Steven Affleck
“How I lost my voice in pictures and how it took words to see again.”
Steven’s comic Late for work again... is about the internal journey they went on regaining their confidence to create by discovering poetry.
How did you start making comics?
I started making comics at university because animation was too hard. It's funny, I got into drawing because I loved reading comics but always felt I wasn't good enough to try making my own. It wasn't until my final year of university that whilst teaching myself hand-drawn animation, and failing, that I thought a comic would be easier. After that I dabbled and then decided to do my Master's in Comics to finally get rid of the imposter syndrome. It kinda worked haha!
You write about how poetry helped you to return to creativity, what was the spark for this?
The way I got into poetry was through journaling as part of the Artist's Way. I was really burnt out creatively and was willing to try anything to get making again. Doing the morning pages, I would just write rubbish, a stream of consciousness dump that kinda resembled poetry. I wasn't intending to write poems but eventually decided to try in earnest. It was fun to learn a new craft that I had no experience in, that I felt no pressure to do well at, but could still express myself.
You mention that this comic uses imagery from your own life, how did you balance reality and nonreality and how do you view the line in between?
I think I struggled fully embracing making something auto-bio. It felt too vulnerable but also too performative at the same time. That uncomfortability I think is the line between reality and non-reality in this comic. Trying to put in as much of myself as possible, using my actual commute to work as setting or being honest about being dissatisfied with my life, but then hiding at points behind poetic language or exaggerating visuals for dramatic effect. In the end, it felt really cathartic to make a version of myself that, while sad, had meaning.
How do you approach storytelling in comic form?
I don't really know how I approach storytelling in comic form, I think I make it up as I go. What I do notice in my work is trying to find a visual language or motif in the panel structure to explore in each comic. I usually begin intuitively then try to make rules or systems out of what comes out, find some sort of pattern in the chaos. Like in my submission to you, I first had fun with this sort of chaotic overlapping of panels on the first page, some bordered and some free floating, so I decided to use the same panel structure on the middle and last page.
Tell us a bit about your process (ideas, sketching, drafts, the medium, analogue/digital)
My process usually starts with some writing. I have a lot of google docs. Sometimes I will fully script out a comic, others it's more just a skeleton of what comes first. I then will thumbnail on my ipad in procreate and find reference photos. These steps kind of happen hand in hand as I will sketch a panel then find a reference photo that sort of matches to help polish it up later in the "pencils". (I say "pencils" cause I do work entirely digitally but I still use traditional terms for each step). The pencils are then done on procreate before moving to Clip Studio on my laptop. In Clip Studio I always panel and letter first, saves me having to draw stuff that will be covered up or make sure there is space for what is important. Once I am ready to "ink" I try not to use references anymore, unless I decide to fully change a panel, cause I feel my drawing can get a bit stiff working purely from photos.
What comic artists/illustrators are you inspired by?
Cartoonists that really inspire me, and have done for a long time, are Jeremy Sorese and Jillian Tamaki. Jeremy Sorese has a very beautiful style of cartooning, very shapely and flat but still organic. The way he explores queerness in his work is also very refreshing, there is a campness that feels joyful and unashamed, which I really connected to when I was younger. He mostly paints now but his graphic novel Curveball is a personal favourite. Jillian Tamaki I admire for her clarity in storytelling and sheer flexibility in style. Her collection of short stories Boundless is something I reread once a year as it really just shows how broad visually comics can be.
What do you listen to when you are working?
Laura Marling, Mitski, Hayley Hendricks, early Adele, I predominantly listen to sad women singing, if that is a genre.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently still experimenting on combining poetry and comics but from a more visual perspective. Rather than just putting a poem into a comic, really trying to make poetry out of the images, aka being pretentious as hell.
About Steven
A cartoonist and writer based in Aberdeen, Scotland, originally from a small village in South Lanarkshire, focusing on person-driven stories that touch on queer and working class perspectives. Steven came to Aberdeen to study illustration at Gray’s School of Art back in 2013, briefly leaving to do a masters in Comics and Graphic Novels in Dundee in 2019.
Steven has a strong passion for setting their work in Scotland in some regard; either through language, setting or even just reference images. This drive is inspired by the sentiments of Alasdair Gray when he spoke of an imagined Glasgow, about how Scottish people struggle to find a sense of pride or identity through a lack of a representational Scotland in media, compared to other countries with strong iconography like France or America. They reflect on the Scottish longing to be seen and aim to help contribute in building this collective visual landscape.
See more of Steven’s work here.