Make Art
An INK Interview with SVA Cartooning Alumni
Kendra Kirkpatrick
" You have to be the one to give a shit."
Kendra talks with INK Magazine about what her life is like after graduation,what she wished she knew going into her Education, and what she learned about herself as an artist in the process.
How is Life as an SVA Alumni?
[hysterical laughter[ oh boy... in general?
I graduated in may, went home for the summer, and then I moved here in November, so I’m kind of just now getting back into making content. Over the summer I fell out of it, I was doing other things and saving up for the move. When I came back, I got access to the silkscreen lab again, and I’ve been doing conventions a lot; I’m doing Katsucon next weekend! (an anime convention in DC) So yeah, I’ve been kind of trying to do more conventions. I’ve also been making a lot of stuff that’s not comics actually, like making bags and stuff. I am trying to get back into comics though, but they take more time usually.
If you’re designing something for a bag it’s pretty fast, but something like a long term comic, you have to commit. Oh! I’m gonna be in an anthology- raising money for an organization that is similar to planned parenthood. It’s an anthology about pro choice issues, and for my piece
I interviewed my grandmother- she’s been very active in that since the 60’s, so I interviewed her and i’m going to try to make something out of what she said. One of the things that stuck with me after talking to her was that, “This is an issue that’s always existed that no one really talked about until like the 70’s”
Looking back, after graduating last spring
Corpse Paint Girl Drawing
When you’re working on Comics, are you a Day or Night person?
It usually happens at night. I’ll tell myself “I’m gonna start earlier” and then I don’t. I mean, I work a Monday throughFriday-job now as well, so I kind of have to work in the evenings. So yeah, I usually end up working at night. Since graduating I’ve gotten better at not staying up all night. Having a job helps. The problem is, if you stay up all night at school and can’t go to class, they can’t like, fire you, but with a job they’ll be like, “uhm you’re fired.” But yeah, I tend to work at night, but I’m not staying up all night anymore!
If you don’t mind sharing, what is your day job?
The Catholic Priesthood. Just kidding, no, I work for a pet care company; I take care of rich people’s pets. It’s great actually, the job is above minimum wage and I actually want to go to work in the morning!
What are some of the biggest inspirations for your work?
I’m really bad at this question... This is the thing about me—it’s a horrible trait, but whenever people ask me who I like, I can never think about it, but if people ask me about who I don’t like, I could go on a rant forever! But comic wise I really like Joe Sacco. He did this book about the Bosnian civil war called Safe Area Garazde. It’s a graphic novel, he went there as a reporter and did this graphic novel, it’s really intense. I also like Junji Ito, because I’m very basic, [laughs[ I had a Junji Ito poster in my studio. Another one is Suehiro Maruo. His work comes up on tumblr tagged as Ito but it’s not! I’ve like it since high school. He’s very similar to Ito, but Ito does a lot more texture. I like [texture[ too much, I do that in my own work too. Maru is like Ito without all the etching, and it has a little
"I got really upset, so I just walked into the other room"
more of a dark sexual element instead of just horror. I also like Francisco Goya; I’m obsessed with him. My favorite thing he did was The Disasters of War. I really like his illustrations. Oh! My favorite artist ever is Edvard Munch, you know he did The Scream, but I actually don’t like that one... I saw his other work and was like, oh The Scream sucks... One time I went to the MOMA, this was my freshman year, so of course I went. This person was looking at his work and they said really quietly “is this crayon?” and I got really upset so I just walked into the other room, and this lady is talking to her child about another piece and she’s saying, “He’s scared because those two
men are coming up behind him.” but like if you read the plaque it’s his friends walking away because he’s having an existential crisis...) Oh I forgot— Tezuka! I really like him, I like Ayako, that one’s amazing. I love the stuff from his “dark period” as people call it. And then, this is weird but I like Tintin a lot! I like Junji Ito and Tintin, [laughs[.
When did you start drawing and getting into comics?
I started drawing when I was like 2,
‘cause, like, everyone draws when they’re little. I’ve never not been drawing, but as far as comics, I think that started in second grade. That was when I decided I was into comics and cartoons, I saw Power Puff Girls and I became interested in cartoons. I didn’t read at grade level until around seventh grade, so I started reading manga because they were smaller bits of text with images, so that kind of pushed me towards comics. It was like an accomplishment to say, “Hey! I read this whole book!” because I couldn’t do that with a regular book.
Single page comic “Magdalene Asylum”
Page one of Kendra’s Comic “Fairy Tale”
How old were you when you made your first comic?
The first comic I made was in second grade and it was like a Power Puff Girls rip-off. I say rip-off because it was frightening-looking. And then I went through a phase where I was like “I wanna make graphic novels” but then I gave up on that in, like, second year of SVA, [laughs[. I didn’t want to just sit at my desk all day, I didn’t want to be that. It’s like.. I wanna live.. I take too long when I make pages for things, so I think that’s why I couldn’t do it. Now I just stick to the smaller things. You just have to figure out what you can make without wanting to die. You don’t have to make something that’s, like, 100 pages if that’s not for you.
"I didn't want to just sit at my desk all day, I didn’t want to be that. It’s like.. I wanna live..”
so I try not to get stuck in that now. But like I said, it depends on what it is. I was super stressed by my work junior year, so I just stopped caring as much about making everything so ‘perfect’. Now I can just draw something quickly. If you don’t over-analyze you won’t disappoint yourself, I guess, [laughs[. I didn’t have a decent following until I had that moment where I was like, I’m just gonna draw what I want. I was like, oh okay, I don’t have to kill myself overdoing pencils and re-inking things.
Do you run by a structured, planned-out schedule by the week or do you set up a single deadline?
Again, it depends on what it is. What I did for my senior project, it was a webcomic, but I got funding from the senior alumni society to get funding to print. And that
How do you go about turning an idea into a comic?
It depends on the comic, honestly. A lot of the stuff I did for SVA, almost everything I do, is non-fiction. It’s either autobio or non-fiction. I do all the research first and write out the outline. If it’s gonna be something based off something else, I do all the research first and go from there. If it’s an autobio thing, I usually don’t even pencil those, I just draw it like stream of consciousness. I don’t even do thumbnails; I hate them. I used to do tons of thumbnails and over-analyze and it was awful, I mean awful for me,
Corpse Paint Girl Drawing II
worked well cause it was like 25 pages. It’s hard to say. If I’m doing a comic on my own time, I just try to make sure I’m not lingering on something for super long. I usually make a deadline, but end up pushing it back, but as long as it’s done when you need it, that’s what’s important. I try to be rigid and dayby-day, but that doesn’t always happen.
What advice do you have for current cartooning majors?
I had a good senior year because, like I said I kind of stopped... caring? I don’t want to say caring, but I changed the way I worked. Senior year, you need to make sure your senior project is good, because that’s something you can kind of sell for a while
"We need more of a culture of pushing people to make better work"
until you can make another larger thing. After you graduate you probably won’t have time to make something like that again. I mean you have your thesis, but then it’s nice to have another book as well. And it doesn’t have to be a book, but it matters a lot because that’s going to be a good example of your work to send out. I think I also wish I had known about how private colleges work, [laughs[. You have to be the one to give a shit; it’s on you. You have to care about your own work. It’s ugly to think about it that way, because you’re at a great school. But you have to realize it’s a business; you have to be aware of that. There are so many people who won’t tell you if your work is less than what it could be, because they don’t want to ‘hurt your feelings’ or something. We need more of a culture of pushing people to make better work, and you have to be the one to seek out ways to be your best.
INK would like to thank kendra for giving us her time and for sharing these insights into life after graduation. If you are interested in seeing more of Kendra’s work, we encourage you to visit her website!
Kendrajosiekirkpatrick.com
