Last Wednesday, I stopped by my local comic book store after I got home from my day job, looking for a copy of the first issue of Heathen, the brand new comic from Oklahoma-based Natasha Alterici, one of my favorite up-and-coming artists. The very friendly cashier told me that all issues were gone by 10:15 and people had been asking for it all day. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t a fluke and it was the case both in comic shops across Seattle and across the US. It was quickly announced a second printing had been ordered. People really loved the “lesbian Viking comic,” and for good reason. It’s a finely told story that has me counting down the days until issue two. Plus, the art is really cool.
Heathen, though, is probably my second-favorite Natasha Alterici project, as I’m very excited to be a patron of the Lez Film Review. Though only reviewing a handful of films to date, it provides great film criticism, told in comic form (the comic on the 2004 Charlie’s Angels parody D.E.B.S. is particularly great). It’s a great use of her skills as an artist, storyteller, and critic – and it makes every other film critic I know (myself included) look like underachievers.
Natasha Alterici can be found at Emerald City Comic Con throughout the weekend, at booth S13 (you can make her trip a little smoother here). Before heading to the Pacific Northwest, she took some time from her busy schedule to answer a few of my questions by e-mail.
If I’m not mistaken your new comic Heathen comes out later week from Vault Comics. Can you talk about the story and/or putting the comic together?
Heathen has had a long an interesting journey, that started with an invitation to the Ren Faire and ended with a publishing deal. So a few years back, I was invited to go to the renaissance fair with some friends, all of whom were girls planning to wear some variation on the medieval dress. Since I’m not the dress-wearing type, I fashioned together a barbarian warrior costume for myself, complete with a leather helmet with paper mache horns. After the fair I kept drawing the costume, and eventually a character emerged, a lithe lesbian Viking girl who needed a story. I started researching Norse Mythology and found the story of Brynhild, the cursed Valkyrie and it struck a cord in me. I wrote up the first script and drew a handful of pages and pitched it to a local publisher, Literati Press, who happily snatched it up. That was Heathen’s home for a couple years, but it quickly became apparent the title was outgrowing the means of the small publisher, so we pitched it out to larger publishers. There was a moment we thought it would go to Heavy Metal, but that didn’t work out unfortunately. But Vault came along shortly afterward and took up the reigns, and now it is in stores!
You know you want to read this lesbian viking comic, you do, you do… pic.twitter.com/XX74foNOAx
— Natasha Alterici (@Alterici) December 11, 2016
I love being a patron of the Lez Film Review, not the least in part because I love film criticism and it’s such an innovative way to critique movies. Can you talk about how that came to be and what you have coming up?
The Lez Film Review is my newest project that started with another obsession of mine, lesbian films. When I was first coming out in small town Oklahoma, I did what any introverted artsy nerd would do, and that was to seek out lesbian movies. The very few movies I found were either just plain awful, or they barely counted as lesbian films in the first place. I stubbornly wouldn’t accept that these were all the lesbian movies that there were, so I set out the find them all. I did extensive research, compiled a list, and now have found over 200 titles, about half of which I have seen. At first it was just to satisfy my own curiosity, but as I would live-tweet the weird and obscure movies I was finding, I learned that there were lots of people who were craving these movies. So I resolved to produce a catalog of them all, and in the format I know: comics. Patreon was a perfect format to distribute it, short semi-weekly comics for $1 or so, sometimes for free.
How did you get into drawing comics?
I didn’t grow up reading comics, it wasn’t until college when I had to read Maus for a class that I learned comics could be something other than spandex and superheroes. I was working on my fine arts degree and I found myself drifting toward illustration, I was writing stories in my free time, and drawing up characters, and it kind of felt like fate in that way. The first comic I worked on was for an independent study, I never finished it, but I certainly learned a lot and eventually teamed up with a local writer to produce a one shot comic called Lucid. Shortly afterward I collaborated with another local writer on a series Illustrated Girl, and that’s about the time I started working on Heathen, which would be the first full length comic that I tackled both art and writing on. Early last year I was offered my first DC gig on Gotham Academy Yearbook, and that was when I quit my job and committed to making comics my full time job. It’s been a lot of trial and error, and long, long nights grinding away, but I have zero regrets. Wouldn’t want to do anything else.
What other projects are you working on, and where can people find your art and/or follow you online?
In addition to Heathen (which you can now pick up at your local comic shop and Comixology) and the Lez Flim Review (available exclusively on patreon.com/lezfilmreview), I am working on a shot comic for Moonshot Vol. 2, there’s a few shorts I did last year that should be coming to print soon, and a few unannounced projects I’m working on. Mostly I’m just working on getting more cover work, I like the challenge they present. I also have been scheming up a new series once Heathen is finished, a sci-fi epic about the tumultuous relationship of two women in a hostile post-apocalyptic future, tentatively titles “What Happened to the Lions.” Hope to have that one coming out early next year if I can get a publisher and team lined up. People can see more of my work on my website, alterici.com, there are also links to some of my short comics for sale there, and they can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram (@alterici_art) for more updates.
What are you looking forward to about coming to Seattle for ECCC?
I’m excited to meet the Vault team, I’ve only ever talked on the phone and email with them. They are each owed big hugs. And I want to meet up with my comics fellows, and my Heathen fans out in the Pacific Northwest.
