Today, we have an interview with rising star artist Natalie Nourigat. It’s a big week for Natalie as her first graphic novel Between Gears, the collected version of her visual diary that tracked her senior year of college, is being released by Image Comics on Wednesday. It’s a great addition to the diary comic genre, and shows off her growth as a cartoonist.
Check after the jump to find our talk with Tally about how Between Gears found its way to Image, how her art has grown since she originally put the book together, her upcoming Oni Press title Over the Surface, women in comics, and a whole lot more.
Since we last spoke, Between Gears found a printed home at Image Comics. How did that come together, and what was it about Image that made it seem like an ideal fit for your book?
For a long time, I thought it would be discourteous of me to pitch Between Gears to Image, since that’s where Emitown is, and I didn’t want to compete with Emi when so much of that project was inspired by her. (To be clear: she gave no indication of this; it was a restriction I placed on myself.) Instead, I pitched the book to publishers it wasn’t right for, was declined, and decided to self-publish it. I even had a Kickstarter approved to fund the printing. I was getting into the logistics of all of that, and was really overwhelmed by how much work it would be, and Emi told me, “Tally, just pitch it to Image. It’s OKAY.” Once I got over feeling like that was somehow a disservice to her (in reality, our books will probably benefit from being at the same publisher), I decided to give it one more shot and pitch it to Image before self-publishing. I could barely believe it, but I had a response within an hour saying ‘yes’! It’s been great working with Image; the whole staff has been responsive and helpful in walking me through my first book. They will be able to get it into so many more places and to so many more people than I could have; it’s really exciting.
Between Gears, for those that don’t know, is an autobiographical look at your senior year in college. As you’ve been putting the print version together, is it a little strange looking back on that period in your life? Do you feel that when you look at those comics, that your perspective on the events that transpired then has changed at all?
When I read those pages from two years ago, I’m right back there and I remember what I felt and why I thought those things. I’m sympathetic with the slightly younger, slightly more naïve Natalie. But sometimes I do read it and think, “Oh, Honey. You don’t know.”
How do you feel you’ve grown as an artist since the original completion of Between Gears?
From the early work, quite a bit. It’s been almost two and a half years since I drew the first pages. I’m still happy with the cartooning and the story as a whole, but I was just getting started inking with the brush pen after five years of inking with metal nibs. Now I ink with a Windsor & Newton with much more control and much thinner lines.
One of the things I like most about Between Gears is how much the art changes over the course of the two years it took to draw. You can see me trying new things, sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding, and that has continued since the end of that project.
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| A page from Between Gears |
With Between Gears being released this week, that chapter in your life will be officially wrapped. Could you see yourself ever going the diary comic route again?
Continued belowI write about this in the bonus materials of the book; I am very glad that I did this project, but I’m also really happy to be working in fiction again. I think that the 9-month school year was a wonderful framework for an autobiographical narrative, but once college ended it was a good place to stop. Until there’s a natural framework like that again in my life, or I go through something really exciting/awful, I’m happy just living my life.
Now that you mentioned bonus materials in Between Gears, what can readers who are a little more familiar with Between Gears expect out of those?
I’ve got chapter breaks, annotated maps of Eugene and Portland, the process of making a page, a hilarious spin-off comic by Ben Dewey, and much more.
Could you walk us through exactly what your pitch to Image contained for Between Gears?
I try to meet editors at conventions and make a good enough impression to earn their business cards and an OK to send them samples/pitches. If I don’t know anyone at the company, I follow official submission guidelines (normally found somewhere on a company’s homepage). I try to be friendly but brief, and I get a close friend or two to proofread the pitch before sending it.
Because I had been asked to pitch to Image before, I felt comfortable asking via a direct e-mail with a description of the comic and some evidence as to why I thought it would be a good fit for Image (who the readers are, some positive quotes from the comments on the comic, etc.). I included a link to the comic, which was nearly complete at that point, and offered to send a PDF if that would be helpful.
Over the Surface started as your college thesis, and then made its way to the public with the first two chapters online and mini-comics out there for the lucky ones who managed to pick them up at a con or online. It’s now going to be published by Oni Press. What can you tell those who are unfamiliar with it about this title?
It’s pretty much everything I like to read in a comic I get to make. Our main girl Ava is a misfit thrill-seeker who becomes her country’s first female pilot. Her new position makes her the target of a lot of different groups…some good, some bad, all of it pretty difficult to discern at first glance.
I pulled a lot of inspiration from WW2 France, especially the Resistance movement (although I should stress that it’s completely fiction, not even based in our world). There’s action, adventure, comedy, and romance, plus planes and guns and disguises and all manner of fun stuff.
How did you pair up with Oni for this release?
I pitched it, and I was very nervous, because historically all of my fictitious pitches have been turned down, but I got an approval soon after!
On Over the Surface’s site, you talk about some major themes of the book — which includes war, climate change and aviation — while also talking about how you’re going to put together in-depth studies on specific aspects of the world in the book, ala Hayao Miyazaki. I know you’re a huge fan — is Over the Surface in some ways an ode to that legendary creator?
Miyazaki is the first of five influences I discuss in my thesis; his work is a huge inspiration to me. The originality and fun of his movies, the heartfelt messages of cooperation and understanding, his diverse and developed characters…these are all things I would love to achieve in my own work.
Over the Surface isn’t an intentional love letter to his work, but I can certainly see where I have been inspired by Nausicaa and Porco Rosso.
You’re pretty new to the world of making comics for a living. What have you found to be your biggest successes and biggest difficulties in making your first couple years work as a creator?
I have found that the pipeline from accepting a job to getting paid for said job can be very long. That makes it difficult to budget month-to-month. Also, things can change, and a script might be several months late. I have to stay way ahead of the game by planning jobs far in advance, having a couple of irons in the fire at any given time, and keeping as much money in my savings account as possible.
Continued belowSuccesses? Success is every day I can keep doing this for a living! But, concretely: I found a really comfortable, nice lifestyle that I can maintain on a humble budget, I got very lucky in having some lucrative work land in my lap right out of school, and joining Periscope has made a HUGE difference making ends meet. At least 10% of my income last year was from last-minute jobs that came through the studio and I was able to do some work on.
You’re a female creator. You know a lot of really talented female creators in the industry. A rather hot button issue in the industry is the idea that very few women writers and artists are working on books for Marvel and/or DC, with that being a deliberate decision by those publishers. Do you think this is a real issue, or controversy for the sake of controversy?
I think it’s worth examining, and worth asking companies to explain when their gender ratios are far off from the average. I doubt it’s any kind of sexist conspiracy, but the gender percentages published this year did surprise me. I believe in the argument that a variety of creators produces a variety of materials which attract a variety of readers, and it’s in companies’ best interests to right themselves when they are falling short of a diverse team. This issue is also important to talk about because Marvel and DC have such large market shares and, from what I have heard, healthy budgets for creators. They do a lot in terms of job creation in comics.
It might be a circumstantial fluke. It might be that these companies aren’t seeking out or attracting female creators. It might be that female creators aren’t seeking work with them. In terms of art it might be, and I suspect it is, that there aren’t many women drawing in these companies’ current house styles.
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| The Golden Compass fan art |
One of my favorite things you do as an artist is the infectious joy you show in being a fan, and how you celebrate it by creating awesome fan art for things like Miyazaki films to The Hunger Games (yes!) to Watership Down. Why is that something you’re drawn to doing so often, and what’s your favorite thing to geek out and draw over? Note: the only acceptable answer here is Parks and Recreation.
Drawing is a joy! It’s a vehicle of expression. That can be lost to a certain extent when it becomes a person’s job. For me, taking time out now and then to return to drawing as a complete and utter escape is one of the most fun things in the world. And one of the most fun subjects out there is fan art! Tapping into the emotion I feel for another person’s work/world/characters makes it easy to draw something from the heart, which I think people can see and they respond to really well. I’m very happy when I post something new and find how many people enjoy the same fandoms as me. Also, allowing myself to draw as a fan reminds me how much other people’s work has touched and means to me, and what I can strive to inspire in other people through my own work.
Parks and Rec has definitely been the most fun. I mean, come on.
