Phil & Kaja Foglio are Seattle-based writers, artists and publishers. The Couple founded Studio Foglio, LLC in 1993 as a venue for Kajaâs Magic: The Gathering art prints, but quickly expanded into publishing. Phil has won the Hugo Awards for Best Fan Artist (1977 & 1978) and Best Graphic Story (2009 & 2010) and is still waiting for the wealth and unlimited power he was told this would bring. His prior catalogue includes illustration and a comic adaptation of Robert Lynn Asprinâs MythAdventures series. They co-write the comic series Girl Genius, with Kaja as the chief graphic designer and web mistress for Studio Foglio and Airship Entertainment. You can read Girl Genius comics online at www.girlgenius.net. Other projects include joint work on Whatâs New with Phil and Dixie, a long running comic presenting an irreverent take on gaming culture, as well as the science fiction noir strip Buck Godot â Zap Gun for Hire.
1. Is there a character being depicted in this picture?
Kaja Foglio: If you mean, âare we dressed as characters,â then no. We are basically dressed in our outfits. Just the clothes we wear when we go out. And I will admit, I toss on more Steampunk-style accessories when I go to a convention versus going to the grocery store.
Kaja: <laughs> Phil just has to wear a waistcoat and a pocket watch to make people say, âOh I love your costume!â Itâs kind of embarrassing at times.
Phil: All I say at this point is, âthank you!â
Kaja: But people in the regular world, they see something that isnât a t-shirt and⌠Well, itâs hard for them. Locally, we have an anti-pajamaification league. âDonât go out in your pajamas! Dress up like a person!â they say. Now, they mean a happy, fun adult! Not a boring adult who hates their life. Big difference.
That said, have you ever created any RPG characters within the Steampunk genre?
Kaja: Oh, of course! Long, long ago in the early days of Girl Genius, when GURPS IOU came out in 1995, one of our friends ran a campaign for it. We actually made Agatha and Krosp just to get a little more into our charactersâ heads. You know, for the fun of it. We ran that around for a while, and yes, that was fun! I donât think the characters have changed that much since then, actually! <laughs> Krosp (a talking cat) would refuse to go into a room because it was dangerous, saying that only an idiot would walk into a darkened room. And so I would pick him up and throw him in. From a gaming perspective, that worked really well! Weâd find out what was in the room. Because it would try to eat him. You know, I think that was the last time we were actually able to play an old-school role-playing game. Because then we had children, you know. So then we got busy. Ah! There was a Paranoia game one of our friends ran!
Phil: Mostly, when weâre at conventions, if we do anything, we kind of adopt the persona of âThe Professors Foglio,â who are people narratingâŚ
Kaja: Are you adopting a persona when you do that? I hadnât noticed! I thought you were just being you!
Kaja: Yeah, I donât know. Iâm really bad at the fakey stuff. Even when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons, all of my characters were basically aspects of me. I was never the sort to pretend to be someone else. When Iâm on stage talking to people, I get a LITTLE more âin-character.â More so if Iâve had a couple of drinks⌠<hushed voice> Um, no, I donât do that before I go on stage. That would be bad. Iâd fall asleep on the lector!
Now, we do the emceeing for the San Diego Comic Con. Theyâre the best audience ever! You get out in front of them, and they give you enough energy to feel like youâve already had two drinks!
2. What are your short term and long term goals with Steampunk in general and Girl Genius specifically?
Kaja: I would like for more people who love Steampunk to know that Girl Genius exists! Itâs a really fun genre because a lot of people are coming to it from a lot of different places! Some are coming to it because of the literature. Some are coming because theyâre fans of the music⌠And what Iâve discovered going to a lot of Steampunk conventions is that there are many people whoâve never heard of it! Now, thatâs good, because it means there are a lot of people I can introduce to the comic!
Phil: Steampunk is very much a more relaxed version of science fiction, I think. For a long time, science fiction has been rarified, as actual science is starting to step in and rule on whatâs really plausible. Weâre looking at how itâs impossible to have a colony on Mars, to travel faster-than-light, or find dinosaurs or any of the other dreams we use to have as kids that we âknewâ were going to happen! Steampunk looks at these inconveniences and says, âI choose to believe!â
Kaja: âWhat are these tiresome facts with which you present me? I do not see them! My goggles block them!â
Phil: Exactly! There used to be an old classification called âscience-fantasyâ that almost no one knew what to do with, except Jack Vance. I think Steampunk has adopted that particular literary ethos, while marketing itself with a brand-new label. At this point, people are discovering they really like it! Itâs something they wanted, even if they didnât know it at the time!
Kaja: Plus, these clothes look good on everybody! Old, young, thin, fat⌠You can dress up and look fabulous!
Phil: Yes, there is that!
Kaja: I kind of like that people are rediscovering the joy of dressing up, in ways that look good and are comfortable, rather than just prescribed ways that might make them very uncomfortable.
Speaking of which⌠Do you have a favorite choice when it comes to costuming or clothes or outfits?
Phil: Well, Steampunk is all about layersâŚ
Kaja: Not always, but it can be!
Phil: I think thatâs why a lot of the genre is set in London. That city is more conducive to cold, wet, miserable conditions that might require layers!
Kaja: Weâre from Seattle, so when we talk about cold, wet and miserable, we know of which we speak! But having done this a lot and having worn many different outfits, Iâm very fond of throwing on a foofy skirt and shoes I like⌠and I have a couple of these brown t-shirts with a mechanical skull and crossbones that I picked up at a convention. Theyâre so comfortable that kind of just throw that on and some Steam-bling and think, âwell, Iâm not as fancy and dressed up as some of the other people here, but I can at least run my booth!â
Phil: As Kaja said, thereâs assorted levels of Steampunk. Thereâs the gentleman adventurer, all the way down to the everyday mechanic.
Kaja: For ladies we would say, âYou can dress like the queen, or the empress⌠or you can dress like Kaylee in the engine room on Firefly!â <laughs> âWhat? Iâm covered in grime. Because Iâve been working!â
Phil: Both of those are Steampunk, and both of those suit totally different situations and characters.
Kaja: And when youâre dressed like the Queen of the Universe, itâs really annoying to run the convention table. But the thing that always kills me is when people talk about what âis and isnât Steampunkâ (which I take as an excuse to run away and find a cup of tea) and I always laugh at them. Theyâll say, âIs this outfit really Steampunk? Itâs just sort of pseudo-Victorian.â
âWell, Iâm sorry,â I reply, âbut the time machine I came in is parked outside.â The idea that you must have dials or a bit of brass glued to you in order to be Steampunk is hysterically funny. I think people get far too worked up about it because people like talking about and classifying things.
3. Have you had an extensive background in theatrical arts or performance? If so â What were your favorite experiences? If not, what inspired you to start/get involved?
Phil: Letâs see â Kajaâs done Shakespeare; you did Kate in the Taming of the Shrew!
Kaja: I did indeed! I got to scream and thrash around a lot. Iâm really good at that. Running and screaming is the essence of comedy!
Phil: We both did dance demonstrations for the SCA.
Kaja: Well, we were part of a group that did that. We actually had a pair of instructors who were just fantastic! They made it so much fun. And thatâs a lot of my background really. I did a bunch of stuff in school and amateur groups.
Phil: I did fifteen years of improvisational comedy off and on, so that was my big thing. And we both enjoy getting up in front of an audience.
Kaja: Oh wait, we do radio plays!
Phil: Oh, of course! Girl Genius radio plays!
Kaja: We do! We have a series of very silly, non-canonical radio plays that we do at conventions, pretty much whenever anyone asks us to! And so, a lot of times, even if weâre at a convention far away, we grab a lot of audience members and have them read cold off of a script. We have a LOT of fun with it!
Can I ask as a follow up, what inspired each of you to get involved in the theatrical arts? Phil, your improvâŚ
Phil: Letâs see⌠The first group I was with was actually Mobius Theatre, which was a Spanish group. We all saw Star Wars back in â77, and we felt like doing a parody of it. We had two performances of that at various conventions. And people loved it so much; we said, âMan, we ainât giving this up!â
Kaja: So you guys kept doing improv comedy â Did you mention that it was called Stage Wars and that is was nominated for a Hugo award for best theatrical production?
Phil: It wasnât! This was probably the last year before Best Dramatic Presentation was one of those bastard stepchild categories. We figured out later that if everyone who had been in the production had nominated it, we would haveâ
Kaja: Oh, it was The Capture that was nominated! Robert Asprin and Phil did a slideshow. Robert wrote it, Phil drew the pictures and it was a sort of live-performance, radio-style slideshow about a cruise that get captured by aliens in the Bermuda Triangle. And the cruise ship is filled with science-fiction fans. This causes a lot of trouble for the aliens, and THAT was what was nominated for the Hugo. Iâm getting a lot of my family stories wrong here⌠Now for me, doing theatre was just something I fell into when I was in high school. When I was in junior high, I was in a group that did hand-drawn puppetry. My churchâs youth group shuffled me into that, as I was one of those children who in turn shuffled around nervously looking at others and keeping my nose in a book. I had some severe social issues. So somebody thought, âyou know, maybe this would help.â And it did help an awful lot! From there I was just more and more exposed to the kind of people who do theatrical things and performance work. I was in drama in high school and went on to do some in college⌠But yeah, the kind of people I hung around with and the kind of people I knew were always involved in some kind of performance and getting out there, showing people what you can do. I just really enjoyed it! I have terrible social issues talking to people at parties and conventions, and Iâm getting over that. But when I look out over that big audience, Iâm fine! I love it! I guess I just always need a big audience, and then I can hide in my hotel room! ⌠It doesnât work like that, does it? Ah wellâŚ
On that note: have either of you ever LARPed? And feel free to say no if thatâs the case.
Phil: Iâm trying to remember⌠so I guess âno.â
Kaja: I have! I remember long, long ago â in the BEFORE time â when I was in high school or college, I canât remember which. I was taken to a local group, the Fantasy Alternative, which I have no idea if itâs still around or not. It
was the first time Iâd ever heard of LARPing and it was really fun. These guys had their own characters they were playing, things they were doing⌠They would take flowers all nicely wrapped up in a paper towel, and those were magic missiles! You had to be very careful with your âspell components,â or they would go off early. And you always knew when they hit! But that was a long, long time ago, and that was pretty much my experience with it. I certainly know a lot of people who were active in the Camarilla back in the day, for World of Darkness.
Phil: I donât even know if theyâre still around!
Kaja: Oh, theyâre out there. Thereâs a bunch of them.
You were both members of the SCA. While that might not qualify as LARPing, would you say it sits on a similar shelf?
Kaja: I think it does. But in a much more freeform way. You donât have rules for confrontation. Now I havenât played in the SCA in a REALLY long time, but I loved it. The problem I had was that once I discovered hotel rooms that did NOT have puddles in them, I was in heaven! âOh, I can go to a convention and sleep in a bed and not in a puddle in the mountains!â Iâm lazy. We actually met through the girl who sold me comics when I was in high school. When I was in college she was still a friend of mine and she said âPhil Foglioâs living in town, and you should meet him!â So we all went out to dinner, and thatâs how I met Phil. Later when we were friends, we went out to the SCA dance practices as well as and at the University of Washington every week to help. Later when my boyfriend and I broke up, Phil asked how he was doing. I told him we were breaking up and he said âOh really? Well isnât that interesting?â And thatâs kind of how it happened! But we were introduced in proper Victorian fashion by a mutual friend and everything! So guys, itâs easy if you use the right tone of voice!
Phil: Thatâs my theatrical trainingâŚ
Kaja: Well yeah, to tie it back into the main point.
Phil: Well, thatâs the thing with relationships. If you can fake sincerity, youâve got it made!
4. Outside of Girl Genius, which is nothing if not Steampunk, can you tell us about your other projects? Do they relate to the genre?
Kaja: Well, all we do is Girl Genius. These days.
Phil: Pretty much, yeah. Before Girl Genius, I was pretty much associated with science fiction and gaming. Kaja was mostly known for gaming, as her first big thing was Magic: the Gathering.
Kaja: Oh, my first big break was art for Magic: The Gathering cards! I had done a couple of fan things before that. So Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire is definitely hard science fiction. Larry Niven says so! So you know itâs true! And the MythAdventures are very much fantasy parody, and Whatâs New With Phil & Dixie â which ran in Dragon, then the Duelist, then back in Dragon â thatâs gaming humor. The Steampunk aspect came about because Phil would doodle stuff like that. And heâs got doodles from the 70s, like airships and Victorian cats. I said we ought to do something with them, and Phil said there wasnât a place for that. So I said we should make one!
5. Does Girl Genius operate within the tropes of Steampunk or defy and expand upon the definition?
Phil: Well, trying to define Steampunk⌠Weâve never actually called it SteampunkâŚ
Kaja: Itâs Gaslight fantasy! Like Jules Verne! And then we donât get yelled at for doing it wrong. Itâs terrific!
Phil: Yes. It seems everyone is trying to fit the genre within this gritty, London-shaped box.
Kaja: And the box seems to have gotten so much smaller over the years! When people first started throwing the word around, it seemed to have so much more potential. Now if a magazine runs an article on Steampunk, you have a good idea of what the illustrations are going to look like. And while I do like that, I also like to see it branch out.
There was a beautiful series of paintings making the rounds â still out there⌠Thereâs a lovely, non-Western Imperial Court, with lovely Chinese automatons⌠Wow, it was pretty stuff. His name is James Ng. He labels them things like âChinese Steampunk,â and theyâre just astonishing. Theyâre as Steampunk as you can possibly get. I was at a convention where I met him years ago, and we had a very good time afterwards sitting around and chatting. Heâs very nice, and heâs so good at what he does!
At Salt City Steamfest, weâre looking to expand the definition to more Anachronism in general, as seen in Doctor Who and other Steampunk-adjacent franchises.
Kaja: Right! Doctor Who had a real Steamy look for the last couple of seasons, didnât it? <laughs>
6. What do you love most about the Cosplay and convention scene?
Kaja: My favorite conventions are for Steampunk and anime. I love Steampunk because itâs so beautiful, I love the outfits and devices people build. And anime cons, everyoneâs just so full of energy and itâs a wild and bouncy time. I love manga and I love anime, so Iâm happy there. Steampunk conventions have such excellent manners and such an age range.
Phil: The nice thing about the Steampunk conventions, which makes them different from all the others, is that itâs a lot more participatory. Anime can tie it, but you have all these people saying, âLook at this thing I did!â I mean thatâs very, very interactive and reminiscent of LARP! But with Steampunk, people make their costumes and want to tell you about their character! Theyâre very much involved! They enjoy talking with people about their thing and finding out where they might fit in any particular world. Itâs not like other conventions where you head straight for the dealerâs room or possibly take in a panel, or every so often find yourself talking to someone. Whereas at Steampunk and Anime conventions, youâve got more of an interactive community.
Kaja: Which sucks for people like us. I mean, if we go to a convention we want to be paid attention to, because âhey, weâre authors!â You say that at a Steampunk convention and youâre told, âHey, Iâm an author too.â Suddenly youâre a much smaller fish⌠but the pondâs still cool.
I think in Steampunk especially, thereâs a lot of fancy fish in that pond. And theyâre often fancy, unique fish. You have musicians, writers, painters, jewelers⌠all these different things coming together.
Thatâs certainly true for other conventions. But I think because Steampunk is so relatively new, youâre getting a lot of enthusiasm from people who are making other kinds of fandom inspired work for some time now. People are coming to Steampunk from somewhere else, and seeing what amazing twists they can make on what they already do.
Phil: If people have been doing something for ten or fifteen years, they get good at it. But letâs be honest: If you stay in one particular fandom, everyone in that fandom has mostly seen everything that youâve done. If you go into a different genre with this new group of people, your old party trick becomes fresh and new again!
Kaja: Which is absolutely terrifying! What if they donât like it?
Phil: But itâs a new group of people brought together by a love of something different. A lot of people are finding that things they used to do and show their friends in their old science fiction fandom are new to people in Steampunk. Any artist fears getting into a rut, and Steampunk, as a new genre, gives people a chance to experiment and do something different. I really donât know anyone who would suffer by doing something new.
7. Where do you see the Conventions, Cosplay and Clockwork themes headed in the future? If you had to make a prediction, what would it be?
Phil: Well, I donât think that big Steampunk has really hit the mainstream yet. So I think thereâs a lot of room for the genre to grow. There are a lot more people out there to tell about it.
Kaja: More people are going to discover Steampunk and think, âthis is fun!â I think it is bound to stay part of the convention scene. I think at some point a lot of the artists and costumers who are having a fun time with it right now
might find themselves doing something else later. Because who wants to do one thing all their lives? But I donât think that would mean theyâd stop liking it or start to hate it. One of the reasons people like it so much is that things from our childhood had aspects of this. Movies or books from our childhood embody something of it.
I actually associate Disneyland with Steampunk because with the right eye open, youâre going to see clockwork and music boxes everywhere! And theyâve been doing that for a long time. I donât think itâll stop being popular once it goes mainstream. People will keep finding new things to do with it, like they do with superhero comics and the like.
8. Could you talk to us about the joys and trials of starting your own studio?
Kaja: When did we start our studio?
Kaja: No, thatâs when I bought a business license.
Phil: Thatâs how it starts! Kaja actually started Studio Foglio as a way for her to market her Magic: the Gathering prints. So that was making enough money that the accountants insisted that everything be done professionally. We eventually said, âWhy are we letting somebody else publish the comics?â We already had an established business that was able to do it.
Kaja: Phil, youâve been doing professional artwork since you were in college, havenât you?
Phil: Yes, thatâs true. Iâve pretty much always worked with what you would call independent comics. I was with Paleo Press, worked with Dave Ketter. And after a while I said, âif Iâm going to work with someone it might as well be my wife.â Work with me, WORK WITH ME!
Kaja: Poor Phil, Iâm just always around, giving him a hard time. He canât get away from work. Well, thereâs always the bar. So Iâm looking at my bookshelf at all the Steampunk books. Thereâve been a lot of books coming out recently on how to make Steampunk jewelry, cocktails and such⌠Iâve been trying to amass a small collection of them! Itâs so interesting to see the things that are coming out. Hereâs a Steampunk Apothecary!
To follow up on that: Could you expand upon juggling your business mentality versus working in the arts, and balancing those two?
Kaja: Weâre completely soulless.
Phil: You have to compartmentalize it. Itâs pretty much a truism that there are a lot of people who try to convince artists to divorce themselves from commerce. Those people are trying to hire us for a little as possible.
Kaja: Now, we walk a line. There are things we could have done with Girl Genius to make it more marketable to certain demographics. We didnât, and thatâs because weâre making it for ourselves and having a good time with it. Itâs so hard to remember to change your work to suit someone else. I got this from James Ernest at Cheapass Games â who got it from someone else â that you should make what you want, first. Then there will be other people who want that. Itâs a very good way to do creative work. Trying hard to make something that someone else wants ⌠<sigh> thatâs no way to live.
Phil: And then youâre always trying to play âcatch upâ!
Kaja: Yeah! And this is why I donât read the comments on our page anymore⌠Because you know I cannot please the people going âYou know, you should do it this way and you should do it that way, and how dare you make it LIKE THIS!â My response is <dramatic gasp> âIâll just make it this way! There! It is DONE. Do you like the thing? Great! If you do not like the thing, thereâs another thing right over there!â
The lovely thing about the web is that it allows you to put what youâve made out there and say âHey, hereâs what I made! Does anyone like it?â The people who like it will find you, and the people who donât like it will either go read something else or hang around telling you why you should have been doing it differently.
Phil: Once you decide that this is a business, and this is what you want to do, so you donât have to yâknow, be a barista or something.
Kaja: Some people really like being baristas. But I would be TERRIBLE at it, so yes ⌠âThis is what I made, you will DRINK it! Or notâŚâ
Phil: Yes, you have to treat what you do like a business. You have to respect yourself as a businessperson. People will always want to get free work from you. And as somebody famous once said, âFree work is a way to always guarantee you get free work.â
Kaja: Free work gets you more free work. Now, we do that sometimes.
Phil: We do stuff for conventions, you know for the promotional aspect since weâre guests.
Kaja: Ah, but James does pay us for that. We just finished a set of card game illustrations for James Ernest of Cheapass Games for his Pairs decks. That was fun. It was a Kickstarter. He was involved with Patrick Rothfuss, who wrote âIn the Name of the Wind.â They did a couple of decks with has scenes from Patrickâs world. Theyâve done a deck for our world, one Dork Tower deck for John Kovalic (with a bunch of cute Câthulhu monsters called âShallow Onesâ)
Phil: Our colorist, Cheyenne Wright did one around Professor Elemental, the chap-hop artist. If youâre not familiar with Professor Elemental, heâs a delight.
Kaja: Heâs brilliant! If you havenât seen the âCup of Brown Joyâ music video, about how wonderful tea is, you need to! Oh, if we could have it intraveinouslyâŚ
Phil: His deck looks great!
Kaja: Almost better than ours! His is the one I chose in the Kickstarter. Sorry Phil!
Kaja: You knew I was treacherous when you married me!
Phil: That was one ofyour selling point.
9. So what makes Girl Genius tick? Pun notwithstanding. How much of your own personalities have you invested into the characters and storyline?
<They both laugh evilly in turn>
Kaja: Let me just say that if we didnât have to do our own laundry, weâd never get any writing done. Before we had children, we used to take these long walks at 2am, around our neighborhood in North Seattle. Weâd talk about the story â and a scientific study came out recently saying that you have better ideas when walking. Thatâs how you know itâs good! Science says so! Since we have kids now, who canât join us at 2 am, we throw lines back and forth at each other while doing laundry. âWouldnât it be funny if they said or did this?â And that where a lot of the detail and the color comes in. Phil, please add something to that, please? Otherwise itâll just be me talking to myself!
Phil: I donât really have anything to add. Itâs one of those things where, you know; make stuff that you want to see. Well, what do we want to see? We wanted Storylines about mad science, with intelligent women in the lead. Itâs pretty mucht the distillation of everything we enjoy!
Kaja: How much of us is in there? Pretty much all of us. We have Cheyenne doing digital painting, but he loves this too. Itâs all the things we love, that make us laugh. <sigh> All the dumb jokes we throw around.
10. What do you think has the most mainstream appeal in these genres we work within?
Phil: ⌠Everybody likes airships!
Kaja: Mainstream appeal⌠Possibly that Phil can wear his lovely waistcoats anywhere and pretty much everyone can appreciate them. People can always appreciate pretty gadgets, especially when you can see how they work. I remember long ago one of our employees and I went down to Gamma in Las Vegas, and somebody asked her if she was a swimmer. They were welding goggles! <laughs>
11. Have you ever found an experience unnerving, off-putting or sublimely rewarding within the realms of role-play and performance? Describe it, if you would.
Phil: Not really. Everyone is actually pretty cool. Things have changed a bit. When we first started putting out âGirl Genius,â no one had ever used that phrase before.
Kaja: Not true. Iâd found it here and there. Sometimes itâd refer to Sailor Mercury. Well, Iâm not certain. I donât watch Sailor Moon⌠Not certain if sheâd been called that in the story or if the fans called her that later on, while we worked on GURPS IOU, one of the characters was described as a âgirl genius.â And I went âAhhhh! But thatâs the thing weâre working on!â Steve Jackson laughed at us for being idiots. Which we are, frequently. Weâve heard âboy geniusâ around forever, for nearly one hundred years. But âgirl geniusâ just wasnât used very much. Now, rewarding experiences⌠too many leap to mind to pick. I love seeing what others are working on, and hearing people come up and tell us that what we do makes them happy! What makes me happy? After years of being made fun of for liking what I liked, I found this giant amount of similar material that has a large fan-base, and that tells me Iâm not a freak! The Internet and conventions taught me that itâs totally mainstream to like this stuff! Yes, I have a bitter place in my heart for someone who just discovered Lord of the Rings? Why did I have to suffer so much in third grade when it comes in a happy meal now? <laughs> But yes, itâs been amazing!
Phil: I discovered conventions years ago. I remember walking into the first one and thinking, âWow, Iâm going to die here.â
Kaja: See, I thought, âIâm going to be here for the rest of my life!â Not that I was going to die there!
Phil: Oh I thought that too. Didnât say it was going to be that convention specifically.
Kaja: Remember the time we went to the biker convention on accident? Was it WorldCon?
Phil: My first one was in 1973.
Kaja: Sorry I couldnât go with you!
12. Please describe your sources of inspiration, beyond academic influences, besides your usual witty banter.
Phil: A lot of sci-fi and pulp. Particularly, H. Rider Haggard.
Kaja: When he wasnât being dreadful. Ok, he was a product of his time
Phil: We both love a lot of anime and manga. And we love how they can get away with nearly anything!
Kaja: Itâs terrific! I read all this cheesy shoujou manga and marvel that the editors didnât stop the writer! Now, Iâm really fond of the history of science. I love reading about early natural history, discovering the scientific method. Itâs wonderful watching it move from alchemical tinkering to the kind of stuff from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and as it progresses all the way through. The Enlightenment is so fascinating, what people throw things together, and trying to figure it out. I love Automata for the same reason because it gets subjective about what life is, especially if we create it. And the histories give me ideas for referential jokes we can use later. Thereâs an old gasworks near us where Steampunks go to take photos. Reading history, especially specific histories are very inspiring. Such as Gasworks Park in Seattle, with its inspiring machinery there. Alot of beauty that can be found in rotting old mechanical things. When youâre thinking about something alot, then you see it alot too. Trotting the world makes you remember things that you come back to later to find out how it was made.
13. What is your creative process for the comic?
Phil: We both pretty much sit around and figure out what the next part of the story is.
Kaja: All that walking in the 90âs got us talking. We have a general framework for the story, but itâs very much a sketch. Thereâs all the filling in of scenes, what exactly they say and do. Thereâs do many directions we can go trying to figure out how the scene will play out. Phil illustrates things with⌠what do you call them?
Kaja: Yeah, kind of a storyboard. Iâll say, âNo I hate this, do it again!â Or âitâs perfect!â I keep track of facial expressions and the like, reminding Phil that maybe someone should look confused.
Phil: Then Iâll draw it out on actual paper. We try to do it on, wellâŚ
Kaja: Phil uses a Bristol board and paper, with a hard no.2 pencil. He draws it all out. We often have to check and make sure we gave Agatha her glasses.
Phil: A lot of artists these days draw on the computer. Thatâs very interesting, but we like having the originals.
Kaja: We like having stacks of paper around our house!
Phil: Weâre also not one solar flare away from being forgotten. Once itâs finished, we clean up, scan it into the computer, then Kaja generates two copies. One for our colorist, one for Kaja to do lettering.
Kaja: Once I scan it, I run some levels on it to make whites brighter and pencil lines more bold. I send a copy back to Phil to touch up. Once Cheyenne sends me a digitally colored page, Iâll add sound effects (which I hate). Iâll export that afterwards. One for the book, and one for the website. We post at Girlgeniusonline.com, DeviantArt (because why not?), and LiveJournal, since our old servers used to break a lot. A lot of our readers know they can catch it on LJ if the server crashes. Not that that happens anymore since we ponied up for more servers. Once a year, we have a book (13 right now!). Kickstarter has been wonderful for showing us how many we should print, as well as funding the whole endeavor.
14. Do you have a Final Word for our readers and attendees?
Kaja: Play nice! Have fun! Make sure to have a good time!
Phil: Regarding Conventions â The first time you go, nobody knows you! Nobody has any expectations! You can be the person you want to be, as no one as preconceptions of you! No one knows you, so everyone has to accept you as who you say you are! So, yâknow, make sure youâre someone they want to talk to!
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