Just One Question for Brooklin Stormie
Brooklin Stormie, author of Astronautical.
Brooklin Stormie is an artist and illustrator based in Peterborough, Ontario. She is a grad of OCADU’s illustration program, a Pisces, and a believer in dragons. Often working in a distinctive colour palate featuring lots of warm oranges, ochers, and reds contrasted with deep, saturated teals and greens, her work manages to feel both homey and vivid at the same time. The worlds she evokes are full of inviting curves, friendly faces, folkloric motifs, and other-worldly adventure.
Brooklin’s debut book Astronautical!, a whimsical middle grade graphic novel about an intergalactic rescue mission, is out now from Annick Press.
Q. Creating a full length graphic novel is an impressive undertaking, especially for your debut author. How did you manage or break up the work-load so you didn’t become totally overwhelmed? What did you learn along the way? Were there tools or strategies that you will take with you into your next project?
A. First I want to say thank you for reaching out and asking me this!
It is lovely to be engaging in community, online or otherwise, and it's so cool to me that you're interested in my process.
This question made me reflect on my relationship with my work, which is something I’m constantly exploring. To be perfectly honest, learning how to manage my workload and avoid overwhelm is still very much a work in progress. I don’t know if I’ll ever have it fully figured out—and maybe that’s okay. I think I’ll be a lifelong student of this work.
When making 'Astronautical!', I felt that a big part of this learning process involved collaboration, and the support of my community and the people I was working with.
For some context; my whole life, I've been a storyteller, making up worlds and characters that have become familiar places and dear friends to me. But even though writing and drawing felt easy, follow-through was always hard. I spent my childhood and teenage years starting projects and then losing steam partway through, or getting totally distracted, discouraged, or overwhelmed. I carried on like this for twenty years, certain that storytelling was something I wanted to be doing, but totally, chronically unable to finish a project. This does not bode well when you want to make a book. I knew that in order to make a book I'd have to be able to finish something without letting the overwhelm stop me.
That's where the right collaborators came in. I had the privilege of working with one of my favourite publishers, Annick Press, and the truly incredible editor Serah-Marie McMahon. With their support, I was able to develop a process that involved research, writing and drawing, in a way that aligned with the way I create. This helped me power through the overwhelm and discouragement that had stopped me in the past. I found myself really inspired by the science I researched during this process, and turned to this a lot when I was stumped about where to take the story.
Learning to listen to myself and what I need to be successful is also an ongoing process, but working on a project of this scale made it necessary to start to figure some of those things out. Not to mention the magical powers of a contract and deadline, I've always worked better with clear deadlines in place. I knew I had a timeline to finish this project, and with the right support I was able to. Often when people ask me what the process was like, I truthfully answer 'It was the most fun I've ever had!' And it was, but also, it contained roadblocks, challenges and self-doubt. It was both easy and hard, both overwhelming and calming. I've found some of the richest experiences of my life have this in common, they are more than one thing at the same time.
I will definitely carry the things I learned about my process with me into my next project, and can't wait to see what lies ahead on this journey of making comics!
Thanks again for reaching out and asking me about my process!
CONNECT WITH BROOKLIN ONLINE:
Instagram: @brooklinstormie
