TMC Interviews… Megan Rose Gedris on freelance drawing, naughty comics and Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space

by Devil’s Food Cake

If you read webcomics, and know anything about them, you’ve likely come across Megan Gedris before. The 23 year-old artist and writer of such gems as Yu+Me Dream and …Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space is kind of a tour de force in online artistic storytelling – and if you’re a gay lady, you’re likely to love her stuff even more. Now that her seminal project, the aforementioned Yu+Me Dream, has been completed, we talk to her about where she came from, where she is and where she’s going.

So how did you start out your comic-drawing career? And are you now a Full-Time Artist? Where are you based now?

I’ve been drawing comics since I was 10, but I’d say my career really started when I first put some on the web, when I was around 15 or 16. They weren’t very good, because I was a nerdy high schooler with very little life experience. But it was exhilarating to finally have an audience who wasn’t made entirely of people who knew me. I’m not a full time artist. Well, not a full time comic artist. I work 20 hours a week for a television station, because I like having a bit of stability in my life. Freelancing becomes even more stressful when it’s all you have. I don’t want my comics to become a chore. I like the setup I have now. I’m based in West Michigan. I want to be based in East Michigan.

What were your favourite cartoons growing up? Do you find yourself inspired by stuff you read when you were younger?

When I was younger, I had newspaper comics (which were better when I was a kid; Calvin and Hobbes alone were better than all the current comics combined) and I had Marvel comics that I stole from my younger brother because it was inappropriate to give comics to a 10 year old girl but okay to give them to a 5 year old boy. When I got into middle school, Tokyopop started translating manga, and I ate it up. It changed how I did comics a lot. I was very heavily manga-influenced for years, even into the first year or so of YU+ME. Now my influences are more diverse, and include a lot of books and fine art as well.

What was it like saying goodbye to Yu+Me Dream? Will we see those characters pop up anywhere else/in anything else?

It was really sad, like sending my kids off to college, only they won’t even come back for spring break with a giant bag of laundry asking for money. They’re all just gone. I suppose I see them a little bit, what with putting the last few books together, but essentially it’s all gone. They won’t show up anywhere else. I had a wrap party when I drew the last page of the main story. Mostly I try not to think about it too much or I get a bit teary.

Your artwork is all very intricate, and I can’t help but notice that you use a real range of style in the different comics you’ve drawn. Did you study somewhere/are you self-taught? Is there a particular style with which you’re most comfortable/which you like best?

I went to community college, which isn’t really the same as going to school for art, especially because 80% of the things they taught in class I had already learned in 10th grade. I just wanted some kind of degree so I could have a better shot at getting “real” jobs if the comics didn’t work out. There was one really spectacular class there, though, taught by a woman who was way overqualified for the school, and that class was art history. From cave paintings all the way through post-modernism, it really solidified my love of every art form. And then after that class, I had a mixed media class, so the two of those combined made it hard NOT to switch styles and mediums all the time. It’s like speaking several dozen languages. Some I’m more fluent in than others. If I had a “native” art style, I’d say it’s black and white ink drawings of girls with awkward limbs.

I noticed a guest strip you drew for Red String – I thought it was hilarious and so bang-on. What do you think of lesbian representation in web-comics at the moment? How has it progressed since you started? And what are some of your favourite lesbian web-comic characters (besides your own)?

Lesbian representation in webcomics is, from what I’ve seen, the best representation out of all media that has ever tried. So many webcomics have lesbian characters, and they aren’t in the background, and they have stories that don’t revolve around their gayness. It’s wonderful. It’s definitely a lot better than when I started out, and there were very few lesbians, and a lot of them were bad depictions, or just plain bad comics. I had been doing gay boy comics for a few years, and finally I decided I had to switch to lesbians because I wasn’t finding any webcomics about lesbians that I liked. That has since changed to the point where all the comics I read have lesbians, and this wasn’t something I did on purpose. Lesbians just happen. There are still representations that are better than others, but compared to television and movies and books, I will take those any day. Some of my favorites are Tai from Questionable Content, Thea from Girls With Slingshots (and bisexual/boobs-only-lesbian Jamie), Leslie Bean from Shortpacked (and bisexual Robin), Otra and Winter from Girly. The list could really go on for a long time. And what’s interesting is most of those characters come from straight artists.

Your new comic, Meaty Yogurt, is a real departure from the stuff of yours that I’ve read before. Where did the idea for that come from?

I wrote a short story for an anthology about the day I realized I was never going to become a rock star. I always dreamed of it, but I realized that if I tried to do comics and music, I’d spread myself too thin and only be mediocre at 2 things, rather than really good at 1 thing. And I found myself thinking up a character who was spreading herself over not just 2 things, but dozens and dozens of things, someone who DOESN’T have that realization that doing so many things will result in mediocrity. And I was thinking about why it would be so important to someone to be so desperate to be really good at something, and in high school near graduation time there was a rumor that our town was cursed so that none of us would ever leave, which is incredibly scary when you’re graduating and want to leave town. (Which incidentally, I still never have done. Hm.) I did about a dozen pages a few years ago, but they were a bit too Mary-Sueish, so I let it sit for a few years, and I developed all the characters into more well-rounded people, with personalities a lot different than my own.

I know that you’re still updating …Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space, and I really loved the Sandy Starr story – do you plan to expand on the Sandy storyline?

I had originally planned for Sandy to end up in the main story of LPFOS. I kept offering choices that would lead her to the Pirates, but it being a choose-your-own-adventure story, I was at the mercy of the readers, who always picked the other choice. So her story occurs in the same universe, but it doesn’t intersect.

I also read that LPFOS is a finite series, and would likely end within a few months of Yu+Me – is that still the plan?

I don’t remember saying that, but I don’t remember a lot of things. If I manage to keep up with twice a week updates, the series will be over in a bit over a year. I’ve decided the third arc is the last one I want to do.

This might be a cliché – but which of your characters do you see most of yourself in? Do you see people from your own life reflected in any of the people you’ve drawn?

All of the characters have pieces of me in them, and pieces of people I know. Both they and I change so much all the time that it’s really hard to pinpoint any of them and say that’s me. Fiona is a lot like what I was in early college, Jackie is a lot like who I might have become, Don is who I wanted to be like. But the person I am now is not enough like any of my characters to say they are a reflection.

I’ve heard you called the “Doogie Howser” of comics – so what’s next for Megan Gedris?

Doogie Howser? Ha ha ha! Because I’m so young? I’m not so young anymore, compared to the whippersnappers making comics today. Mostly I’m concentrating on wrapping up LPFOS, getting Meaty Yogurt going, and hopefully I’ll be able to do more of the naughty comics, Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta. That last one is incredibly fun, and I want to do more than every other month for updates.

And finally – what’s your favourite cake?

Cheesecake. Creme brulee cheesecake with raspberries. And whipped cream. Oh god.

For more of Megan Gedris’ work, check out her NSFW comic Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta [NSFW]