When I first started creating comics they were normally based on real live instances from my own life. Well, rather loosely based on real instances. I remember one time when a friend was helping me move, and we were carrying a desk down some stairs when she almost tripped. I turned this into a comic where two friends were moving furniture, one fell down the stairs and injured themselves. The other one said: “Oh shoot… Who’s going to help me move now?” So yeah, basically 10% of what happened in real life, and 90% of what could have happened in an alternate surreal universe.

In my comics, I try to capture relatable everyday scenarios with a humorous twist. In order to balance realism with exaggeration I think it is important to have at least one element that is relatable. A way to balance this is to either have someone say something completely mundane in a crazy setting or have them say something super crazy in an ordinary setting.

I think the key to any story is to keep the reader wanting more, whether you play on the element of surprise or what’s relatable. One way of surprising your reader is to use nearly the same build-up twice, and then, when the reader thinks they know what’s coming next, you come out of the left field with a totally different punchline. You could also go the opposite way – new, and unique build-ups every time and always end with the same punchline. In this case, the reader will laugh because they know what’s coming. And even then you always have the option of turning things upside down and throwing in a different punchline just when the reader thinks they figured it all out. Also, in my experience with comics, if you make people laugh a couple of times, they are already curious to see what else you might come up with.

In my future work, I can definitely see myself commenting more on real-time things covered in the media or happening in the world we live in. I also enjoy joining different challenges on Instagram. For example, creating a comic per day for a month based on a single word – I will definitely continue to do challenges like this in the future.