| IN TODAY’S EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN, AMONG OTHER THINGS: |
- On success and competition in parenting comics (7:34)
- How to accept criticism of your own work (14:47)
- About the search for new themes and muse (27:35)
- What are Bára’s favorite stages of the illustration process? (47:14)
Barbora draws to order, creates her own calendars, blocks, bookmarks or stickers. She also published two of her own comic books full of maternal humor. He prefers to create by hand. Pen, pencil and crayons. But technology caught up with her, so she eventually switched to digital creation for the most part. Today he also creates his own animations. Illustration is her childhood dream come true, she has devoted herself to it very intensively her whole life.
I’m a phlegmatic, but there are two things that can drive me crazy – my kids and technology. Nevertheless, I managed to switch from hand drawing to digital. I’m blown away by it, I fell for it, it opened up new possibilities for me. But the beginnings were rough and it feels completely different.
From rage to comics
Moms have the most fun when he deals with topics such as anger and similar well-known or typical situations from the life of a parent, with which most can relate. The first strip was created after an emotionally tense situation with her sons, which a strange lady on the street made a scathing comment to her.
With the influx of new fans on the networks came the first criticism, which Bára gradually learned to work with. Overall, however, she does not perceive that there is much criticism of her work.
I think a lot about jokes, I don’t want to create unnecessary controversy, I’ve already learned my lesson. Over time, I came to the point that I don’t want to create a space where people insult and argue with each other. I don’t know if social media is a good place to convince others of your opinion. Moreover, one must have the skin of a hippopotamus to withstand what comes next.
Funny only on paper
“I don’t think I have any great talent, but I’ve been drawing all the time since I was a kid, and I think that makes 90 percent of it. In short, everything can be trained. In reality, I’m not funny at all either, which many would expect. But I’m not an entertainer and I don’t really show myself around people.”
In the past, among other things, she also devoted herself to historical illustration, which is somewhat more demanding than comics.
“In this type of illustration, you need to pay attention to historical realities. It happened to me that I drew straight cut fence posts before they had the tools to do it, I had to redraw it on posts cut with an ax. I intuitively put swords in the knights’ left hand instead of the right and so on. All this had to be repaired, but I still enjoyed this job a lot.”
Mothers can’t get enough of Bára’s comics, for which she is very grateful, but she does not want to profile herself only as an author of comics about motherhood. Both of her books were published thanks to a strong following and successful crowdfunding campaigns.
“I don’t want to do maternity strips for the rest of my life, even though I know it will cause a lot of fans to lose, but it can’t be done forever. I’m enjoying it so far. But as soon as I stop enjoying it and force myself to do it, it won’t be right.”
You can listen to the entire interview with the illustrator Barbora in the player at the beginning of the article.
A podcast about motherhood with Tereza Rakousová and her guests. Formerly known as Pandemic Mothers. Even now, he dissects the secrets and mysteries of parenthood. Follow the footsteps of motherhood every Wednesday at Novinky.cz.
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