The Creators of the Other Side

Mairghread Scott and Robin Robinson

By Sheena McNeil
May 7, 2018

I received a review copy of The City on the Other Side (review here). I was already a little familiar with other works by writer Mairghread Scott and artist Robin Robinson, which I enjoyed. The way they depict diversity in their characters (human and non) is very nice, and they use it to tell a familiar yet unusual fairy story. They were both available to answer a few questions to get to know them, and this story, better.

Sequential Tart: Tell us a little about what got your started in writing / drawing comics.

Mairghread Scott: I loved superheroes growing up, which isn't surprising; I grew up with Batman: The Animated Series and the 90s X-Men show. I defy you to watch them both and not love superheroes! Anyway, I started writing those cartoons but there was always the itch to do comics. They can go deeper into the emotion, do stranger things with the narrative, and you don't need nearly as many people giving you notes.

Robin Robinson: I've been obsessed with comics since I was a little kid. It was X-Men, with the diversity and soap-opera drama of the cast, that drew me in. This was pre-movies, so we had to piece together the story from the few trades that were out at the time and rummaging through 25-cent bins for New Mutants and Excalibur! From there I discovered Japanese and European comics and just never looked back -- though I did stop thinking about making comics for a few years in college, and only came back to the idea I could make them myself in my mid-20s. It was the way that comics tell a story while also immersing you in the world of someone's art style, not just an attempt at realism like a movie, which won my heart. You get such a unique perspective from each artist as well as writer and I can't get enough of seeing the world through someone else's eyes and hands.

ST: Mairghread, I loved Toil and Trouble. (You can see my reviews here.) What is it about the world of fairies and similar that appeals to you as a storyteller?

MS: I think it just bothered me that people never think of things from their point of view. You always hear about the murderous sirens who lured men to their deaths, but no one asks why. Are they predators just trying to eat? Are they guarding something? Do they not even know they're killing people? I like the idea of making the supernatural a little more ... natural and giving these bigger-than-life creatures a life of their own.

ST: Robin, in the "about you" at the end of The City on the Other Side it says you try to live every day like Halloween. (A kindred spirit!) Please elaborate.

RR: Short answer: I eat a lot of candy! Longer answer is that I figure if we all wear masks every day, mine might as well be fun for me, so while I don't do elaborate costuming every day, I do approach my wardrobe as though I were designing a character. If Halloween is supposed to be a day where people show their inner monsters, I try to keep mine contented and healthy year-round so when people see her it's not too scary. Plus, my house is full of coffin-shaped boxes, decorative skulls, eye ball lights, giant fake spiders, and everything crow-shaped that I can find. My four pet rats help complete the haunted house look. Maybe someday a ghost will move in with me?

ST: What is your favorite myth, fairytale, or folktale and why?

MS: Right now I'm obsessed with the Kore / Hades myth. Which is the older version of the Persephone / Hades myth, but instead of being a kidnapped, clueless woman date-raped by a god, Kore finds the Underworld, actively pursues Hades, gladly takes on the title of Dread Queen and only comes back for half the year because her mother caused a stink about her not visiting enough. It just makes so much more sense -- why would you kidnap someone then let her co-rule your realm? Also, Hades is associated with gardening, dogs, and seems to have been the rare Greek god who was faithful to his wife. That says less "stalker in the bushes" and more "introverted homebody" to me. On her side, the goddess of spring being a bold, curious, "ask forgiveness, not permission" lady with a bit of a dark side feels a lot more like the actual season than a passive Stockholm Syndrome victim.

RR: Oh no, how do I choose!? I read books of mythology and folk tales for fun all the time. It's awesome to see how similar stories from all over the world are, and to find the ones that are just incredibly specific to a certain culture! From Grimm's, it would be The Seven Swans because I'd also do anything for my little brothers. But it is hard to beat the humor and humanity of Anansi stories -- I have heard live tellings of Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock that made me cry with laughter.

ST: Ooh! I love hearing new interpretations and explanations for Hades / Persephone, and I like Lilith (who sounds like a kindred spirit for Kore), so now I'm definitely going to look into Kore! And, I love Anansi stories!!

Okay, back to the questions. Other than writing / drawing, what other way do you express your nerd side?

MS: Bullet Journaling. I am a total organization nerd, and I have a Pinterest board for different To Do List layouts. I wish I was kidding! I don't even decorate it that much. I just love lists. Organizing information always makes me calmer. I also play two different Pathfinder (a tabletop RPG) games and, yes, I have a lot of lists there too.

RR: Other than writing / drawing, what do I even do??? Well, since I table at conventions I get to just steep myself in nerd tea every couple months. I am not really comfortable in fandom spheres, and I don't really cosplay, but I love having conversations with people about how much these niche (or not so niche) things mean to us. We wouldn't nerd out so much if they didn't reach such personal places, you know?

ST: Where did you get the idea for The City on the Other Side? How did you work together to create the aspects (especially the fairy aspects) that make it unique?

MS: It's always hard to know exactly where an idea comes from, and I've had this one for a long time. But I grew up outside Detroit and I was always fascinated with the parts of the city that had been reclaimed by nature (a house with a tree growing inside it, a road that dead-ended in a forest, etc.). It made me think that the fairy world was actively taking the city back somehow. So the idea of a fairy war bleeding into a human city kind of came from that. And of course you needed a little girl to save everyone, because that's just good writing.

RR: A lot of emailing concepts back and forth -- it was so great to get her visual references so I knew where she was going with it, and then I would just kind of takeoff down those various paths myself! We were pretty much on the same page from early in the development phase, though; the idea was very clear and Mairghread is used to working with other peoples' ideas in mind so anything I contributed seemed to blend in effortlessly. It was such a smooth collaboration!

ST: How did you decide on the setting of San Francisco in the early 1900s? Why is this setting important to exemplifying the diversity of human and fairy alike?

MS: Why that time / place? Well the 1906 earthquake felt like a magical event in how terrible it was. In our book it's shown as a dragon of fire eating through the city, and it did damn-near level the entire place. The city burned for days and it took over a decade to fully recover. I also like that time because it's modern enough to feel familiar (they had cars, phones, etc.) but it still feels a little magical on its own.

As far as diversity (our main characters, Isabel and Benjie, are Hispanic and Filipino respectively), we mostly did that to be historically accurate. People still think history was A LOT whiter than it was, but San Francisco was owned by Spain / Mexico for almost a century and had many wealthy Hispanic families. The Filipino community was a lot smaller than the Chinese community at the time, but that's actually important to Benjie's storyline, and they were there too. The fairies come from all over the world because it felt wrong to make magical San Francisco culturally homogenous when real San Francisco wasn't.

RR: It is a city built out of so many peoples' stories. This is a place that has kinda always been a population center, even before it was a city, and we humans bring our faeries and monsters and deities with us so it seems like of course it would be an important place for the folks on the other side of the veil if it's important for us! The history of colonization is traumatic, and immigration stories are traumatic, but the fact that humans hold on and keep telling their stories, and that those stories keep things alive that might have otherwise been lost ... it's magical in the best, truest way.

ST: I love all the differently strong female characters: Isabel, Spine, and Id'naress. Which one was your favorite to bring to life and why?

Click to enlarge.

MS: Spine! I love Isabel, our main character. But as a kid I loved mermaids, and I remember being pulled aside by one of my teachers in middle school and told I'd be a great writer when I stopped writing about them in particular and focused on "real" stories. I was so heartbroken at the thought that'd I'd have to write about humans for the rest of my life! Anyway, Spine is our wicked, deadly, bad-a** mermaid assassin who can swim through any material she touches. Robin made her so cool, and, as soon I saw her design, it was like vengeance for 8 year-old me.

RR: I love them all, too! Spine is such a fave for me though. She's sharp and aggressive and obsessed with hunting her quarry, but there's a conflicted, intelligent person under that who gets a chance to step up and shine. I loved drawing her power in action, too!

ST: What's next on your creative horizons? And what conventions will you be attending in 2018?

MS: I have a couple of issues of Green Arrow coming out from DC Comics and several unannounced comics projects in the works that hopefully get revealed soon. As for conventions, I'll be at San Diego, Denver, and a few other conventions (one in England that hasn't been announced yet). So stay tuned!

RR: I have a short comic in the long-awaited 1001 Knights anthology and an issue of Princeless coming out soon! My next big project is still a secret, but I'm dying of excitement over it. In the meantime you'll find me at some west coast anime cons indulging my nerd, like Fanime in May, and I'll be holding down the fort at PRGE and Rose City Comic Con in my own Portland, OR!