#extra cereal

[ayc-comic]

Behind the Scenes #3: Sketchy Characters - Designing Our Cast

How do you come up with fleshed out, expressive kids that you won’t tire of drawing and can carry out your wacky plans for you? You sketch. Then you eat those sketches. Then you resketch. Then you squint a little and shrug and mutter, “noodlier arms” and “shiftier eyes.” Then you’ve got your cast.

We knew we wanted a bossy tomboy (*cough based on fetus Abhi cough*) and her weirdo best friend, a book nerd, a cool girl who maybe is not that cool but is just a grade level ahead, and a token boy who happens to also be an annoying little brother. The characters were, in fact, called by these traits at first: Bossy, Best Friend, Cool Girl, Bookworm, and Brother. 

From there, Abhi and I essentially faced separate walls like we were taking a test and drew some concepts for how we each imagined the characters. Surprisingly, we had quite a bit of overlap (see the images at the top; Abhi’s sketches are shown first and mine are the latter.)

Above: Abhi’s concept sketches

Below: Julie’s concept sketches

I merged the designs together, Abhi gave them a few more tweaks, and now they’re the upstanding dorks you see today in full ink and color. 

Cheerio!

Julie

P.S. We gave them cereal nicknames after coming up with the name of the comic! Mostly because we didn’t want to struggle over giving them real actual human names.

[ayc-comic]

Behind the Scenes #1: What Were We Thinking?!

Hello! Greetings! Ahoy!

It is us! The evil geniuses who decided to put a bunch of kids in a parking lot all summer (AKA the comic artists behind Are You Cereal?!). We’re taking a little break for a few weeks. Not because we ran out of ideas, but because it actually is pretty time consuming to churn these panels out each week. We thought it might be fun to show you how we brainstorm, collaborate, and how we came up with this comic in the first place.

Above: Abhi & her cereal

Below: Julie & her assortment of oats

The snack version: Two goofball illustrators living in different states reminisced about their endless childhood shenanigans and thought it would be a good idea to draw about it in fictionalized comic form.

The full course cereal-for-dinner version: Our friend Kandace—hilarious writer, caring editor, and full-time superhero—introduced us after noticing our similarities (we are both glassing-wearing professional book nerds originally from Illinois who have been known to pluck a ukulele once in a while and doodle inside and outside of meetings). We’ve been friends ever since.

After attending a panel about collaboration at the NYC Feminist Zine Fest this past spring, we decided that we needed to work on a project together. To say we’re both poky workers is generous. Another thing we have in common is that we both need accountability systems and to have projects ripped out of our hands or nothing will ever get done or shared. Luckily, the prospect of working on a summer comic together instantly filled our heads with endless possibilities and excitement. We talked on the train on the way home from the zine fest about being bossy big sisters, being surrounded by our cultural communities growing up, and having overactive imaginations. 

We each wrote up lists that highlighted our tween experiences and smashed them together until we came up with the premise (ex. Julie’s summers hanging out with friends in a damp camper in her driveway; Abhi supposedly being the annoying ringleader of her group and forcing her friends to participate in her elaborate and lofty schemes). We wanted to keep it slice-of-life to make sure that we could keep it going and dip in and out of adventures, much like how we invented games and scenarios and then quickly ditched our convoluted ploys when we were 11 and they went horribly wrong...nothing at all like how we live our lives now. 

Though at times, Abhi has described the experience of working on this comic as this gif, 

Julie is frequently cracking up in public whenever she works on it and rereads the gags. Working together is a (berry) blast (heh, fictional cereal names), and we’ll be back with more soon!

-Julie & Abhi