A String of Talent

Shirl Sazynski - How to Make a Voodoo Dollie

By Patti Martinson
July 27, 2009

Shirl Sazynski is a member of the comics cooperative 7000 BC and a contributor to the string anthology series. When she is not making voodoo dollies, she is busy writing great articles and reviews as a new member of Sequential Tart.

Sequential Tart: How did you get involved with 7000 BC? And how has it shaped your work?

Shirl Sazynski: It's the library's fault. No, really. Soon after moving to Albuquerque, I inquired about teaching workshops in art/writing or based in comics and manga at public libraries. The cultural liaison took me up on the offer and also referred me to 7000 BC.

My introduction to the group came from conducting an interview, as Jeff and Courtney's Peoplings caught my eye with its unique subject matter, art style and horizontal layout, and I did a piece on it for Albuquerque Arts before ever making it to a meeting.

I discovered a group with childlike wonder and joy and a friendly, inclusive and thoroughly encouraging vibe. They all love comics! They all love making them! They weren't big into "rules" and fan worship, and treated me, another woman, like a human being who liked the same stuff instead of just as "a girl". Real sequential art was being passed around — not girlie pinups. Courtney and Monica as longtime members also sold me on the group. There was an appreciation for non-comics arts and writing as well. This completely flew in the face of past experiences I've had with comics groups in other regions.

7000 BC hasn't shaped my work so much as given me the confidence to actually produce something sequential. The publication in string and encouragement from members has gotten me from imagining and writing the perfect story stuck in my head for years to getting it imperfectly on paper — where people can read it.

ST: How did you get started with comics?

SS: Writing and illustrating my own stories. I wanted to create anime and realized comics were more feasible. Somewhere around 13-14 I read an article in The Writer's Market about the sequential version of The Hobbit and decided that's how I wanted to tell stories. Wenzel's watercolor art was keen and stood out from the glut of angry, heavily inked muscle-boy anti-heroes common to the industry in the early 90s.

Before that? I watched Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons as a kid, and drew Firestar and Rogue a lot before a rash of nasty little boys who read too many Wolverine comics tried beating me up — which pretty much killed my interest in comics until adolescence.

ST: Was there any individual or comic that influenced you?

SS: Comics? No. Video games? Yes. I gravitated to the elements of manga long before it caught on — particularly the inclusion of assertive heroines in late 80s/early 90s adventure games/RPGs. The art was pretty. The characters weren't perennially angry or violent, more heroic. I still love the range of techniques and feminine subject matter in contemporary Japanese illustrations, as well as the Western materials (renaissance art, art nouveau, turn of the 20th-century illustration) they draw from.

ST: How did How To Make a Voodoo Dollie come about?

SS: From a "How To" comics assignment for the Sequential Intro class at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I had a reputation I've since outgrown as a flamboyantly Japanese-rockstar type of witch, and played it up by drawing a goth girl making a voodoo doll of an annoying cheerleader as a parody of Pope's "Rape of the Lock". Post-college it became a fully inked and colored feminist commentary with the copious use of hot pink background.

ST: What do you hope readers take away from your story?

SS: A smile or chuckle. Notice the Dritz tomato pin cushion at the end?

ST: What other projects are you working on or planning?

SS: I've got an alternate version of the Pied Piper of Hamlin in the works, with an Indian woman as the piper, in time for the zombie issue. I also write poetry, mainstream and mythic fiction, create narrative paintings, teach art and writing workshops in Albuquerque and contribute the odd piece of arts journalism locally.

7000 BC — A New Mexico based group of comic writers and artists
Literate Machine — Download free issues of String
Shirl's livejournal
Shirl's deviantArt Page