We are lucky enough to have Abby Howard of “The Last Halloween” webcomic for a special interview! You might recall her being mentioned in one of our October posts (HERE) about our top favorite webcomics for Halloween. She started off going to university for Biology with a specialization in Evolution, with a deep love of Halloween and dinosaurs, and ended up as a very unique and passionate comic book artist who has put out not only an amazing Halloween web comic and beautiful hard cover book, but also other fantastic books such as the “Earth Before Us” series book 1 and book 2 and the “Junior Scientist Power Hour” to name a few. So let’s get into it!
Lindsay Garber: Hello Abby, so glad to connect with you. Thanks for taking the time. Originally I took notice of you a few months ago through a friend who pointed me towards your “The Last Halloween” site. But the more I read about you and your various comics and podcasts I now don’t know where to start, your interests makes me think you are just so fun to talk with! You even recently built a beautiful area for your pet snake, so your talents seem so vast to me.
Abby Howard: Thank you so much.
Lindsay: For those who may not know you yet, I guess let’s start with a bit of your bio which stated your interests include dinosaurs, horror, and your pets. Also that you attended McGill University in Montreal, majoring in Biology with a specialization in Evolution. Wow.
Abby: When people ask what I studied, I say Evolution and Biology, and they say, “Oh okay…”
Lindsay: Seeing that now you are making a living off comics, how and why did you choose this collegiate path?
Abby: I was always interested in comics. Always into newspaper comics, but it was in middle school I got into graphic novels and reading them really kicked off, and I realized that it was something I wanted to do. I really wanted to be a writer, but I also wanted to illustrate all of my books. So when I found out I could do that, without having to write all the prose stuff in between, it sparked an interest. I also had an interest in History and Biology, so I decided to go to school for the “Safe” thing, instead of going to art school. I wanted to do a science thing, because that’s where all the money was. Of course that’s not true. Especially if you go into Evolution and Biology. Okay, I guess I’ll just study eggs for a long time, and apply for grants every year. Who knows if I’ll have money. My career took off while I was in university still, and I ended up dropping out of school without getting a degree because I kinda had a job already, so I figured I didn’t need it. My education has come in handy because I have a series of books on ancient life, I’m currently working on the third and final book in the series, so it has helped me in the end.
Lindsay: I can see where your studies take your books in a way where even I am interested. I really just like books with pictures, it’s very hard for me to get that type of knowledge. Your illustrations, I’ve seen some beautiful spreads, were the lines are so simple, but translating so much information and detail. I can tell that you have this illustration skill, and this knowledge to show that “These animals have these important things about them.” You really pushed that through, and I want to talk about these books, but I’m curious, you said you already had a job, what was it?
Abby: It was cartooning, I was able to make money off of it, in university. This is my full time job, and it has been since my third year in university. It was basically like the university was taking time away from the thing I was already making money from doing. So I figured I should nip that in the butt before I lost my career because I needed to finish school for some reason plus, I was a bad student, I was very bad at school.
Lindsay: I like your “Earth Before Us” series because there is an overarching story between the main character and the teacher, and I don’t know if it’s her “teacher”, but the woman who takes her through and teaches her about the animals. I feel that these books are a great way for me to learn these things, because sometimes the overload of information is too much, that’s what made me a bad student.
Abby: Absolutely, it was so much easier to learn through illustrations and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the information is less valuable, sure it is easier, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad way to learn, you still learn the stuff, why is there a weird stigma about learning it from pictures, when it’s probably a better medium to describe what animals look like, then instead of saying “And this is how it’s face looks, now let’s move on to the next one!” Where with this one, I wanted a full picture, but not just having an accurate picture of what the animal looked like but having it standing next to all of the animals. I felt there was a lot to miss when just reading about these things, when it’s just so easy to transfer it to a visual medium and get so much more information in one go. That’s just my feelings on that. Yeah, horror, I guess we should talk about that?
Lindsay: I know, it’s so crazy! I can’t believe you have such a spectrum of animals, dinosaurs, with some horror in there. So I’m really excited to talk about that.
Abby: Oh yeah!
Lindsay: This is interesting to me, something you wrote at one point, but I never really noticed it before. You said in the past you described your “The Last Halloween” comic as partly being a response to uninspiring horror media, such as bland male power fantasies with un-creative monsters and hollow plots. I’ve also heard you mention in a podcast roughly that horror genre is over saturated. How do you feel about these statements now and how do these thoughts affect your comics?
Abby: I suppose by what I mean by over saturated is, that certain trends get their hooks into movies, and they make the same things until it doesn’t scare you anymore. Even the original movie that started those tropes is dulled, because you’ve seen these things so many times. A good example is “The Strangers”, when it first came out was “Oh my God, so scary. Why are these people in masks and stuff, nothing is explained!” Now, people who break into your house in weird masks, and kill everybody, has just been so done, and people hate everything to do with it, including the first one that did something like that. You just have to try to not do the same movie that you really liked because it was successful, or you thought it was scary when they jumped out at you. The power fantasies, is more about the last third or final act of a lot of movies and media in general, where it takes a little to far and it turns into an action movie. They just take it a bit too far, now we know it’s weaknesses, and now we have our guns, and we can shoot it. We are going to chase it around and shoot it with our guns, then maybe we will all die, who knows. I kinda like the part where it was spooky, and it jumped out at you, and now I am bored. It’s a really tough choice to make. In comics it’s easy to show just the scary part. I don’t want to show the action part. With my short story, “The Door in the Kitchen”, I get a lot of comments, like “What happens next?” because it leaves on the note of “And now the scary thing is here.” I could launch a huge action sequence that would just be a fight that would make the monster not as spooky, distant, and untouchable, therefore more frightening, instead of something you could punch. I think that lowers the monster a lot.
Lindsay: I am so glad you brought up that short story. When I was looking at your art style, I felt that it could be for any age, and then I see that thing looking at me, and I feel like it’s really looking at me as I am the character there.
Abby: Oh thank you!
Lindsay: I think she is acting the same way I would react. Did that actually happen, can I sleep over at my friends house.
Abby: And immediately leave. There is no reason to stay in that house at all.
Lindsay: Yeah, no wonder that house was such a good price. The way that the monster was drawn in the crack of the door, I thought, “This is not for kids.” I’m actually creeped out by the way that this is drawn. There is a very interesting way that you draw your comic, especially “The Last Halloween” and your short stories, it’s inviting, until you see, like in “The Last Halloween,” some of the horrific characters you draw. I think it adds to it, in how it shocks me when I see the characters, due to the friendliness of some of the characters in comparison to the monsters.
Abby: Thanks! I get that comment a lot about “The Last Halloween,” “I thought this was for kids, I got this for my child, they love it.”
Lindsay: Oh no!
Abby: I can’t wait to do more short horror. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about this yet, but I have an upcoming project that is just all short stories all short horror. I’m really looking forward to it. All stuff like, “The Door in the Kitchen.” Where it’s kinda simple main characters but I got spooky monsters. It’s my favorite part, making monsters.
Lindsay: I can tell by some of the details that you put into the monsters, it’s like your drawing the main characters, and then boom all this detail on the monsters. I can tell how much you like it. Also I read, and I see this, that you were influenced by the style of “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.” A comic which I couldn’t finish due to how depressed it made me, that part is not how I feel about “The Last Halloween.” Are there any other comics, artists, or movies of note that have also influenced you and your comic style and writing?
Abby: Yeah! Of course early on in my life I read “Scary Stories to Read in the Dark,” with Stephen Gammell illustrations. Those are just to die for. Just uncomfortable. I didn’t want to turn the page because I knew Harold would be looking at me. I also really liked Berni Wrightson illustrations, specifically in “Cycle of a Werewolf” a book by Stephen King. I actually didn’t read the book but I sure did open it to look at the illustrations, I stared, specifically this one where the werewolf is tearing a man’s face off, and the detail on the tearing was just beautiful. That influenced me a lot. “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac” I found in middle school. So I kinda like an early thing like, “Yeah, I want to make comics with lots of gore and stuff in them…” Of course I was fascinated by anatomy and biology so I learned how to draw gore in I feel a pretty good way. I think understanding the structures that is being damaged when someone’s face is being ripped off is pretty vital in being able to draw it to be compelling for people to look at.
Lindsay: I love this. This is why I found such pleasure in reading your comics, because there’s so much within you, that you’re able to put in here that makes it so special. As a true fan of horror, biology, and evolution you are able to come up with some really amazing monsters and concepts. I don’t believe you went to school for writing, but I read that you like have the entire story written out in advance so you can insert Easter eggs and foreshadowing. I love this so much. How did you learn about writing for comics and can you tell us about some of these Easter eggs, are they illustrated or in the writing that we can find these Easter eggs?
Abby: Easter eggs, you can find by reading through the whole thing, and then looking at each panel, like I did when I was a kid. Reading through all the story, and then looking at the art again, I love that character, I want to see all his art again. I can’t give away some of them, because some of them I don’t want to draw attention to, because they are spoilers for future content, anyway there are two that I can think of because they haven’t come full circle yet. My writing style, or my process. I just figure it out. I always write like I talk. My English teacher would always tell me “Get a little more serious, and don’t write like you are writing dialog,” so I was always better at writing dialog then anything else. I think a lot of writers are like that, but they learn to write prose eventually. I was like, “No. I’m going to write dialog forever! Nothing else.” I was always just kind of prone to that, but then I reverse engineered how to write for comics, by reading a lot of comics. Figuring out how to improve panel flow, and space out things. I just figured out how to draw comics. It helps. I started with jokes, I do a lot of humor comics. It’s how I got my start in the industry. Always good to get a foothold with little jokes, and then people seek out the larger works. Which is like manipulation on my part, but also I just like to tell jokes. Now I think telling jokes helps understand how to communicate with an audience, and then you can learn how to draw comics well. You don’t have to do that though, plenty of people don’t tell jokes and they are successful and good.
Lindsay: I don’t read comics, unless they tell jokes.
Abby: Same, I can’t name any of them, but I’m sure they are out there.
Lindsay: I like the dark comedy of stuff. I like twisted dark comedy. It doesn’t have to be “haha” funny, but twisted comedy and I’m in. I’ve read that you describe yourself primarily as a traditional artist, but also use digital art for coloring panels. Can you talk about your creative process for illustration? What tools your use and how you plan and execute your ideas?
Abby: For almost all of my work, especially my horror work, I do it traditionally, meaning microns and paper and all by hand. For especially my dinosaur book series I do a weird process thing, where I do pencils in the computer in blue, and then I print out those pages untraditionally, then scan them, and color them digitally. So It’s a process, I learned that from other people that do the same thing. It’s just useful to be able to shift things around on the page in Photoshop instead of having to erase all the beautiful things you just drew because you want to move it half an inch. That was a little frustrating, so instead I switched to digital for that. I don’t do that for my horror work because there is a difference. You have to re-learn how to draw when you draw digitally. It’s difficult, but I can’t say that I’ve quite gotten a hang of it. It just doesn’t look the same. It’s very different. Especially the line quality if I try to ink with digital. It just looks weird and stiff and smooth and I don’t like that. I want it to be kind of rough. I think I will always work traditionally, which is something I think people really like. It also helps me. I like it when I finish the work and I have a huge stack of paper. That’s all the work I did, thousand pages of paper. So I like having a stack of paper to look at in the end to look at.
Lindsay: You also have a website and a Patreon, did you have to learn web design, is that something you had to do for yourself? For having so many books on Amazon, webcomics online?
Abby: Thankfully I did not. I really lucked out. A person I knew in university who is a very good friend of mine, made a website for me, and continues to make my website for me, because he just really likes my comic. I have him to thank for the fact that I have a career or else I would have been languishing on WordPress forever. To be fair, WordPress has a really good comic website that I recommend for people who don’t know code, and don’t have a convenient friend to build you a website. Comicpress, look that up. It’s very good. It’s what I recommend to everybody.
Lindsay: Your recent book series, “Earth Before Us,” is a phenomenal educational series which is physically available for people to buy. Book 1 and 2 both have a 5 star rating on Amazon, congrats! How did you get those published and laid out. Did you have to learn self publishing, or did you have to go with a publisher? How did you get that out there?
Abby: I do actually know how to self publish, because I have more books then those. “The Last Halloween” book 1 is collected into a huge 450 page book. It is beautiful. Also I have a collection of my humor comics called “Junior Scientist Power Hour.” I think we will be doing a volume 2 next year. We will see. I did have to learn how to use Kickstarter to get people to give me money, so I could give money to the book people, so that I can ship the books to the people who game me money. It is a process. Every time there is a new mistake for me to learn from. “The Earth Before Us” series is a published work, which means I send everything to a publisher. I don’t have to touch any of that, they do all of that for me. I have an agent, and I said I wanted to make a series about “this” because I can’t stop thinking about how I want “this” to exist. They helped me out and we got a deal.
Lindsay: You went from dropping out of college into going into something that you are passionate about, and have been since childhood. It makes it seem like people can do this. The fact that you kickstarted “The Last Halloween” and it was crowdfunded within 20 minutes and raised way more than your goal! Can you tell us about how you think this became such a successful kickstarter and any advice for others thinking of doing the same for their comics?
Abby: I was on a reality show on the internet, for webcomic artists. I get bashful talking about it. It was called Strip Search by Penny Arcade, to see who would get the cash prize and a spot in their studio for a year. I was still in school at the time, and this is why my career took off. I was on the show and people really liked me. I ended up being the runner up, and people really wanted me to have money, so I had a Kickstarter ready to go as soon as the finale ended. People then gave me money. I really lucked out, I feel. I don’t know if that lightning in a bottle will work out for many other people. Mostly my advice for young cartoonist who want to start a webcomic is to start posting it online with ComicPress and that is kind of the way to go. Post about it on Twitter. It’s going to be very slow, but if you stick with it, that’s what people care about the most. You’ll be surprised, I have some people walk up to me who knew about me before I was on the show when I basically had 20 or 30 comics on the internet. It’s nice to see those people. I didn’t think they existed at the time. I am putting this out there and nobody is paying attention, why am I even doing this? I am failing all my classes, because I keep putting work into this. People were reading it turns out. Not that I was failing all my classes, just chemistry.
Lindsay: Out of curiosity, how did you hear about the Penny Arcade Strip Search?
Abby: It was through my sister, and the same friend that built my WordPress for me. They read Penny Arcade and they said “You should just sign up for this.” I said, “Okay I won’t get in or anything.” I did get in though and made it to the end. That was nice. I guess I have to thank Penny Arcade for my career.
Lindsay: You mentioned your sister, and you have a podcast with your sister. Also on your Patreon, you have it so people can play video games with you, if they donate $10 a month. How is it meeting these people, and having the support of your family?
Abby: They are really nice people, and are very forgiving. I wish I was able to do a “The Last Halloween” update, it’s been months, but I’ve been so bogged down with deadlines for the third “Earth Before Us” book, which won’t be an issue next year, because I’ll be done with the series. The Patreon people are just lovely, it’s very fun to hang out with them and play games. It’s hard to schedule though. People from a bunch of different time zones, cities, lifestyles, jobs, school, and needs. It’s not like, “Alright folks, we are all done with work for the day, it’s 5 P.M. in our one time zone and city we live in, so now we will just play Dungeons and Dragons or one video game we want to play.” There are added issues for people who don’t like to try to talk to people, but they are great people. My sister lives in the city. I moved from Seattle to Boston, to be close to her and my family. It’s great. She is coming over tonight to hang out. We get along very well.
Lindsay: Congrats on small press expo which just happened and on the upcoming MICE expo in Cambridge, MA. on the 20th through the 21st which you will be at. What can people expect to find at your H94 booth?
Abby: I will have The Last Halloween, Junior Scientist Power Hour, both of the Earth Before Us, the one about dinosaurs and the one before the dinosaurs, tote bags, mini comics, and my happy smiling face!
We truly enjoyed this experience with Abby and hope that if you are in the Cambridge, MA area Saturday October 20th through Sunday the 21st, that you stop by MICE and visit her in booth H94. Otherwise please find more of her web-comic, The Last Halloween, here.
As always we urge you to support these amazing artists in any way you can. You can share this article, see her in person at MICE, tell your friends, grab a book, or support her Patreon.
If you do wish to pick up Abby’s books, you can find these books, at these links:
“The Last Halloween” book 1 (hardcover)
“Earth Before Us” book 1
“Earth Before Us” book 2
“Junior Scientist Power Hour” volume 1
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