CREATOR SPOTLIGHT vol.4 | MAMA LIPS Welcome back to another creator spotlight! This week I’ve been chatting to Mama Lips, a multi-disciplinary artist, maker and musician who is also part of the Travelling Man family, running the small press section of our Newcastle store. Regularly releasing work through Black Lodge Press and elsewhere, Mama has been a powerhouse of small press publishing for most of the last decade, releasing more comics, zines and music than one person should be capable of creating. This prolific output has covered all kinds of topics from relationships to gender identity, parenting, teen angst and fetishes. Often hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure and nothing short of painfully honest, even when completely fictitious, I cannot recommend immersing yourself in their work highly enough. Check out your local store’s small press section and see what you can snaffle up! Hey Mama, can you introduce yourself and your work for us? Hey, I'm Mama Lips. I mostly make auto biographical comics but i'm trying to try some new things too. I’m sure you have multiple projects on the go as usual but can you tell us about something you’re working on at the moment? I'm working on a 24 page fable called The Golden Apple Tree. It's fun to try something totally different. I'm excited to see how to comes out. You’ve created such a massive back catalogue of wildly different work but are there any main aims and themes that tie everything together? I try to make things with a really honest feel to them. I try to make them feel very personal and real. A lot of it is about my experiences in my day to day life, but sometimes childhood stories too. Who or what are some of your influences and why? I think sometimes it's just my friends, who make comics. Seeing their work just makes me want to keep on producing things and trying out new ideas. As someone with a lot of experience, do you have any advice for people starting out in comics, small press or DIY music? Just go for it, don't wait or feel scared, just do it and keep doing it. And finally, where can people see/buy your work outside of Travelling Man? I have a bandcamp store and you can also hear my music there www.mamalips.bandcamp.com Thanks for chatting, Mama! Keep your eyes peeled for The Golden Apple Tree, hitting the small press shelves as soon as we can get our mitts on it.
