Today’s Pride Month interview is with comics writer/artist Sina Grace:
Hi, Sina! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during current events. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated in these unusual times?
Hey, thanks for "having me," hah!
Staying creatively motivated has been an ongoing process, and different from month-to-month. I've been all over the place. In the beginning, it was really easy to just escape into drawing. Also, a few of my favorite musicians sent me some new music to vibe to, and that helped inspire me- I always need the reminder that art saves! Some days, it's been drugs. I repeat: I've been all over the place. Right now, I'm slowly getting back to drawing after a hard stop during the Black Lives Matter protests, and Persona 5 has been a great escape that inspires me to draw when I'm done playing for a few hours. The main rule I've adopted in all of (waves around the room) *this* is that I just have to be okay with where I am at in any given moment.
Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how has being queer influenced or informed your writing and art? (I use “queer” whenever I’m unsure of exactly how someone identifies.)
Queer is a great word for my identity, but I'm also just plain ol' gay. There are the obvious ways my sexual identity plays into informing my writing- making sure that members of my community are responsibly portrayed and given compelling storylines, but I'd say it's also challenged me to be a better writer/ artist who can basically kick ass on any job assigned to me. Folks tend to be more judgmental about my output as a writer, so I work extra hard on projects like Go Go Power Rangers or anything with DC Comics for any potential haters to see what I'm about when there's not a gay protagonist front and center. I came to make friends AND be the best at my job, sorry not sorry.
Whether it's being gay or just Me, I'd say that my work is informed a lot by pop culture, fashion, history, current events, politics, issues surrounding intersectionalism, etc. Like, you could say that has to do with being queer, but does it have to do with being Middle Eastern? Does it have to do with being raised in Los Angeles and being exposed to Tinseltown at a young age? I have no clue. But I'm happy with the results.
You write, you illustrate, you collaborate. This might be too broad a question: what does your creative process look like?
My creative process always begins from the same place geographically and emotionally: from my sketchbook... from a sense of having fun. Back when we were allowed to go to restaurants and sit at the bar during happy hour, my favorite thing to do would be to take whatever my task was for the day/ week/ month, and mess around in my sketchbook while sipping lemon drops and scarfing French fries... just writing key lines of dialog, or doodling out iconic moments. I feel like my most successful and fulfilling work has always come from a place of feeling like I was having fun at that birthing moment in the process. You can't ever escape that work is WORK, but when you're smiling, or trying to find one person in your text messages you can share this crazy idea you came up with and not feel like a self-absorbed prick? That's how my creative process looks. From there, it's a matter of forcing the beast out of me... usually it happens at my dining table on my iPad, but sometimes I mix things up and work on my couch or- back in the good ol' days of BC- at a cafe.
I thought your run on Iceman expertly captured what if feels like to come out “later in life” after having several girlfriends, and I really want to thank you for that. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I’ve seen my experience in a comic or book. The book’s cancellation, revival, and cancellation again was … rocky might be the best way to put it. I asked Steve Orlando this and it feels right to ask you as well: why do you think there just doesn’t seem to be an audience for a successful ongoing title featuring LGBTQIA super-heroes?
Firstly, I appreciate your words about Iceman! That book is so special to me, and I'm grateful whenever anyone tells me they connected with the material. Thanks!!
Secondly, I do want to correct the phrasing of your sentence... Iceman's return was planned as a five-issue series and actually had so much value with readers and editorial that we had to continue the story to a 30 page special in the Uncanny X-Men: Winter's End Special. So it wasn't cancelled again and actually low key thrived! But, I get what you're saying. I think comic book titles featuring LGBTQIA heroes have a tough go at Marvel and DC because they require a specific kind of editor, and a specific kind of marketing. Notice how specific I am with my words. First Second had NO problem making Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and Bloom into bestsellers. Both of those books were way more expensive to produce than Iceman or Midnighter and they didn't have the benefit of being released first as serial issues with paid advertisements, but they were backed by a team that believed in the stories, and were marketed to an audience that was craving to read said stories. I love my mainstream comic companies, but I don't think I'll get blacklisted saying they don't necessarily think outside of the box when it comes to marketing and promotion.
Whenever I complain about my experience at Marvel, I usually focus on the fact that I didn't feel supported. My editor for the majority of the series didn't quite "get" me and was just trying to do his best to make me fit with the vibe over there. They needed to pair me with someone who understood that getting written up in the New York Times TWICE meant that what I was doing had a little more nuance than your typical action book and was meant for a different audience than an action book.
What are you working on now and what do you have coming out soon?
Tonight I'm wrapping up some illustrations for the band Phantom Planet. Their new album DEVASTATOR should be out by the time people read this, and we're sorting out how to utilize my drawings... either way it's a major feather in my cap 'cuz I've loved that band for ages. After this, I'm jumping back onto an upcoming Image Comics series I'm doing with some friends called Getting it Together. The book was supposed to be out this month, but we had to move it to October 'cuz of coronavirus. It's basically the TV show Friends, but with a cast that reflects our actual factual lives... y'know: queer folks. Brown folks. Plus it's just hilarious and dramatic. I can't wait for people to read it. Please pre-order!
We're wrapping up the final two issues of Ghosted in LA at Boom Studios. I love that book so much. It's Melrose Place, but with ghosts! The next issue, number 11, has the living cast at a queer prom and my little heart melted so hard when I saw the final art. Additionally, it looks like the final issue of the Read Only Memories series I'm writing at IDW will be out in August. That's based off the video game of the same name, but my story follows cool-ass lesbian P.I. Lexi Rivers as she goes down the rabbit hole of a missing persons case that involves a robot-human love story.
Oh! I'm done with my work on it, but the Haunted Mansion graphic novel I wrote will be coming out in August. It's a special project, and I really want people to pick it up 'cuz I think it's a bit of a heart warmer... also it includes so many deep cuts for the hardcore fans of the attraction at Disneyland.
And finally, where can people find you and your work online?
I'm pretty much @SinaGrace anywhere I want to be.
Sina Grace is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the GLAAD award nominated series Iceman at Marvel comics, where he depicted founding X-Man Bobby Drake's journey out of the closet, and into the world as a gay man... complete with mutant drag queens and social issues aplenty. Having worked in comics since his teen years (as an editorial intern at Top Cow Productions), Grace has made had the great privilege to work for every major publisher under the sun, including DC, Archie, Image, Dark Horse, IDW Comics and Boom Studios. He's also worked for all of his favorite bands, including Jenny Lewis, Childish Gambino, Tegan & Sara, and Metric. Oh, and somewhere in all of this he also was Editorial Director for Robert Kirkman's Skybound Imprint at Image Comics.