The webcomic creator is never far from their audience. Be it through social media, public email addresses, Discord servers, or simply the comments section beneath a page, there is a rapport and a conversation that is developed that is unique to the medium. We’re continuing those conversations here, albeit a little more formally, by interviewing webcomics creators to pick their brains about craft, storytelling, and their personal experiences with the medium.
This month, we sat down and had a chat with Petra Nordlund, creator of the Eisner award nominated“Tiger, Tiger” and “Prague Race.” Much like last month’s interview, eagle-eyed readers of The Webcomics Weekly might recognize the comic from Gustavo’s, semi-frequent, check-ins. But enough shilling! You’re here for Petra. Let’s go!
So, to start us off, tell us about your experiences with webcomics prior to starting “Prague Race” & ”Tiger, Tiger.”
Petra Nordlund: Hmmm. HMMM. So, what did I read and/or draw myself before these two comics, right?
Either or. I’ve had people answer both ways.
PN: OK! Well, I think the first webcomics I read were Finnish improvisation comics people posted on their own websites, like 20 or so years ago. I never even knew about the ones that were big outside Finland, like Megatokyo and such. I had a very, very limited knowledge of webcomics before i started my own, haha.
And I think I was already over 20 years old when “Prague Race” begun! We have our own small circle of webcomics and people, and I kinda just grew up with those and now it’s like a whole wide world of comics after I spread out myself.
Since then, you’ve branched out in your reading?
PN: Yeah! I didn’t know how to code my own website or anything, so I started posting my first comic on Smackjeeves. From there, I found the first webcomics that were in English.
It was the only site I knew of back then, too.
Oh wow, Smackjeeves. A blast from the past.
PN: Yeah! Hahaha. I think I went to a site called Inkblazers from there? But it has collapsed since then.
In the time you’ve been making webcomics, is that something you’ve noticed happen often?
PN: People moving from site to site? I am very out of the loop with everything almost all the time, when it comes to stuff that happens in the webcomics circles. I only know personally of Inkblazers/Mangamagazine (I think that was their name before rebranding) but I would say it’s always very difficult to make a living from webcomics and the same applies to different hosting sites.
I’m happy to see that Smackjeeves is still standing, apparently! It’s like a foundation rock that’s always there.
Let’s hope it’s around for many more years to come.
PN: Yeah! It’s a good option for people like me who don’t much care about coding and just want a place to post their stuff.
And now your stuff is with Hiveworks, correct?
PN: Yeah. When Inkblazers was on the brink of collapsing, I reached out to them and asked if they’d like to host my comic. Now I’ve been with them since 2014, I think.
At the time, you were still working on “Prague Race,” which has since gone on hiatus. You have a whole explanation on your site but was it hard to put down “PR” in favor of “Tiger, Tiger?” And do you think, if re-creating it today, you would approach the story, or at least the process, differently?
PN: I think this is something that has been on the surface recently; I’ve seen many longform webcomics come to an sudden end/hiatus.
I did not regret ending “Prague Race” one bit. I still love it from the bottom of my heart, but it was something I started when I was 20 years old. It was supposed to have NINE BOOKS — for reference, I only managed to finish the first one! — and i was very young and very, very inexperienced. At some point, the knowledge of it just spawning so far away, I felt the weight of it becoming so crushing, I realized that this cannot go on.
Continued belowI now treat “Prague Race” like a training project. I grew up with it. I went to three different universities and studied animation, writing and screenplay while drawing it. The more I learned about writing and making stories, the more I understood that I couldn’t fix the “mistakes” I had done in the past, and I did not experience any joy in drawing a project I had written in my twenties. Simply put, I grew over it. It was an amazing experience, and “Tiger, Tiger” is something that spawned out of it and is a result of this experience.
If I had a room full of assistants like mangakas do, I could have pushed out ten times more pages than I could do myself alone, but making a webcomic alone is damn hard work. Also, I used way too much time on each page!
About how many hours per-page?
PN: I think I used around 12 hours per page, which is a lot to me. And I’m very fast at drawing! “Tiger, Tiger” takes around 3-6 hours to finish.
Wow, that’s quite a change in time.
PN: I made the graytones in Prague Race with wooden pencils. It was insane and took so much time.
Considering the level of detail in the “Tiger, Tiger” pages, especially for ones of, like, the ship early on, that’s quite fast. How do you primarily work now? Is it all physical, with pencils?
PN: I draw the lineart with pencils on A3-sized paper, scan it, and paint it digitally! It’s so much faster, it’s incredible. I love technology.
This is my first digitally painted comic. The first pages of “Tiger, Tiger” are painted traditionally with India ink. I switched at one point when ipads became more affordable.
I assume you much prefer this method?
PN: It has its perks! I do love making traditional art, but in webcomics, time comes first, for me at least. I want to tell many stories in my lifetime, and doing this digitally allows me to push out more pages, more frequently.
I’d love to make a short comic one day that’s painted with watercolours, but it should definitely be under 100 pages or else it would take a billion years. Also, hey, I just have to tell you a story about how I learned to draw fast because! I think if there are young people reading this, it might be something they wanna hear/know.
I went to a small comics school when I was 18 years old, straight out of high school. The first thing the teachers did was take our erasers away. It was kind of hardcore and I know this isn’t for everyone, and I cried about it so often but they told us to never erase anything, just keep on drawing even if you make mistakes.
And I did, and actually drew like that for years! At some point I realized I didn’t need to sketch anymore, I could just make the inkwork straight to paper. It kind of killed one phase of work from there.
Traditional art is scary because it requires courage, making a huge pile of mistakes feels so bad at first. . .but it also kinda forces you to learn to be clever. But also: digital art is amazing and ctrl+z has saved my life many times hahaha! I’m so happy to paint digitally now.
Hahaha, ctrl+z is a universal lifesaver.
PN: I have spilled ink on my nearly finished pages and ruined them totally, so yes.
Oh man, that’s gotta be a devastating moment.
PN: That’s why I’m so dead inside now. Too many ruined pages have happened.
Just kidding.
Shifting gears a bit, in “Tiger, Tiger,” your sepia-toned art evokes a feeling of old maps and older terrors. Is that the feel you hope to give? I have a feeling things are going to get darker, as any good sea voyage does.
PN: Oh, yes absolutely! Though even if I love writing about darker stuff, “Tiger, Tiger” will always have that certain tone of humour too! Can’t make the darkness feel dark unless there’s a source of light, you know.
Do you find yourself leaning into the humor more as a counterbalance to the darker elements or as a way to make them feel more harrowing?
Continued belowPN: Oh, good question. I don’t know, actually! I think. . .too much heavy stuff can make a story unbearable. Like, I have had trouble finishing books where everything just goes wrong over and over again, no matter how hard the characters fight back. But at the same time, I kind of feel the latter, too. I’d say I do it for both.
We’ll see how dark things go. This is supposed to be a story about romance in the end anyway, even if you wouldn’t believe it at first glance, hahaha. Not that you can’t have both!
True, true. The distinction between the start and rest of chapter two being a good example of that. Are there any pieces of media that inspired the look and feel of “Tiger, Tiger?”
PN: Oh yes! The first (and biggest one) is definitely Robin Hobb’s “Liveship Traders” book series. Also, I watched and read a good pile of swashbuckling media before starting “Tiger, Tiger,” like different versions of Musketeers, Zorro movies, The Princess Bride, etc! Also, one of my great inspirations for the overall mood is the 1999 movie The Mummy. It has a good balance of darkness and big hearted humour and stupidness that I absolutely adore.
Really? I never would’ve guessed the 1990s The Mummy but I can see that in the interludes for certain.
PN: Hehe!
Now, this interview will probably [Editor’s Note: Definitely] be going up after the Eisners are announced but, how does it feel to be a nominee?
PN: Well, it’s something I would have never ever expected to be honest but I’m so honoured and it’s incredible to have this comic to be nominated!
I kind of spent a few days just staring at the wall like, okay, it’s pretty amazing.
What’ll you do if you win?
PN: Take all my friends to eat outside haha! Though I’m doing it anyway because getting the nomination itself is pretty damn cool and more than I could have ever expected!
Also, one of the best things that happened was that I found out about Lavender Jack, one of the nominees. Please read it, it’s so good.
I will certainly do that! I think one of our other reviewers, Mike, covered it a few months ago.
OK, I have a couple more questions for you. The first being about the recent announcement of how “Prague Race,” is finishing. Hiveworks editor Taylor Robin, of Never Satisfied, is completing it in prose based on your outline. Similar to how Cucumber Quest is completing, how did this come about? Is it going to encompass all nine planned books or just a completion of the story as you’d like to see it?
PN: Some time ago, me and Isa (one of the people behind Hiveworks) came up with a shorter version of the comic, which will tie the ending together, and then Taylor will write it. I was supposed to draw the shorter version first, but it turns out that the burnout I got from “Prague Race” was so bad I couldn’t do even that.But I want to give people the ending anyway, especially for those who have been reading this comic since they were teenagers! Also because the ending was the first thing I came up with when starting the comic! It’s important to me, haha.
But I must tell you, I have taken some of my favourite ideas and concepts that I just couldn’t execute in “Prague race,” and I will put them in the comic that comes after “Tiger, Tiger.” “Tigers” is 1/3 done already, gotta have something to work on after that…!
Oh wow. So, “Tiger Tiger” is a much shorter project then.
PN: YEAH… I learned my lesson, so to speak.
That reminds me of a statement from some writer, I can’t remember who, who talked about how they often save the passages they cut from their drafts because they may not fit the current story but they’ll often find uses for them later on.
PN: Ooh! That’s definitely the case here too. I just can’t fit everything in the ending of Prague Race, too many characters on stage and they all have their own plots going on.
Continued belowDo you feel like that’s happening in “Tiger, Tiger” too? That the characters are growing beyond what you initially planned?
PN: They always do! I can’t stop it! Aaah! But now at least I have written a strict outline of their themes, and what I want to tell with them. Also, I have made a promise with myself that if I really feel like adding more scenes — I can make them into small extra comics that are drawn more loosely and which I can post between chapters, or on patreon!
Also, there are four characters whose story is in the focus here, and I will never add more main characters, which I did in prague race. . .and that’s why I ended up with over 2004593+ characters. Oops.
Whoops!
PN: It was terrible!
I bet. It’s hard enough having to juggle 4 main characters.
PN: Yeah, thankfully they are pretty much entwined together, so they don’t go out having solo adventures. . .except for Ludovica, who is THE main character.
Ok, final question. What are three webcomics you’d recommend for fans of “Tiger, Tiger?”
PN: Well, first of all, you all just have to read “Heir’s Game.” It’s on Webtoons and it’s also a swashbuckling comic with lots of drama, romance and swordfighting!
Oh, this is hard because I have my own favourites, but when I have to think about recommending comics for a certain audience. . .
One of my dearest favourites is “Kill Six Billion Demons.” It has a great mix of fun and gore and I loooove the art!
Also, I know I said Lavender Jack,, but I just gotta say it again. Also, anything from Der-Shing Helmer. That’s way too many now but I cannot be stopped.
More recs are always welcomed, I’m sure.
PN: If people are into period drama comics (with a twist of fantasy,) I’d recommend “Califata,” “Obelisk”, and “Novae!”
And probably my very favourite is “Gunnerkrigg Court,” which everybody knows of but i just gotta throw it here too. just in case there is someone who hasn’t read it yet. I have a thousand names circling just at the edge of my thoughts, there’s just so many amazing webcomics out there. But I guess this. . .is more than three. : D
