Beginnings and Ends
A look into the process of creating a comic for Wordle Review
In October I got the super exciting opportunity to work on creating a comic for The New York Times’ Wordle Review, a daily forum for the Wordle community. A new illustration accompanies the column every week, created by artists that rotate monthly. I’ve been a huge admirer of the Wordle Review illustrations because of how imaginative and fun they are. Some of my favorite series are those illustrated by Grace J. Kim, Jeffrey Kam, Julien Posture and Karlotta Freier.
Getting the chance to work on this project felt like a culmination of the shift in my work influenced by explorations in sketchbooking and comics, and a really meaningful milestone. It’s my first time creating an original comic for a client and I feel like I’ve definitely pushed beyond what I’ve been doing in my comics for myself in the past two years. I’m so grateful to the art director, Kathy Lee, for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to expand my comic-making into what feels like a new chapter.
This comic follows a solo traveler setting off on a foraging trip with her cat. She meets strangers along the way who teach her about where they’re from and the local flora and fauna. By the end of the trip, strangers become friends and together they make a meal from the resources they’ve gathered.
✦ Ideation + Sketches ✦
The art direction for this project was pretty open from the very beginning. We discussed making sure there was a narrative that connected all five illustrations, centering around the themes of end-of-year gathering and community as they would be publishing through the holiday-heavy month of December.
Because this would be Wordle Review’s first comic, we wanted to explore both the possibility of a comic with text and wordless options. A unique challenge with this comic commission was that I needed to work around including five shapes in the middle of each piece, a staple of all Wordle Review illustrations. These shapes are reminiscent of the five squares of every five-letter Wordle word, and are filled with a new number for each daily issue of Wordle Review when published.
When I make comics for myself, I always start with a script first before working on visuals. So brainstorming ideas for both options with and without text was a new kind of work flow for me. Because I had so much creative freedom, I spent a lot more time in the ideation phase, trying to connect ideas to visuals and seeing where different paths might lead me.
I eventually settled on two directions, one comic with text and a second wordless option. Being able to come away with two ideas I felt really strongly about was the best problem to have!
Kathy and I chose to go the wordless comic route in the end, and I’m currently developing the other comic concept to publish on my own because I couldn’t say goodbye to it. Hopefully I’ll have that ready to share with you all soon!
For the next round, I went back over the previous sketches and took the chance to make a character lineup so I could design each of them in detail. I wanted each Stranger to inhabit a different place centered around the elements of land, water and air. To have them look more at home I added small references to these elements to each of their outfits. I took a lot of inspiration from Qing Dynasty clothing, especially yunjian (雲肩) or ‘cloud collars’.
To no surprise to anyone I cast my cat, Juni, as the brave feline adventurer in this comic. Unfortunately for her, this meant that I constantly bothered her for reference photos and asked her very politely to pose for me through the course of this project. I loved turning each illustration into a Where’s Juni search-and-find. She appears 15 times across the span of the five illustrations!
✦ Final Comic ✦
Creating this little comic and thinking about gratitude and community made for a really contemplative experience right at the end of the year. It felt like a perfect way to wrap up another year of growth, another year of comic-making and another year during which I’ve been endlessly grateful for the community of people who’ve helped me get to where I am today.
Until next year! 💙
P.S. Thank you to all the Wordlers who took the time to write kind notes about my comic through the month in the comments section of Wordle Review. That was a really pleasant surprise and it feels like such an endearing community to be a part of.
I love the idea of the comics and how instead of blend the boxes in the image, you created other boxes that justify their existence in the logic of a comics. Lovely series!
amazing insight