Andrew Wheeler is a Toronto–based author born and raised in the south of England. His work includes the globetrotting heist comic Cat Fight, the occult noir Sins of the Black Flamingo, feminist fantasy comic Another Castle, and queer sports comedy Love and War. He is the author of the official Dungeons & Dragons cocktail book Puncheons & Flagons, co-author of the Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurers Guides, and a contributor to the groundbreaking DC Pride and Marvel Voices: Prideanthologies.

Rye Hickman is a visual storyteller based out of Denver. Past work includes The Harrowing, Bad Dream, Buzzing, and more. They get really excited about dystopian fiction, good coffee, and drawing hands.

I had the opportunity to interview Andrew and Rye, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?

Andrew: Thank you for having me! I’m very happy to be talking to you! When I started out in comics, there were no spaces like Geeks OUT and no publishers willing to tell queer stories, and that’s essentially my origin story!

For a long time I was a comics journalist, and I used my platform to challenge publishers and editors to give marginalized voices–especially queer voices–a chance to tell their own stories. The industry needed to change a lot before someone like me could be part of it, honestly, and I’m grateful that the industry has changed to the point where Geeks OUT and FlameCon can exist!

And now I get to write my very own queer stories, like the very sexy Sins of the Black Flamingo at Image and the much more wholesome Hey, Mary! at Oni, or even the JLQ, the first all-queer superhero team at the Big Two, which I was very proud to bring to life at DC!

Rye: Thanks for the welcome, and echoing Andrew, for being here doing amazing work! I’m a queer, nonbinary cartoonist based out of Denver, where I’m part of “Jam House,” a coworking studio of six. I’ve been making comics professionally for quite a while now, but I started back in 2013ish as a colorist. Like Andrew, I’ve seen the industry grow and change massively over the years, and it’s amazing to be a part of the current push to tell queer, authentic stories.

What can you tell us about your book, Hey, Mary!? What was the inspiration for this story? 

Andrew: This is the book that was always in my head since I started working in comics, because I grew up Catholic and I struggled to reconcile that identity with my queerness, and comics were a great way to articulate that experience, because it offers incredible opportunities for intimacy and for fantasy, and we get to use both to tell this story.

Hey, Mary! is the story of Mark, a Catholic teenager who realizes he’s gay and isn’t sure he’s allowed to be! He seeks advice from the people in his life, but he also talks to figures from Catholic art and history who help him get a better sense of both his faith and his sexuality. I’m forever grateful to Oni for being the publisher that finally let me tell this story, and to Rye for being the perfect artist to bring it to the page. I think it’s been a passion project for all of us!

Rye: When I’m deciding what books I want to draw, the biggest factor for me is if I connect emotionally to the story. Reading that early draft of Hey, Mary! was a roller coaster of emotions that, if I’m honest, touched on some raw nerves of my own religious teenage experiences that I really thought I’d finished processing already. I had to draw it. And you’ll see, as you read Hey Mary!, that while the emotions are big, Andrew has brought an amazing sense of humor and care to the book as well.

As creatives, what drew you to the art of storytelling, particularly comics/graphic novels?

Andrew: My mum was an artist and my dad was a writer, and I’ve always wondered if that had something to do with my love of comics. I was raised to appreciate both forms, and comics are the perfect synthesis. I’ve certainly always been a very visual thinker, very visually stimulated, so comics as a storytelling device have always sung for me as a reader, and they feel like the natural way to tell stories, even as someone who can’t draw very well!

Rye: I love the density of information that comics bring, more than anything. I love the interplay between text and image, and the way the two can harmonize or clash, building up to something greater than the sum of their parts. As a kid I wrote constantly, at home. I doodled constantly, at school. It really wasn’t until the dawn of webcomics in the mid 2000s that I realized I could combine those two passions. 

What are some of your favorite elements of writing/drawing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or challenging? 

Andrew: I love planning. I fill notebooks with ideas, structure, character notes, dialogue, thumbnails. It’s the best and worst form of procrastination. The most frustrating part of writing comics is that I can’t draw.

Rye: For me, the answer to both of these questions is the same: doing initial layouts, or thumbnails, for a comic book page. It’s the chance to look at the book zoomed way out, while also making foundational choices about each micro-element. If I have 5 panels on the page, how do I arrange them? Which panels are biggest? How much dialog do I have to balance? Where shall the ‘camera’ sit in this panel? What gesture will the character in it make? How close are we to it? How does that relate back to the rest of the page, the rest of the book? It’s the most mentally draining step, for me, but it’s so incredibly satisfying to look at a chunk of thumbnails and, somewhat, see into the future where the book is complete.

What advice might you have to give for any aspiring creatives out there?

Andrew: Make friends! Art can be a lonely endeavour, but you’re never alone, and your cohort is out there to support you and elevate you, and you get to do the same for them.

Rye: The big one for comics, but also for a lot of creative endeavors, is that the only way out is through. Making comics is a lot of time spent editing, erasing, re-doing, and trying new things. There really aren’t a lot of shortcuts, at a certain point. So you have to love the process, the through of it all. Comics take a long time to complete, and then are read relatively quickly. So finding joy and fascination in the process has to sustain you, because a lot more time as a creative is spent sweating over a page than is spent receiving applause and adulation for what a good comic you made.

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

Andrew: I’ve been doing a few Dungeons & Dragons projects recently, including the official D&D cocktail book, Puncheons & Flagons, and I have some more D&D projects coming up that I can’t talk about yet! I also recently launched my podcast Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on YouTube with my friend Shane, where we look at macho action movies through a queer lens!

Most exciting of all, though, is The New Hotness. A few years ago I was the editor of Shout Out, an anthology of stories by queer creators aimed at giving younger readers the stories we wish we had grown up with. I’m now re-teaming with the same publisher, TO Comix, for The New Hotness, another queer anthology, this time about tieflings, demons, and other misunderstood hornfolk! It’s a really wonderful collection of stories, with one by Hey, Mary!‘s very own Rye Hickman!

Rye: I’m very excited to be a part of The New Hotness! Anthologies are such a fun place to play with form and techniques, as a creator, and a fantastic way to find new creators to check out, as a reader!

Galaxy 2: As The World Falls Down, written by Jadzia Axelrod and drawn/colored by me, just got announced! It’s the sequel to Galaxy: The Prettiest Star, which, if you haven’t read it, you must! Heartfelt trans self-discovery and the cutest talking corgi, what’s not to love! Our sequel is out now!

Finally, what queer books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

Andrew: I just recently finished Justinian Huang’s The Emperor and the Endless Palace, a beautiful novel about queer desire and cultural identity that is well worth checking out! A really inspiring work! I can’t wait to see what Huang does next!

Rye: I will always be recommending We Both Laughed in Pleasure, the Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (1961-1991.) Queer history extends so much longer than we are led to believe, and Lou knew he was a part of history even as he kept his diary.