This week YA Author Aatmaja Pandya took over our Twitter as a part of our weekly Thursday Twitter Takeover. Aatmaja Pandya is the author of SLIP (See YEM’s interview of Aatmaja Pandya here.) See highlights from the takeover below.
Hi everyone! I'm @aatmajapandya, an illustrator and cartoonist from NY and co-author of SLIP. Happy to be talking a little about my creative life and inspirations for today's #yaauthortakeover!
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I don't really know where to start! This year I realized I've been drawing for something like 15 years. It is such a surreal feeling, but a really good one. Drawing is the thing I've been committed to the longest! #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I started trying to get better at drawing because I wanted to impress my friends with fanart of the manga we were reading. I grew up during the Tokyopop comics boom and also during the early days of webcomics, so I was just reading stuff like that nonstop. #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Then I got a few really excellent teachers in high school and realized that art was one thing in my life that didn't come easily to me. I really had to work to make something beautiful, but the feeling of satisfaction was unlike any I'd experienced before! I was totally hooked.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Oh, some manga I was reading at the time – Fruits Basket (still a favorite), Fullmetal Alchemist, Shaman King, Yotsuba& (which had just gotten serialized!), and more niche stuff like Chrono Crusade. #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I was also a gamer and very embarrassing about it. I was super good at Super Smash Bros. for a while. But I was mostly playing stuff like The Legend of Zelda and the Ace Attorney series. I think those more than anything had a huge impact on my aesthetic sense. #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Frankly, I see that influence even now! I have all that imagery in my mental library and sometimes have to stop myself from mimicking it outright. #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Let's talk about my first webcomic! It was a story about four friends in a band, scraping by with part time jobs, playing shows sometimes, and falling in love with each other. I stopped drawing it ages ago, but it's still alive in a new story that I pick up from time to time.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Actually, the music I like is probably my biggest influence. I think musicians can evoke emotion in a way no other medium can. I feel like I'm always trying to capture on paper the way a favorite song makes me feel! That's why my first story was pretty literally about that.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I should say, a webcomic is a really great way to get used to the practice of drawing comics regularly. Take it seriously, but don't try to make a masterpiece! Just try telling a story and putting it somewhere people can see it.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
My second webcomic was called Travelogue, and it was sort of a diary comic that took place in a fantasy world. I owe all my successes to Travelogue, probably. Those characters are still so precious to me! #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Okay, let's talk about SLIP! SLIP is a contemporary YA GN by Marika McCoola and I, and it's coming out in like five days – 6/7! ✨
Marika and I met through a mutual friend in 2015 and years later, I got offered the chance to illustrate her second graphic novel.— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I loved her first book (Baba Yaga's Assistant, also by Emily Carroll) so I jumped at the chance! It was my first time tackling a project of that length and ambition.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
One thing no one tells you about comics is that they take forever!! SLIP took about three years to draw, start to finish. Being able to take my time kept my body and mind healthy, though! #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
I'm not even someone with a super complicated way of drawing, but all the planning that goes into a comic page – layout, lettering, rough drawing, and designing all that so it looks nice on the page and reads easily – takes way more time than the actual act of inking the page.
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
SLIP was also my first time working with a comics script! For my own projects I tend to “write” in my head and then do really scrappy tiny drawings of the pages (this is called thumbnailing!)
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
But I found it really interesting to work in a different way than I naturally would! I think I learned a lot from it. And Marika is a very generous collaborator, so I had lots of room to make changes and tweak panels to suit me. #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Most challenging: definitely the scale of a full GN! A twenty page minicomic is one thing, but 200 pages…. I had a pretty big slump in the middle of inking pages and I had to switch to a digital medium to get myself out of it! https://t.co/7BYTZHeHbr
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
And most fun…. seeing the whole book come together after each stage of drawing! It was amazing after inks were finished, but when we got galleys in the mail I nearly cried. Holding something you made with your own two hands is the most amazing feeling… https://t.co/7BYTZHeHbr
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
By the way, it’s awesome that SLIP is coming out during pride month! Among other things, SLIP is about queerness and mental health and closure. It really matters to me to explore all that with sensitivity. It matters to both me and Marika! #yaauthortakeover
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Some easter eggs: a couple of my friends are drawn into SLIP! Towards the end, Mary is wearing a shirt with a variation of the Hyrule crest from the Zelda games. And the cat in the very beginning is based on my roommate’s cat Miles!
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
Okay, my time taking over this account is almost to a close… you can still preorder SLIP here! Please buy it through local and independent bookstores if you can 💕 https://t.co/b8QbbtbA6h
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
And Marika has kindly listed the events we’re doing on her website! I am really, really excited to see this book out in the world. It’s been a long time coming and I hope it speaks to people! Thanks for having me!! #yaauthortakeover https://t.co/UcjAchWH3f
— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) June 2, 2022
