses and seeing that most of the time by non-native and drawn by non-natives we've been advocating for.

Look we are, a collective of writers and artists and we all have talents and there's colors involved too but we can work for you guys and put out, more representation on our own terms.

So Marvel contacted me earlier in the year and they had been collaborating with Jeffrey Veregge who is a form-line artist, and he's done several, covers from Marvel over the years.

And I guess they were putting together this relaunch of characters and they wanted to hire native writers and native artists and collaborate on relaunching several of their characters from their archives which I thought was amazing, like and so immediately after, I get the initial email like, "Hey can I work on either Echo or Dani Moonstar?"

Because I'm like personally vested in both of those characters.

I love both of those characters.

And the editor got back to me she was like, "Well, Dani Moonstar is taken already "but Echo, we might be able to do something with."

So I'm like, "Please, please, please."

'Cause one of my very first portfolio reviews was at San Diego Comic-Con when I was in high school.

And I went to, the portfolio review section but I also kind of went around to some of my favorite artists at the tables.

And David Mack was doing Kabuki at the time.

And he had just come out with the Echo's storyline.

And I think this was about 2008 and he was so kind, he looked at my portfolio, we talked and I just really thanked him for having a positive female, representation and a native American female.

And that really meant something to me back then when I was aspiring to be a comic book artist.

And it's just crazy.

So many years later that I'm now working with the character.

So he was really sweetened.

And we've kept in contact over the years and stuff.

And he gave me his blessing with the character.

So it's really kind of a personal thing.

I'm a huge fan of the Echo storyline and her as a character and all of her personality traits and to be able to draw her from Marvel is really, really amazing now.

- You talked about this cohort of indigenous creators and I'm wondering if you could just kind of talk about the publishing landscape.

Obviously we know Marvel, we know DC, and we know that most of the characters are going to be white men.

And I'm just wondering, we're seeing different characters coming up.

Obviously the Black Panther film was a massive hit and you could even look at the Captain Marvel film and see that, there's an audience for different characters with different appearances different points of view.

So when you're putting together comics with this other group just what sort of mindset is going into that.

- It's such a diverse group.

The, I think it started at as a Indigenous Comic Collective.

And so we have artists that are writing current modern type of comics based on indigenous characters that they've created.

We have indigenous superheroes that are being written.

Some of the writers and artists are taking their traditional narrative stories from their own tribes and translating those into comics.

Dale Deforest, he's an amazing artist.

And he did one called "Hero Twins", which, and he's Denae.

So it was like his own personal take on, one of their tribal stories.

So you have a wide range of you have historical indigenous representation, you have modern indigenous representation you have almost non-fiction type work.

And then you have, sometimes narratives too Jim Terry who I believe did the cover for the Marvel indigenous voices.

He just came out with a graphic novel too, and it's like autobiography.

So it runs the whole gamut of every kind of comic genre that you have out there.

And I think it's been a while for the mainstream industry to sort of catch up to what we're doing and to give us representation.

But, it's very, very positive and uplifting to see that they're reaching out now and doing things in the right way, not kind of pairing an indigenous artist or a consultant with a white writer but they're actually making the moves to hire indigenous writers and pair them with indigenous artists which I think is a really powerful move on their behalf.

- I'm wondering if people are going to their local comic shops.

Is this something that these books are going to be there?

Or is it something that maybe we're looking at Amazon or we're looking at maybe a book and mortar bookstore a brick and mortar bookstore, I should say.

- [laugh] Yeah and these, this is a mainstream launch.

I believe it launches November 18th, it's available wherever comic books are sold.

I always kind of encourage people either to support their local comic book shop and order through them if they can add it to their pull list, because there's going to be many, many variant covers for this, or if they don't have a favorite local shop up and they prefer to do online ordering, I'm encouraging them to reach out to indigenous owned bookstores, such as red planet books in Albuquerque, New Mexico which is actually owned by Lee Francis, who puts on the Indigenous Comic-Con.

But by doing the thing to support, either your local, mom and pop shops or your your indigenous comic collectors is a great way to obtain it so.

- I wanted to switch gears just a little bit and I wanted to talk about, "At The Mountains Base".

I was wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the story and why you wanted to tell it.

- Yeah, "At The Mountains Base", is a children's book.

It's my very first children's book.

It was printed by Kokila who is an imprint from Penguin Random House.

And their primary goal is to publish books from sort of the edges of things from minority storytellers.

And it's written by Traci Sorell.

Who's an amazing Cherokee author.

And I was brought in, they sent me a sample of the poem, I guess it's prose.

It's very succinct and short.

So I loved it on the first read, but I was also terrified because I'd never done a children's book before.

I didn't know how any of that stuff worked.

As far as layout goes, how many pages it was supposed to be.

So it was a huge learning experience for me, the book it tells the story of a family who's waiting on the return of their daughter from the military coming home to return back to the family.

And they're sort of praying and worried about her because she's, in a dangerous situation being overseas and it's inspired by a historical tale of an Oglala female pilot.

She was a two pilot for in World War II, Mildred Rexroad it's loosely based on her and it's, brought in some of the Cherokee heritage from Tracy's side, because I wanted to try to incorporate a little bit of, where she comes from too.

So I used Cherokee finger weaving, which had this sort of traditional art that they do.

And I tied that into the book because there's a line that mentions a grandmother weaving and worrying.

And I, as a side hobby, besides comics, when I have downtime a big like fiber arts enthusiast.

So I like spin yarn and I knit and I'm eventually gonna get into weaving and stuff, but I really love 18th century fiber textile.

So I was trying to incorporate all those things into it and then deal with the giant thing that is illustrating a children's book and how different that is from doing sequential art [laugh].

- When you're working on the illustrations is this a familiar size that you're working on?

Is this that 11 by 17?

Or are you working maybe larger, maybe smaller depending on, the way the pages are going to be published?

- This one, I actually worked a little bit bigger.

Children's at the books are not in such a vertical format, like comic books.

They can actually be in many different formats.

So from the get-go we had to sort of decide whether we wanted a portrait or a landscape or a square format for the book.

And I had a really great conversations with the Art Director, Jasmine, and, she walked me through everything because she's amazing for one but she also really knows her stuff.

So basically a children's book is a little bit longer than a comic book too.

It's about 32 pages or so and you you lay everything out into a pan first.

So I guess it's similar to doing comic book thumbnails but it's a little bit different because you're having to insert words.

And so rather than having panel breakdowns oftentimes you have either a singular sentence or in this case, it was aligned from the pros and it was sort of one line per page.

So I had the entire page to work that one particular line.

So it was a lot more sparse than I'm used to working.

Most of the time comic book scripts have word balloons and all these things on every single panel and you have to make room for that.

And so I was really intimidated by the lack of I guess, the help from the writing, but I worked on 16 inch by 20 inch illustration, Bristol board.

So it's a little bit thicker than your traditional comic book, Bristol and then all the illustrations are pen and ink and then guash paints.

So I got to sort of play a little bit more than I normally do with watercolor and guash.

- Now is this something where, you're working on the illustration and I know that in comics you're creating a world and you know, the characters are in the city or they're in a store or something like that.

And when you're doing an illustration for a children's book, is there sort of a guideline like maybe you keep things a little simpler because you want the younger reader to focus on maybe the emotion in the face rather than the location that the story is set in.

- Yeah, that's a good question.

I think it is.

Yeah, I think you have the ability to go more simple and minimalistic with children's books.

I think also the major thing for me to learn was how to work with a theme.

So I had to really think about the theme of the book and that goes in regards to color choice.

So I had a color palette that I chose prior to beginning the book.

So then all the pages sort of float color wise.

And also I got to play with negative space more which I get to do sometimes in comic books, but sometimes it's frowned upon as like, you're being lazy.

You're not using your, background to the full ability.

And with this, I was really kind of reveling in the ability to use the negative space as a placeholder.

And also for me to focus in on certain scenes in the story.

- The thing about children's literature is that it is, it's something that I think has a bigger audience than a monthly comic and not to say anything bad about comics because I've got literally a house full of them.

But, this is something that, could be something that a child reads and becomes one of those things that they keep.

I know I've got books from when I was a child that there's no way I could throw them out.

So this is something that could have one of those messages that just kind of keeps going on and get shared generationally.

So is there a way that you sort of keep the style or the approach sort of evergreen?

So that way it can go beyond like, this is so '90s and you can tell 'cause everyone's got the sweaters that way or something.

- That's a good question, I actually didn't think about that when I was illustrating the book, it in my brain because we were using a little bit of a historical reference.

I was thinking sort of vintage and how vintage can actually kind of like be long lasting.

So you see certain things and vintage always comes back.

So it kind of has a 1940s feel.

And I use that time era to make my color choices in the illustration.

I live close to Camerino in California and every year, well before COVID, they used to have a vintage airplane show.

And it's one of the very last airports that does it.

And they're all World War II or pre World War II aircraft.

And so my dad used to take us there as a kid and, I kept going as an adult, but it's something I really love and to the aircraft and the materials that go into making those, sometimes they're like even wooden framed airplanes and they have Chrome or steel or whatever wrapped around them but it's harmonious sort of color theme in old World War II, even military patches and stuff.

So I pulled a lot of the colors that I use for the book off of 1940s, military patches in 1940 fabric.

I guess I didn't look that far into the future to think like, 20 years ago this might still be in print.

I didn't really think about that when I was working on the project but I do hope that maybe people keep it in their library.

And it does, last as long, I have kids books that I, read growing up.

I've got a lot of Richard Scary and Bird Baler and [indistinct] gosh, I can't remember his name, but yeah I still have books from my childhood are like were a huge impact on not only my art style but also just the type of stories that I gravitate to.

- It's funny because there are those books that just kind of resonate and they, I could still tell people about, you got to read "Sir Toby Jingle's Beastly Journey" that I got from this, the weekly book club or whatever it was.

But, you said something that that's really kind of interesting.

You talked about how this forties aesthetic came from your love of going to these air shows and looking at this, the World War II insignia and whatnot.

So when you are putting together a project, are you like looking for something, where do you see something and just say, you know what, someday I'm going to use this this inspiration for some project.

I just don't know what it is.

- Yeah, I do both, I'm a huge history buff.

Some of other projects kind of well into that side of things and especially in my own personal work.

So I do have areas where I love to do research in the World War II aesthetic was something that really kind of struck me with this book before I had even started the art on.

And so I was kind of excited to be able to have the opportunity to play with that area.

'Cause I don't oftentimes get like, draw something from World War II or draw, it's a very kind of niche type thing.

So I do carry, I've got like files and folders of certain things that I wanna do books on in the future.

But a lot of the time when I'm on a project I will research and find and material stuff from that era.

And whether it's a [indistinct] or if it's textiles or something to me that resonates that I can incorporate into the artwork.

And sometimes it's very obscure too.

Like I have a folder on my computer of military patches and I colored sample the colors from those military patches to build my pallet for, "At the Mountain Base."

So this is behind the scenes things that you may not see with the finished product but it's it's work that I did to get to the finished product.

- And it's really fascinating 'cause you mentioned fabrics a couple of times now and it's interesting because we all wear clothing and we all have, blankets and sheets and towels in our home.

And we even have ornamental pieces that we are, that we keep.

And it's just interesting that there's a combination of like actual something you can touch.

There's a tactile sensation with fabric and yet you can apply that to an illustration or something along those lines.

So it's just interesting how creativity works.

It's not really a question.

It's just more something that popped in, we kind of get inspired by all sorts of things.

Now, one of the things I recall I think the series was, Alice Sixkiller.

- Yes, [laugh].

- Okay, so that was a another sort of different look to the artwork.

I was wondering what was sort of behind that visual.

- Yeah that particular book we are actually going to pick it back up, hopefully 2021.

It was sort of a one-shot and then we had some publishing switcheroos and stuff.

And so it got put on the table and we both got very busy with other projects, but that particular book is sort of a play off of Alice In Wonderland which I'm sure everybody's familiar with and not the Disney version, but the old Lewis Carroll books.

So I sort of took it upon myself when I got, thrown the idea the concept I said, "Alice in Wonderland."

I was like, "I would love to be able to incorporate a feel "of Victorian illustration in this book.

"I know it's not mainstream comic book stuff "but I think I could do it in a way to make it work."

And at the time I was working as a sign artist and I'm working with a lot of Victorian clip art and I feel like I had done enough, like studying and redrawing and replicating of those things that I had a handle on sort of the crosshatching and whatnot.

So yeah, the writer was fine with me playing with that.

And I just decided to try to do the whole book as if somebody was taking those Alice in Wonderland cartoons and creating a comic book, but not doing it like a direct copy of that type of art style kind of incorporating a bit of a modern thing.

So in that book you'll see digital colors which are more modern.

And I think the juxtaposition between digital colors and having that pen and Vanguard style which is all done by hand really kind of gives it sort of a weird dark, modern feel to it.

- Well, they're telling us that we are out of time.

I was wondering if the folks watching wanted to find out more, is there a website or social media account that they can look at?

- Yeah, they can look up my first name on any social media.

It's Weshoyot just the hashtag, I can also be reached at weshoyot.com.

- Okay well, Weshoyot, I wanna thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

And I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

[upbeat triumphant theme] ♪ - [Narrator] Comic Culture is a production of the department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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