Creator Spotlight: 5 Questions with Holly Adkins

If you ever get nostalgic for all those great 90’s supernatural teenage dramas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then you are not alone! Sydney comic creator Holly Adkins does to, and for this weeks Creator Spotlight we take 5 and learn more about her spooky webcomic, and what makes her tick! 

What are you playing/reading/watching right now? I’m currently reading From Here To Eternity by Caitlin Doughty for researching a future story, which is about different death and funeral practices across the world. It’s fascinating, especially the chapter about the village of Toraja, Indonesia where they live with the deceased for months and years after their death. I’ve also been obsessed about Black Panther since I finally got to see it around Easter (although that’s not the most controversial take on the internet out there).

What is Further? Why is it important? Further is a long-form supernatural dramedy following two teenagers, Manfred (a musical prodigy avoiding the bad decisions made after her dad died) and Nicholas “Worth” Worthing (a spoiled rich kid placed under a family curse), uncovering the bizarre and disturbing supernatural secrets of their British town and boarding school, even though it’s the last thing they want to do.

I started off writing Further in 2013-2014 and have been releasing it weekly as a webcomic since Halloween that year. I’d been trying to write a story for ages that captured my love for Buffy-era horror/supernatural, my obsession with mythologies as a kid and the feeling of ‘magic’ I had when I went to visit family in the UK. I’d also had a really weird high school experience with the final high school I went to (the bible studies teacher thinking God once spoke to him through a doberman was not the wildest thing that happened for example), and I really needed to put those stories somewhere.

However, as I started writing and drawing up the pages  I realised what I was really trying to encapsulate was that teenage feeling when start seeing the façade of security and trust in adulthood authorities and institutions fade as you start crossing the teenage threshold to adulthood, and give some catharsis to the fact that growing up is actually hard – but it’s worth it .

Further was recently picked up by Behemoth comics, and the first chapter is going to be kickstarted in May once all the pages are updated to have the latest colouring. I’ve learnt a lot on how to make comics while doing this project, so it’s exciting to be able to put it all out there in a book!

Apart from your comic what should everyone be looking out for in local Australian Pop Culture? I’ve just started reading Vainglorious by Kelly Bull online and it’s really exciting! It’s about a dragon named Rei placed under a spell after failing to overthrow the Queen trying to get back home. It’s really funny and the pacing is masterful through the whole story so far.

Major prediction for Pop Culture 12 months from now? I’ve really been enjoying how horror as a genre is really getting into the spotlight, so I think the Hereditary is going to follow A Quiet Place in terms of cult following, and the next IT movie is going to get huge. Seeing the rising news stories about hacking, data breaches and bitcoin, I think we’re going to see the resurgence of cyberpunk and sci-fi keep growing and address these anxieties in a real way (and some awful, clunky ways as well).

Best last thing you ate? There’s this over the top fancy fruit and veg store near where I live, and they sell those grapes that taste like cotton candy, which has been fun to chow down on while recolouring. In case you were wondering, they taste like if there was a grape flavour of cotton candy.