Amber Love 18-APR-2012 On this episode of VODKA O’CLOCK, Amy Chu and Georgia Lee from Alpha Girl Comics talk with Amber about their experiences making comics.

Ep. 1206 – Subscribe on iTunes or Download here. Follow RSS feed.

This week listeners will get an inside perspective about making comics from women that have loved the medium and took the bold steps to start their own company. ALPHA GIRL COMICS is the publishing imprint they created. Don’t let the name fool you. These aren’t “girl comics” meaning they tackle a variety of genres and subject matter that appeal to teen+ readers of either gender. The founders said they merely wanted to make comics that were female-friendly not female exclusive. Their creative teams include male contributors that you may have heard of such as Chris Sotomayer, E.T. Dollman, and Silvio DB to name just a few. Cabral is a newcomer artist to the scene and his work in different Alpha Girl Comics will definitely leave an impression with you.

“There was an opportunity to create more content for a female audience and stuff we like to read so I think that was partially behind Alpha Girl but it’s certainly not meant to be limiting,” Georgia said.

“We’re definitely into promoting positive female role models in stories so I don’t think you’re going to find a story that’s going to just be guys hanging out… Ultimately we want a good strong protagonist that isn’t going to end up in a refrigerator,” said Amy.

GIRLS NIGHT OUT INTERIOR PAGE

Amy was fearless in her approach to her collection. “If it’s scary, there’s something wrong,” she said. GIRLS NIGHT OUT is a collection of short stories by all different artistic teams. The stories are autonomous and while not “mature” in content definitely include plot devices that require at least a teenage reading comprehension. Same can be said for Georgia’s MERIDIEN CITY series of a space detective in a world where the upper class dominates the only habitable living space on the planet.

MERIDIEN CITY is perfect for fans of pulp noir. The fact that it takes place on a distant planet isn’t nearly the factor that the politics and detective elements are. The artwork is heavily inked with hot yellows and oranges in the color palette to visualize the extreme thermo temperatures of Meridien. The events of Occupy Wall Street as well as the daily lives of New Yorkers that don’t live on the Upper West Side were a direct influence on Georgia to create Meridien City’s caste system.

MERIDIEN CITY INTERIOR PAGE

We also discussed how they approached writing panel descriptions for their artists. Both of them had different styles originally. Georgia’s film background had lead her to try and control every panel and she found her descriptions long. She and Sylvio DB, her artist on MERIDIEN CITY, have developed enough trust that she has greatly scaled back her descriptions.

Georgia is compelled to bring more strong female detectives to comics and television.  Keep your eyes out for more about those projects including supernatural detective stories.

Amy filled us in on one of her past projects for the Museum of Chinese in America where she convinced them to use a graphic format for their program.  Coming up, she has a steampunk western planned.

All three of us came to the world of making comics because of the Comics Experience workshops and classes. If you want to know more about that just send me an email at amberlovescomics at gmail dot com.

LINKS:

SAVE ABBY INTERIOR FROM GIRLS NIGHT OUT

* Alpha Girl Comics on Facebook

* Alpha Girl Comics blog

* Amy Chu

* Georgia S. Lee

* RED DOORS on Amazon

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