Cartoonist/Writer, Trinidad Escobar

Artwork for this article are excerpts from Trinidad’s new work Arrive In My Hands. Arrive In My Hands is a 120-page collection of Queer erotica comics. It features 22 color erotic comics, poem-comics, and illustrations beautifully written and illustrated by the Filipina cartoonist and poet.

Trinidad Escobar can access a world steeped in shadows, where bruhas and aswangs swoop in through open windows and pass through the kitchen. Her comic art is steeped in folklore, drawing on her unique experiences as a Visayan adoptee growing up in Milpitas.

Written by Olivia Cohen Photography by Peter Salcido

In the Philippines, there are evil spirits called aswangs. Cunning and wild, they seamlessly shape-shift from beautiful maidens to vampires to dogs to ghouls, scaring everyone in their path. In Trinidad Escobar’s comics, these spirits appear at house parties in Milpitas and sneak in through open bedroom windows, bringing with them the legacy of Filipino folklore in the context of everyday life in California. “I think there’s so much power in horror,” Trinidad says. “It can be this very feminine power, something that’s underlying, pervasive, that everyone thinks about in one way or another.”

From her very first comic, based on a recurring nightmare about a witch, to her more recent chilling self-published Little Cornfields series, gothic themes are at the heart of Trinidad’s work. They represent colonial fear—stories used to control and manipulate—and yet they are also a traditional way of connecting through generations and across continents.

Trinidad was born in the Philippines and raised by her adoptive family in Milpitas. She grew up writing and doodling, and though she never did well in art classes in school, she knew she wanted to be an artist. After earning a degree in creative writing, she entered an MFA program in comics at California College of the Arts as part of their very first graduating class.

Now, less than a decade into her career, Trinidad’s list of accomplishments is already long. Her comics have been featured in The New Yorker, The Brooklyn Review, NPR, and more. In 2019, she was named one of the most influential global artists of the year by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She’s currently featured in the Women in Comics exhibit in Italy, and she has two forthcoming book deals with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Simon & Schuster.

“From the beginning of my career up until a couple years ago, it’s been a constant hustle,” she says, having to strive to find time to “do work, make food, and rest.” The tight-knit indie comic community helped her find submissions and exhibits and supported her through the ups and downs.

Though success is important, in 2018, Trinidad found that her drive was starting to backfire. “I thought that in order to be seen as a ‘serious artist,’ I had to constantly be producing,” she says. As her ego pushed her to do more, she found her work feeling less authentic, more desperate, and definitely unsustainable.

Excerpts from Trinidad’s Arrive In My Hands used with permission from Black Josei Press, Feb. 2022. Black Josei Press is an award-winning indie comic book publishing company that focuses on celebrating comics by and for women of color and non-binary people of color. They look to change the comic landscape for the better by providing a space for marginalized creators to tell their stories. Arrive In My Hands is available in digital and print books at BlackJoseiPress.com and ArriveInMyHands.com

It took a conscious shift to change her methods and approach her work as a place for honesty and refuge. Now, she creates art that feels good to her, telling the stories that are missing from anything else she’s read.

“I write for my younger self now,” she says, “who was a queer, closeted goth girl who didn’t feel seen, ever. I want people to feel seen when they look at my work. Maybe I can fill in the gaps for people who are looking for themselves.”

Trinidad is bringing her mindful approach and unique perspective into lots of upcoming projects, including the 300-page novel Of Sea and Venom, to be released next year, and Arrive in My Hands, a queer erotica poetry collection that will be released on Valentine’s Day. She is also working on a “vampire lesbian truecrime horror story” that will raise money to help farm-worker women in the Philippines access arts education.

In addition to her comics, Trinidad is a musician under the name “blueghosts,” a two-woman band she formed with her good friend and collaborator Lamb’s Ear (aka Meredith Hobbs Coons). They’re both queer, mothers, and writers, but this is their first time coming together to release an album.

A multidisciplinary artist, Trinidad excels at many mediums, but she always comes back to comics. “It’s because you can finish an entire story in a day,” she says. “There’s this satisfaction in finishing something instantaneously and having other people get it too. It’s accessible.”

She’s excited to be part of the expanding world of comics, which are being explored in a more profound and interesting way, thanks in part to burgeoning indie publishers and creators. Storytellers from around the world are gravitating toward the form, sharing bits of their lives and experiences one frame at a time.

In many ways, comics are the great equalizer. Though Trinidad is stretching comic art through the depth of her storytelling, expressiveness of her figures, and thoughtfulness of every frame, it is the simplicity of the form and potential for deep connection that keeps her going. You don’t need a degree. You don’t need access to tools or computer programs. You don’t need to see it in a museum. “You come back to comics because you’re just in it, you’re inundated, you love it. It becomes addictive,” she shares. “All you need is a pencil.” C