Interview #160 — Ariel Slamet Ries
by Soolagna Majumdar
Ariel Slamet Ries is an eggplant and/or human making comics and illustrations on Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri land. Her first two major print releases, Witchy Volume 1. (Lion Forge)—which started in 2014, and continues today as a webcomic—and Cry Wolf Girl (ShortBox), were released in 2019. Both comics received Ignatz awards in 2020.
Ariel is formally trained in animation and has experience working in both advertising and feature film. In her free time she likes to cook and daydream about dogs wearing clothes.
Ariel spoke to Soolagna about being mindful of burnout, the interrogation of western norms and tropes prevalent in art and comics, and the importance of finding community.
How do you practice self care? Considering that you’re based in Naarm/Melbourne, and the unique position everyone else there had been put in due to the lockdown, do you find yourself practicing self-care? What does it mean to you right now?
It has been pretty rough here at times, ha ha. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that these are abnormal times and that we can’t expect to always be operating at 100 per cent—though I’m fortunate to be in a situation where I’ve been able to take the occasional mental health day. I’ve also been working from home since the last two years or so, so my life hasn’t been completely upheaved like it has for some people.
Other than that, I think my self-care routine has been pretty standard. I try to eat well, keep up with friends, get sun, exercise, all that good stuff. Mostly I’m just grateful that I’m living with my parents at the moment and that we get along, ha!
Do you have any advice for emerging comic artists and illustrators?
Oh, absolutely. Take care of your mental and physical health above all else. Going through a bad burnout is so much more of a sacrifice than getting enough sleep every night! Don't buy into grind culture and work at your own pace—you’ve got time.
Who are you inspired by? Artistically, in your life, philosophy-wise, style-wise—anything!
Hmm, Ursula K. Le Guin and Satoshi Kon come to mind as artists whose work I admire deeply. [They are artists who] also practiced kindness and thoughtfulness, and resisted the “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” frame of mind that is so prevalent in their respective industries (writing and animation).
I think you can tell that I’m on a “work smart, not hard” jag at the moment, ha ha. I’ve recently come out the other end of a bad period of burnout and mental health struggles, and am trying to reconcile a healthier approach to work with the act of telling the stories I want to tell.
I’m also hugely inspired by my friends! I’ve somehow stumbled across a supportive international community of comic and art-making friends that are frankly incredibly smart and talented, without whom I probably wouldn’t have the insight to articulate these thoughts.
What are you listening to? Vibing with? Have you stopped vibing?
Honestly, I think quarantine has put me in the brain mode of wanting only to listen to “Lofi Hip Hop Radio—Beats to Relax/Study to,” and other similarly chill music. I’m very much in the mental state of playing low-key comfort songs while I sit in the bath with a couple of candles burning. I’ll drop some podcast recommendations though!
Waypoint Radio — If you like games, but also workers’ rights
You're Wrong About — If you like learning the truth behind commonly held misconceptions, but also about much maligned women from the 80s
The Shrieking Shack — If you’ve also been thinking ‘J.K. Rowling’s transphobia is fucked up, huh!’
What are you reading? Watching? What does the food pyramid for media intake look like currently?
A friend and I just finished working our way through all of the Mission Impossible films, and have since moved on to the Fast & Furious franchise, and I’m honestly just learning that I love early 2000s schlock. Other assorted highlights include: Relic, I May Destroy You, and [Tamsyn Muir’s SF/F novel] Harrow the Ninth.
What does being Asian-Australian mean to you? Is ‘Australia’ even real (no)?
It’s definitely a weird thing. You’re marginalised for sure, but also in part responsible for perpetuating the ongoing colonisation of the continent. I think as Asian-Australians it’s our responsibility to support First Nations people in their fight for equality and sovereignty at least as much as we fight for our own right—if not more.
And Australia is real, I guess, in the sense that it’s a construct that is generally acknowledged by the rest of the world. But boy, would I love to see it become something better.
Let’s get into some of the questions I’d like to ask you myself. I’ve got to start off by saying that you have an incredible body of work and I wish Witchy was a thing when I was a teen in search for something to fan over.
Thank you! I’m glad it reads that way, because I am essentially trying to make a comic that teen me would have loved.
Witchy has such a refreshing take on the whole magical school/coming-of-age via magic concept—it is so delightfully divorced from the twee Anglocentric vision that currently dominates this genre. Did you find yourself drawing from your own culture, upbringing, or cultural history to stay true to this vision?
Absolutely! I think for me and a lot of other folks of Asian descent, there are a lot of elements in our daily lives that don’t often feature in this genre. A major theme in the comic is the significance of family, whether as a force for good or bad. In Witchy, the protagonist Nyneve’s mother, Veda, is central to the story and has interiority in a way I don’t think you see much in fantasy, and especially from an Asian perspective.
In Witchy, the protagonist Nyneve’s mother, Veda, is central to the story and has interiority in a way I don’t think you see much in fantasy, and especially from an Asian perspective.
Considering how pervasive that Anglocentric vision is when it comes to stories in the fantasy genre (or anything really), did you find yourself having to unlearn these standards?
Yep, I’m constantly fighting this, and I think even more so because I come from a mixed-race background. There are really so many deeply ingrained western tropes and assumptions. I find myself having to constantly observe and interrogate these, especially in a visual medium!
For those who aren’t aware, Witchy takes place in a multicultural Asian society where what we think of as “the west” simply does not exist. When I was working on it, I realised that there are so many western inventions that I’ve taken for granted as universal! For instance, in the earlier pages of the webcomic version, you can still see regular western clocks in the background of several panels which I absent-mindedly drew in—but time-keeping in various regions of Asia before western interaction obviously did not look like a twelve-hour analogue clock! Time was told through various methods, from simple sundials to more complex, ingeniously engineered clocks that used water and incense to track the passing of time.
I haven’t unlearned everything of course, but I’ve learnt to be curious and do research each time I introduce a new element to the story: whether it’s an object, a method, or the way people interact with one another. Often the answer makes the writing or art much more interesting than it would have been if I’d relied on instinct!
When was the first time you felt the need to scratch that storyteller’s itch? Were comics always the way you envisioned these stories to be told?
I was writing stories from a very young age. I’d carry around notebooks and sketchbooks everywhere I went, and was constantly scribbling down any idea that came to me. Although if I were to be asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, the answer was usually ‘become a Pokémon artist’.
I wasn’t really allowed to have comics as a kid because my parents (who are both journalists) considered them to be junk food. I was drip-fed the occasional manga as a treat, and read through the same copy of Calvin and Hobbes over and over. But it was inevitable that I’d go online to sate my appetite. I probably discovered webcomics when I was about nine or ten, and that was it for me.
I think I’ve always wanted to work in a creative field, but I hopped around interests a lot, because I never considered that I’d be able to make a career out of comics. Eventually I found my way to animation, which is what I studied in university while I worked frantically on Witchy in my free time.
But as I continued on my studies, I became increasingly disillusioned with the animation industry—in particular, with the opportunities available to marginalised people who wanted to tell their own stories. With the added disadvantage of trying to break into the predominantly US/European industry from outside of those regions, it seemed like it’d be forever before I’d have the kind of creative control I desired. Then I saw an uptick of interest in terms of graphic novels in the US, and felt I already had a foothold there, so when I graduated I basically said ‘fuck it’ and pursued comics.
That was about three years ago now. And I’ve only just lucked into a (currently still under wraps) situation where I’ll be financially secure for the next five years making comics, thanks to my extremely talented agent Linda Camacho. I doubt I would have made it here so soon if it hadn’t been for the immeasurable good graces of my parents, who let me continue to live with them after graduating from uni: a privilege I am keenly aware most people do not have.
How did you learn to create art the way you do?
I probably have to thank the internet for that. In the early 2000s there was a free browser-based drawing program called ‘oekaki’, which was integrated into a BBS (short for “bulletin board system”, a type of online message board). There were heaps of sites built on the oekaki BBS, and they were extremely popular among younger artists, who would make artworks within the program and then post them to the boards for comment and critique. The coolest part of the program was that you could watch a video playback of other artists’ work processes, so you could easily get an idea of how they made a picture from start to finish.
I learnt how to use oekaki from around age eight, though most of that early art has been deleted for, well, looking like it was drawn by an eight-year-old. But once I developed the barebones skills necessary to create a semi-cogent drawing, the communities were supportive: trading tips, giving encouragement, and the like. That really fostered my creativity, and helped to develop both my drawing skills and my ability to view my work with a critical eye. By the time I was around thirteen or fourteen I began moving away from oekaki and onto larger social media platforms like DeviantArt, and then eventually Tumblr and Twitter, but the friends I made (some of which I’m still in touch with!), and the skills I learnt through oekaki were extremely formative.
I can’t deny that large-scale social media has definitely benefited my career, but I often miss social media platforms based around a small community.
For those who aren’t aware, Witchy takes place in a multicultural Asian society where what we think of as “the west” simply does not exist.
How do you plan out your comics? Does your process differ based on the size of the project? Is it different to making your zines? You’ve got an ongoing webcomic, have made zines with banger titles like “I Made This Zine to Monetise My Panic Disorder”, as well as completed comics—the public wants to know!
It’s definitely a process I’ve worked out from trial, error, and experience. Shorter ones, like ‘Panic Disorder’—which I made for a zine fair—are usually last-minute ideas that I’ve had floating around where I’ve been like, “Uh, three days until the fair? Okay, I have time to make and print that.” But that’s on the haphazard, improvisational end of the spectrum, where I’ll sort of jam some ideas together and then write the rest as I draw.
For longer ones, I first break down the separate parts of the process: outlining, script-writing, sketching, inking, colouring, etc. Then I figure out how many words I can write or pages I can draw for each step of the process. Then I just do a bit of maths and add that all together, keeping time for weekends plus a little extra buffer!
Of course, there have been projects where I have an editor or another third-party who’s given me a hard deadline, and in that case I’ll scale aspects of my technique and style so that I can actually get it done in time (although I have to note: without crunching)
This doesn’t always work, as creativity is a fickle beast, but I feel like I get better at it with every project!
Bouncing off ‘I Made This Zine to Monetise My Panic Disorder’: what’s the story behind the saucy eggplant persona? What’s the story behind the way you design characters?
Okay, so, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t aware of the eggplant’s phallic reputation before I made my author persona an eggplant, but it really wasn’t on my mind at the time. I’ve always just thought they were a visually appealing vegetable, and that they taste delicious. Whenever I saw them I felt a kind of kinship, so I thought “why not make that me”, because I didn’t really want to draw myself as a human. I don’t think I put a lot of thought into that design; it just organically evolved over time.
As for my more humanoid characters, it’s a mix of studying real people, instinct (asking myself if it “feels right”), and using the techniques hammered into me while making animation. Some characters—like Nyneve, the protagonist in Witchy—I draw once, maybe not even with a specific project in mind, and I’m like ‘well that’s mostly perfect, just gotta refine it a little.’
For other characters, like the protagonist of another comic I’m currently developing, no matter how many iterations I draw, how much I shift around proportions and facial features, they never feel quite right. It’s not until I start actually laying down sketches for comic pages that their final design starts to properly coalesce.
It’s wild that regardless of what stage a creative is at in their practice, creativity can still be what you describe as “a fickle beast”. What do you do to deal with the days when things like creativity, drive or inspiration aren’t working in your favour? Does the Ariel of today still carry around sketchbooks and the like?
Since I spend all day drawing for work, I don’t have as much energy for sketchbooks anymore. But I’ve become a huge fan of note-taking. I have ADD, so my brain is pretty much constantly running at 100km/h, with new stories and other creative ideas constantly popping into my head. I try to write them all down—no matter how silly they seem—in my note-taking app, so that when I do become creatively blocked, I have an enormous trove of ideas to return to. Even if I don’t end up using the ideas word-for-word, they often spark inspiration in other ways.
Thank you for being such a delight! Parting advice on advancing a creative career would be nice, but I think especially when it comes to POC, a supportive creative friend group is priceless. So, parting advice: what are the qualities of a good art friend?
Thank you so much for having me! I think you are bang on the money there—community is essential for artists, especially those on the margins. I found a lot of my current network and friends pretty organically while hanging out on the internet or through university, but I do have some tips to keep in mind:
Interests can be fickle, but core ideals and philosophies are a little more constant. Find people that share your approach to art and life, or challenge you in a way that makes you stronger.
Don’t befriend people for their clout, and conversely, watch out for people who want the same from you. It’s not a healthy foundation for a relationship and can lead to some uncomfortable dynamics.
Befriend artists outside your discipline! Your horizons will be so much wider and richer for it. Of course I have friends in my field, but my friends and peers in games, prose, performing arts, etc, have informed my practice in ways I would never have guessed!
Make friends who aren’t artists at all. As much as I love them, creative communities can be pretty insular, so it’s good to stretch your legs outside of them sometimes. Life isn’t just art!
Find out more
Interview by Soolagna Majumdar
Self-portraits by Ariel Slamet Ries