Natalie Linn is the author and illustrator of the new middle grade graphic novel Bunnybirds.
Q: What inspired you to create Bunnybirds, and how did you come up with the idea of a bunnybird?
A: I was lucky enough to take Calef Brown's 2016 Visual Thinking class at RISD; one week he challenged us to create an animal mashup. As a child I was enchanted by Ursula K. Le Guin's Catwings, so my first thought was "cute critter with wings!" The bunny part came from my childhood pet rabbits.
Here are the sketchbook pages I brought to class (with censor bars over the bad words haha):
I also took some notes in my “idea notebook”:
You can see the story has changed a lot since its inception!
I met my editor, Mora Couch, at a portfolio review event in 2019. When Mora invited me to send her an animal fantasy pitch, my mind went straight back to the bunnybirds from Mr. Brown’s class.
And thus Bunnybirds was born!
Q: Did you work on the text or the illustrations first—or both simultaneously?
A: I work on the text first, via a plot outline and then a script:
Next, I lay out “thumbnails” for each page. This provides a roadmap for the finished pages:
The dialogue sometimes switches around for clarity (or to accommodate smaller speech bubbles), but my final panel layouts rarely stray from their thumbnail counterparts:
Q: The Booklist review of the book says that it "offers a perfect blend of adventure, humor, and emotional depth..." What do you think of that description, and how did you balance those three components as you worked on the story?
A: That Booklist review totally blew me away. It’s hard to express how honored and touched I feel every time I remember Talea Fournier’s review!
I gravitate towards road trip stories because they make such fertile ground for character development. Each new obstacle along the path to victory presents an opportunity for the characters to bond, or for divisions to take shape. You can even reflect the characters’ internal conflicts in the external landscapes they explore, which adds a yummy symbolic undercurrent. I knew from the start that I wanted Bunnybirds to be an adventure story about emotions, so the “epic fantasy road trip” angle felt most appropriate.
As for humor: I love making people laugh, so humor tends to sneak its way into all my projects. I feel like when you juxtapose humor with tragedy, the peaks work like a reference point for readers, so the low moments hit harder by comparison.
I also hoped to use humor as a kind of lever to balance out Bunnybirds’ darker elements. I wanted to keep the story fun, after all!
As writers, we’re made to balance a Seussian collection of technical elements: Themes, plot, pacing, character arcs, tone…hoo boy! It’s easy to become laser-focused on one element at the expense of another. I’m excited to get more comfortable with that balancing act given time and practice.
Q: How did you create your artistic style?
A: As a kid I copied a lot of Warrior Cats fan artists (Nifty Senpai and InvaderTigerstar come to mind). I studied the My Neighbor Totoro art book with religious zeal. My own style emerged over time as I collected techniques from my favorite artists: Some shape language from here, some color theory from there.
As much as I love my Prismacolor pencils, most of my colored pencil “style” comes down to the techniques I’ve developed to circumvent their limitations.
Due to the texture of most art papers, colored pencils leave behind tiny white specks.
To achieve more solid colors, I use a paper glossy enough to avoid the white specks but textured enough to hold several layers of pencil wax. The pencil wax dilutes my base line art, and very few pens can draw on top of wax—so to get those dark outlines, I learned to scan my line art onto my computer, color those lines, scan the finished product, then overlay my two scans. All these maneuvers add up to what I would call my signature style:
Q: This is the first in a series—can you tell us what's next?
A: If book one asks, “How do I let myself feel?”...then book two says, “Help, I’m feeling too much all the time and I don’t know what to do!”
It’s a more complex problem, and one with no blanket solution. I think everyone struggles to balance self-expression with emotional regulation and like, respect for other people’s time and feelings. It’s all so messy!
Feet mentioned a “world-split” on page 98 of book one; book two deals with the ramifications of that event. Overall Bunnybirds 2 is a story about trust, emotional regulation, and the struggle not to backslide into toxic cycles.
I should also add that I don’t ever plan to pursue a third installment! As far as I’m concerned, this sequel will be the Bunnybirds finale. I’ve sent the script to my editor for revisions, so I expect to start thumbnailing soon!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: It means so much that you reached out to me for a Q&A! Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with you about my book!
Unlike my books, my YouTube channel isn’t for kids—but if any adult readers enjoy media analysis, my video essays are available at www.youtube.com/@The_Sin_Squad. Sorry for the plug; I only add this bit because the money I get from YouTube allows me to create comics—so the better my videos perform online, the faster I can pump out book two!
Thanks for your time, everyone!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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