Meet the Artist Creating Comics about Medieval Nuns
Recently, I had the great pleasure to sit down with comic artist Emily McGovern to talk about her new project, the Nuns Comics.
MM: When did you first start creating comics?
EM: Probably as a child I imagine and then I think I really decided to start doing it properly when I was about 24 or 25, after I left university. I studied Russian and Politics, and when I left university, I decided to start a blog. I think it was more illustrations at first, and then I gradually moved into comics because I felt that they suited my voice better.
MM: So, what comes first when you create new comics? Do you get an idea for the text, or do the pictures come first?
EM: For me, the text, definitely. I’ll think of a line or an idea and when I’m scribbling in my notebook, it’s written dialogue first for sure, or whatever the text would be, and then I come up with imagery to accompany it.
MM: You have done longer works like graphic novels. Did you approach those the same way, writing the plot down first and then creating illustrations for that?
EM: Yes, almost entirely. When you’re creating a character, I think it’s a bit more symbiotic because the things that they’re saying are going to influence the way they look, but then once you start to get an image of how the character looks that might influence how you write dialogue for them. So for me it’s similar to making a movie, where I would write a script, the words would come first and the imagery would follow from there – in terms of how to frame things and how to present them.
MM: I first discovered you years ago, back when you did the My Life as a BackgroundSlytherin comics, which you don’t do anymore for obvious reasons, and then you transitioned into the Nuns comics, how did you come up with that idea?
EM: I think I started the Slytherin comics around 2016 and I did them for three or four years maybe, ending some time before the pandemic. Then I had a transition period, where I worked on my longer graphic novels and just doing some comics about general topics, and I started the Nuns last year because I wanted to come up with a new series. I had been doing stand-alone comics for several years on Instagram and on my Patreon, and doing the books as well, which were also in that intermediary period. When I was doing the Slytherin comics I really enjoyed having a new chapter coming out every week on social media, one episode a week. So, at the beginning of last year – which was when I started the Nuns – I was starting to turn my mind towards what would be some characters and situations that I could come up with, where I would be able to do that. I wrote in my sketchbook ‘what’s funny to me?’. I just thought of that medieval speak and the idea of some nuns on an island talking to each other in this medieval speak. That just spoke to me and the second I had the idea I immediately wrote about five or six comics. I was walking to meet a friend and in my head I was thinking of five or six situations that the nuns could be in. So, it was very easy as soon as I had the idea, it just clicked.
Valentyne’s Day Comic. It is Marah’s favourite.
MM: I also saw that you did one where it’s not nuns but monks, will there be more of that?
EM: I’m not sure, that was just some sort of April fools a year ago, but I’m not sure because I don’t think I have a sense of the monks as characters, not in the same way that I have it with the nuns, but maybe.
MM: Are you creating comics full-time now?
EM: Yes, I’m full-time, so my big project is my Patreon, which I publish on several times a month because I have different tiers, but I work on one long comic per month that I publish at the end of the month on my Patreon. That’s what the majority of my audience subscribes for and then there are other tiers so the long comics goes on for a longer tier and the tier above that I just make little doodles that are more personal: things I’m thinking about or things going on in my life, things that are related to me as a person, as opposed to things that are for any kind of audience. So, if someone is more curious about me as a person, then that would be the work they might like. I also sell comics in my shop and it’s through those things that I’m able to work full-time in comics. I feel very lucky.
MM: Is it stressful to know that you have that deadline every month that you have to create something for?
EM: I wouldn’t say it’s very stressful but in some ways, it can be. I do have to create to a deadline so I do have to approach it in that way, I can’t really wait for inspiration to come. I do have to come up with something.
MM: Do you have a support network that helps you or that you come to with ideas to have some feedback about what could be funny or not?
EM: For a long time I didn’t have one actually, I just came up with stuff entirely on my own. These days with my partner sometimes, I’ll show him something and ask him what he thinks, or if I have time and I’m not working to a deadline I’ll get him to read it and see what he thinks; but sometimes that just reveals how stubborn I am, because he’ll be like ‘oh maybe you could do this!’ and I’ll just say ‘No.’ (laughing). But it can be useful having a support network in writing, because it reveals to you what your convictions are in a way: sometimes you can be like ‘no, it has to be this way.’ So, I think that would be the only person who I get feedback from ahead of time.
MM: Do you have any other creative practices that you work on?
EM: No, beyond writing my diary not really. I recently started making clothes so that’s my personal hobby and I play the piano but those are very personal things. I guess when I wear the clothes people will see them but that’s very directed towards hobbies and not to an artistic goal, it’s just for personal pleasure. What is nice about it is that the stakes can be very low, because obviously with the comics I make, I’m not entirely free, but it would be nice to be able to just make things that come to mind. But I need to think of my career, so I really need to try and make things that I think are going to do well.
MM: When you did the little chapbook collections that were selected comics, how did you go about selecting those?
EM: Sometimes I do look at numbers because obviously I post on Instagram so when you post things online you just get such literal number feedback, you just know which ones are more popular, so that would influence it to a degree, then I just put my own favourites in and try to balance different things. For example, for the Nuns book it was very easy because I could just put all of them.
MM: Do you have a favourite Nuns comic?
EM: I think the first one which was the ecstatic nuns one, it’s also the most popular one. I still really like it and I like the way it looks as well, the colourful panel. I have some coming up that I think are good, but I really like the Vikings one where they send the ship away by posting a sign that there are only poor ugly women on the island that can also fight.
Ecstatic Visions
MM: I suppose you are constantly working on new comics for your Patreon, but is there a bigger project that you’re doing on top of that?
EM: Not currently, no. I think I’m just really enjoying coming up the new Nuns comics and the Patreon comics, creatively it’s enough work if I want to keep the quality high, or at least to a level that I’m happy with. And there’s other considerations too: when I was doing the books, I was working really crazy hours and now I feel like physically I just can’t do it anymore; my hands hurt if I draw for too long. So, if I were to do a bigger project, I would have to think quite a lot about how to balance all those things. I worked on my second book during the pandemic, so we were not allowed to do anything and so working very long hours on a book was easier, there wasn’t too much sacrifice going on, whereas now I would have other things competing, so I just want to balance my time.
MM: Do you use digital art to draw your comics?
EM: I do yes, I have a Wacom tablet so I’m not drawing onto an iPad, I’m drawing onto a tablet that’s connected to my laptop, which allows me to draw directly onto a program. That’s just because when you publish digitally it makes things easier and again the physical aspect comes into play, the posture of it is quite nice because I’ll sit and I draw straight down while looking ahead, and when I do physical work like the illustrations or any type of painting I’m usually leaning over, so I really noticed the difference because it’s a terrible thing to be bending over, it’s much better to be sitting up right. People always say it’s a bit weird, but you get used to it very quickly. They are usually confused about how I can be looking ahead and drawing down, but if I give them the tablet and they try it out, within a few minutes they’ve figured it out so it’s actually quite intuitive.
Vykings
MM: Do you do the prints yourself or do you outsource that?
EM: No, I use a print service, you can do it locally but there’s an Italian company that prints my books now, but there are lots of options. I don’t know how I would print my own books, I used to print my art prints but to be honest when you ask a print shop to do it the quality is just so much better. I’ve done a bit of research into that and from what I can tell it’s much better than print on demand, I think those have a pretty deceiving quality.
MM: Do you print stickers as well?
EM: Yes, my local printshop did my stickers, I just started doing those, but I think I want to do more. I prefer to have all my designs on paper because I don’t really like the idea of tee-shirts for example – people have been asking for that a lot – I just immediately picture them in a landfill in ten years’ time. But with paper I feel more comfortable with the idea of someone who doesn’t want it anymore in a year, it’s not as environmentally damaging. I just automatically thought of that.
MM: About your big Patreon project, that you do every month, would you eventually put that into print or is that just online for your Patreon supporters?
EM: I’m thinking about it, that’s a potential long-term project, yes. It would involve reformatting, just like everything else when you’re making stuff online, because you don’t have to think about how it would translate into a book, but I think that’s a possibility.
MM: Is it one big story, start to finish, or is it broken up into several pieces?
EM: I mean, it’s month to month, so not really. There is a continuation with past episodes, but I really don’t know what is going to happen in the future; it’s just whatever I think might be funny or interesting.
If you want to see more of Emily’s work, you can follow her on Instagram and Tumblr @Emilycartoons
You can also follow her on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyscartoons
Or subscribe to the Nunsletter: https://emilyscartoons.beehiiv.com/
You can also buy prints, collections and stickers of her work here:
