Creator Spotlight: Emily Brackhan

I’m posting this week’s spotlight a little early because it is Emily’s birthday tomorrow! And if I post it early enough she’ll link to it in her update tonight 😉

Without further ado, I give you Emily Brackhan, friend and creator of the webcomic Blitz Phoenix.

D: Ok, Emily, tell us a bit about yourself.

E: I’m a hobby artist who works part-time while working on a two-year degree in Computer Information Technology, though since I’m working, it’s closer to three years. I decided I liked making websites so much that I’d try to make it my job. I’ll be done with that within six months or so.

My spare time usually goes to drawing, writing, going for walks, and video games. I collect dragons and Yoshis – yeah, the Nintendo character – and I always enjoy trying new creative activities (trying being the key word). I’m also half vampire, but only my left half.

D: Gosh, the whole left half vampire thing must make going for walks extra difficult 😉 But seriously, what are some of these other creative activities you refer to?

E: It mostly gives me sunburns and causes me to bite my lip while I’m eating. Though I think I accidentally bite myself more often with my regular teeth than I do with my fangs.

I’ve tried a lot of various arts, like painting, sculpting, sewing… some things I can’t remember the name of, even. When I was young, I would make these bead lizards and sell them to other kids in my class. I used to play the violin, but it’s been years since I picked it up. I’d like to go back to it one day. I also occasionally do video editing, and I used to make custom sprites.

I really just enjoy trying new arts and crafts hobbies. I’m not all that great at them, but you don’t have to be to enjoy them.

D: You mentioned to me previously that you’re working on an update of your website for a class project or something. How is that going?

E: It’s… going, haha. It’s a lot of work, but I’m glad I could fit it into my college workload, since it was something I wanted to do anyway. Now I get to do something fun for homework.

D: What video games are you currently playing, and which ones are your favorites to replay?

E: I don’t have the income to go buying new games, so I stick to the ones I already have. Skyri ,is easily one of the best games I’ve ever played, and lately that’s what I’ve been playing most.

One of my all-time favorites is Digimon World for the Playstation. It’s based on the old Digimon Tamagotchi keychain – you raise your Digimon, then after a while, it dies and you get a new one. But you have to figure out the most efficient way to cycle through this, because there’s also a story you need to complete. I also really enjoy inFAMOUS, but I don’t think that surprises anyone, and Lost Kingdoms II.

I was a World of Warcraft addict for over seven years, and there are times in my life that I actually define by the current expansion rather than by year. I try not to talk about it too much since people aren’t interested, but it was a big part of my life for too long, so I occasionally bring it up. That said, don’t ever play it. I’m serious.

D: Tell us a bit about Blitz Phoenix.

E: It’s a story I’ve been writing and rewriting in my head since I was… nine? I say “writing,” but it’s basically a daydream I just kept adding onto, then started over again after doing it for a few years and cleaned it up.

The story’s had many versions, but the gist has always been the same: Boy get superpowers from a mad scientist parent, he isn’t all that happy about the situation, and the fact that he has a weird pseudo-anime haircut is maniacally important. The current iteration of the story is actually the first that Terry’s powers are electric.

The story is kind of dark, but also cartoony and I try to inject some humor here and there.

D: It would be pretty fun to hear some of the previous iterations of this story. Any of them worth mentioning? What sort of powers did Terry used to have?

E: I don’t think there’s anything worth mentioning – the good stuff got passed on to the current version, so those scenes and concepts will come out eventually. I had actually wanted to launch my webcomic years sooner with an earlier version of the story, but lost a lot of self-confidence and gave up before anything really went online. That may sound bad, but looking back it was a good thing, because I realized that version was the worst. It was set in the post-apocalypse after civilization had collapsed and been rebuilt… and there’s nothing wrong with that! But I had gotten too far away from the story I actually wanted to tell for the sake of trying to make it more appealing.

Terry’s had a crazy mix of powers, usually whatever I was into at the time. His primary power used to be a more generic arcane energy or chi thing, whatever you want to call it, though he also had some fire abilities. He’s also been a mesmer, a werewolf, a generic shape-shifter, and he used to be able to teleport short distances. A lot of powers went through a trial phase and were rejected. The powers he has now may be lackluster in comparison, but I was able to iron out what I was looking for, for my story.

I kept going back and forth on whether or not he could fly, too. If I could have any superpower, it would be flying, but I feel it makes things too easy and minimizes the influence that a landscape has in a scene. Terry can’t fly, but I have some plans to play with this idea.

D: So, you’ve been developing this since childhood. Terry’s mother, Amanda isn’t based on your own mother, is she? 😉

E: I’m afraid that may be what my mother suspects! But my mom is the greatest mom in the world, so no, they’re not even remotely similar.

It would be more accurate to say Amanda’s personality is somewhat based off of myself – obviously it’s taken to an extreme, but after running some serious raiding guilds in World of Warcraft, I’ve found that being in a power or leadership position brings out the absolute worst in me. But this does let me empathize with Amanda.

Amanda wasn’t even originally the mad scientist – David was. I only switched their roles when I was in the planning stages of my comic. Amanda has always been pretty nasty, but this wasn’t as big of a deal since she was going to be killed off. I think she fits the mad scientist role better than David would have, and I’m very happy with the switch.

Amanda’s a terrible person, but I really love her as a character. Villains are just more fun.

D: What sort of themes and etc do you hope to get across with your story?

E: Quite a few. I feel that I can’t get too far into this without just spilling everything, but a few of them are self identity, individuality, and recognizing your faults and making an effort to deal with them.

I’d also like to do some very subtle religious commentary, but I need to be careful since I’m not trying to start fights.

D: I see that you share your base website with another webcomic. How did that happen and how is it going?

E: The Wellman Path is by my friend, Matt Hartnett, who I met online in my Internet early years. I feel like we are two very different people who have a lot of common interests and ideas, if that makes sense.

I guess it was right around two years ago, Matt mentioned to me that he was thinking about starting a webcomic based on an old story he’d written. Like I said before, I’d tried starting my comic earlier and gave up. Now he was talking about doing his, and I was at a particular point in my life where I had lost a lot of connections and needed something to grab onto. So it seemed like a good time to try again.

I was afraid that if I tried starting again, I would duck out before launching again and be much worse off for it. So I decided to try tying my line to his – I told him I’d build the website and pay for half the hosting if he’d let me, my idea being that I would hopefully be motivated by his progression and not feel that I’m starting a huge project by myself. He agreed. I’ve been moving along fairly consistently with my project, though Matt has been on hiatus for a while now. He’s been very busy, and his plans to return were set back when his tablet pen suddenly broke a few months ago. He’s working on his comeback but wants to build a mighty buffer before he starts updating again, so there currently isn’t a date set.

Matt gave me the motivation to try again, whether he knows it or not, and this comic ended up being one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’m looking forward to seeing The Wellman Path start back up.

D: In your opinion, what defines a good comment or a good critique on your work? What defines a bad one?

E: Well all right, you asked for it, haha.

My favorite comments are the ones that make really funny jokes about the page. The one where someone compares Dr. Callinway to Prof. Oak cracks me up.

I like to see when people are making guesses about what happens next, but there’s strings attached to that. If people guess wrong, is it because I didn’t correctly set up the foreshadowing? Or if they guess right, is it because my story is too predictable, and therefore boring? Am I overthinking this? Of course, because there’s no mental scenario where I win.

The kind of critiques I like to get are the ones that are willing to spell out what you did wrong with specific examples, and give an idea of how to fix it. If you can show me why I’m wrong, that will help me understand how to fix it. But I’m less interested in situations where I do one thing wrong, and would prefer to hear about reoccurring problems. Like, for example, let’s say an artist happens to be really good at drawing hands, but there’s one panel where it comes out odd. That’s not a good thing to focus on if there are other glaring problems in the work.

I’m less willing to listen to critiques on my writing than I am on the art, but this is honestly because of the webcomic format. Something that looks like an oversight or just bad writing may make more sense once there’s more context, and with the slow update schedule, it may be a while before we get to that context. There have been times when people say “you’re doing X wrong,” but X actually comes out shining like a star once the story moves further along. Here’s an example: when I started reading The Demon Archives, I was really frustrated with the characters in the opening chapters. I couldn’t tell anyone apart and I never learned any of their names, except for Tenzin and Jane, and I’d assumed this was a failure of the comic. By the time chapter 3 ends, this all makes sense though; the characters may or may not get referenced later, but it’s not as important to know them as it is to know Tenzin or Jane.

If Blitz Phoenix were a completed work, you could look over the story in its entirety and make a better judgement about the writing. I think I do enough of the technical stuff right, but I won’t be able to get an accurate summation of my writing until we get to the meat of the story.

As for bad critiques… first of all, if you’re going to compare my work to another and be upset that I’m not meeting the standard of another creator or team, just pack your bags and hit the road. I had a weird incident where someone was upset with my comic because, for some reason, they thought I was trying to be like X-Men. I don’t I have a problem with someone looking at my comic and interpreting whatever they think is closest from their experiences – I mean, I can’t stop you, now can I? – but then taking that and insisting that I make changes to conform to those tastes is ridiculous. Especially considering I’m one person doing this as a hobby, versus a large established comic book company with access to writers, artists, and money.

Nitpicking makes me mad because it often comes down to personal preference. Sweeping generalizations don’t help, and neither does letting your personal bias get in the way of anything actually useful to say. You’re free to like and not like whatever you want, but if you’re trying to give an honest critique, then you cannot address areas where you are biased. If you really hate werewolves and you’re reviewing a comic about werewolves, don’t take off points for there being werewolves. You can still review the comic, but it’s better to acknowledge your bias and move on to other points. On the flipside, if you really love werewolves, it’s not honest to give a glowing critique based solely on that.

If you’re going to give a critique, remember there’s a person with feelings on the other end of the comic. If you do a review blog and have no intentions to show the creator, pretend that person is right in the room with you, because there’s a chance they’ll find it anyway. I occasionally post quick first-impression reviews on a forum that I frequent, and the key to giving respectful and useful feedback is to keep in mind you’re talking directly to the creator. You don’t know how personal this story is to them, what physical or mental difficulties they may have, how seriously they take their work, what experiences they’ve had, etc. and all of those influence their creative process. If you outright attack something in their work, you may be inadvertently attacking them. You can be honest without being hurtful, just think about what words you pick.

… And that’s the short answer.

D: And a good answer it was 🙂 Any advice for webcomic enthusiasts, both readers and creators?

E: For readers: As far as narrative comics go, give the comic time to show you its secrets. What may look like a plot hole or lack of technical skill may actually be intentional, or just hasn’t had the time to come out yet.

For creators: Make your comic for yourself, first and foremost. Tell the story that makes you excited. You don’t want to be stuck doing something that you hate then feel guilty about quitting. You don’t have to be perfect, but if you aren’t happy with what you’re producing, figure out why and look into how you can fix it.

But for everyone, here’s my best advice: don’t take my advice. Like I have any idea what I’m talking about.

Emily, thanks again for letting me interview.  Everyone, you should go over to her website and wish her a happy birthday.  And leave some GOOD comments on her comic too 😉