Welcome to Pride month! LGBTQ+ creators are well represented in the arts and in creative careers, and while we celebrate countless LGBTQ+ artists all year long, we're always excited to turn a particular emphasis to queer, trans, and gender non-conforming artists every June for Pride month.
This blog post is the third in a series we'll be running all month long highlighting amazing LGBTQ+ comic artists:
- Series Intro: Roberta Hall aka Happy Impulse
- Feature #1: Blue Delliquanti
- Resource: Six LGBTQ+ Comics You Can Read Online Right Now
- Feature #2: La Guardia Community College Students Kris, Cairo, Vee, and Nini
- Feature #3: Niki Smith (you are here!)
- Feature #4: Taylor Robin (coming soon!)
We asked comic artists Blue, Niki, and Taylor the same question: Why do you make queer comics? And they responded in the best way they know how: in comic form!
Today we're featuring Niki Smith, an artist, writer, and lover of comics. Her work is joyously queer, and she is the author of a variety of award-winning and -nominated graphic novels, including Midsummer Sisters, Sea Legs, The Golden Hour, and the Lambda Literary Award-nominated works The Deep & Dark Blue and Crossplay. Why does Niki make queer comics? Here's why:
What inspired you to work in comics? What is special to you about the art form?
I’d always loved drawing, but it wasn’t until college that a few of my professors pointed out how my pieces always had a sequential feel to them – had I ever thought about comics? I never looked back. I love what comics can do, and I feel like I’ll never stop learning. Imagery and text work together in amazing ways – sometimes mirroring each other, sometimes adding metaphor into a scene, and sometimes creating such a strange or jarring contrast that the reader realizes something else entirely is going on.
Why do you make queer comics specifically? Why is making LGBTQ+ art important to you?
Because we’re here. We exist, and have always existed. And we deserve to see ourselves – messy and complex and imperfect and beautiful – just like anyone else, as the main characters in stories!
What hardware and software do you currently use to make your work, and why do you choose to use Wacom products?
All of my books have been drawn digitally in Clip Studio Paint on my Wacom Cintiq 21UX. I’ve had it for fifteen years and it’s still going as strong as ever! It feels like so much technology is built with planned obsolescence nowadays, and having a tablet that works as well as the day I bought it is enormous. This Cintiq has been in use 5-6 hours a day, through different operating systems, multiple laptops and desktops, and a move from the US to Europe. That reliability is worth its weight in gold to me!
About the artist
Niki Smith is an artist, writer, and lover of fine comics (and some pretty trashy ones too). Her work is joyously queer, and she is the author of a variety of award-winning and -nominated graphic novels. Her books include Midsummer Sisters, Sea Legs (a collaboration with Jules Bakes), The Golden Hour, and the Lambda Literary Award-nominated works The Deep & Dark Blue and Crossplay, amongst others. When she’s not making graphic novels, she’s collecting embroidery hoops and zines. Niki now lives in Munich, Germany with her wife and two bilingual cats.
