About Fenix Starlight

All my life, I’ve loved telling stories. At a young age, I would draw scene after scene of a story in my head onto the same piece of paper, until it became a mass of scribbles. After some redirection from parents, I started to draw each scene on a separate sheet, stapling them together into a mini “comic book”. As I grew older, and I learnt more about comics, my “stapled sheets” became more detailed, with though out panels and page layouts, turning into tiny comic strips!

In primary school, the teachers would ask us “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I loved writing and drawing, and thought I could only pick one to pursuit in the future. Did I want to become an author, or an illustrator? It was only when my parents suggested to me, “why not comics? It’s got both, and it’s what you enjoy!” So many new possibilities opened up to me- to be able to tell a story, not just through a single illustration, but through panel formats, page layouts, colour, texture and speech… it was a dream come true!!

I grew up reading graphic novels such as “Sisters” and “Amulet”, when there was a recent bloom in the graphic novel industry to target younger audiences. I was particularly drawn to the fantasy genre- I loved the idea of magical realms hidden in everyday world.

By the time I was 10 years old, I had collected almost all of the graphic novels aimed at my age group, and found myself yearning for more. This was before a ton of middle-grade titles came out during the pandemic- such as “Lightfall”, “The Squad” and “Speechless”.
But before this, there weren’t many middle-grade graphic novels that were appropriate for 10-year-olds. So one evening, after searching with no luck to find a middle-grade graphic novel to buy for Chinese new year- I though to myself… “Why don’t I make one?”

Obviously, it was not as simple as that. But now my brain had latched onto the idea, and would not let it go. I had recently turned 11, and drew comics almost every day. Although I was more interested in fantasy, most of the graphic novels I read (like “El Defo” or “Sisters”), were memoirs: telling an autobiographical story from a certain section of their life.

I searched my desk, and spotted my Rubik’s cube. As I had recently solved my first Rubik’s cube, (which was very satisfying for an 11-year-old), I decided it would be a perfect idea to centre a graphic novel around! In hindsight, I should have put more thought into the potential of creating a story around a commercial product, but at 11, I wasn’t aware of this, and had already committed to the idea.

One thing I knew for certain- if I wanted to make this graphic novel, I wanted to do it properly. Drawing comics in my sketchbook was fun, but I drew them one page at a time, in pencil, and didn’t plan out the pages. I wanted to do this professionally, as comic artists I read about had.

I spent the next few weeks doing an in depth dive into the internet, collecting information on the correct way to look at this project. One thing that made my childhood different to others my age was the fact that my parents were relatively strict with internet and social media. While other people my age used social media when they were younger, I’ve only started using it myself recently, when I was 15 / 16. So I had no concept of “webcomics” and platforms where people would sharing sections of the comics per week, like “tapas” or “webtoon”. All I had ever seen was fully done 200+ page graphic novels, and little me thought that was the only way to do things.

As being diagnosed with autism later in my teenage years, quite a lot of things that pushed my to do things a certain way in my story dont probably make sense or seem “typical” without this piece of information. When I was younger, before being more self awar of my thoughts, I saw things in black and white- one way or the other. So when I wanted to make a graphic novel, I only saw t in two ways- doing doodles in my sketchbooks vs making it professionally and publishing it.

Quite a lot of the things that happen later are also because of this- like needing everything to be perfect etc. Thankfully, I have become much more better and self aware, especuailly after being diagnosed, but when i was under 13 years old, I saw everything pretty binary.

So when I went to start on my first graphic novel, SpeedCubers, it took quite a bit of persuading from my parents to do a shorter comic- 20 pages or so to practie the process and learn from it. In my head I thought 50 pages was short, so that was the length of my first graphic novel. In hindsight, I wish I had lidtebned to my parents and done a shorter one, but thats ok, it was a really good learning experience:)

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By this point (still 11 years old), the pandemic had hit, and we were all in lockdown. If anything, this drove me even further- the time for me to get to and from school was now nothing- and I had more time to spend on graphic novels. What really helped me learn the process and materials to use for a graphic nvel were from Raina telegmiers website- it has a lode of super helpful information that I found really useful. WHen making speedcubers, I mainly follower her process, using blue pencils for the sketches (after planning and thumbnails), indian ink and a brush, scanning in pages, and finally using photoshop with a shaky wired walcom pad to colour the pages. When I was starting out, I made many mistakes, including even getting all the measurements of the pages wrong, and ended up redrawing all pages halfway through XD During Speedcubers, it took me about 11 to 12 hours from teh start to finish of a single page. Understandably, with still dedications to online schooling that took up the majority of my day, and homework, I could only work on it for an hour a day, and it took me roughly 9 months to complete SpeedCubers.

My 12th birthday was just around the corner, and I started to set unrealistic deadlines, thinking 12 was “extreamly old”, and needing to publish speedcubers before then. My dad helped me research how to self publish, and the plan was to self publish it to kindle for a couple of pounds. However, within the last few weeks of it being completed, I syareted to worry about the fact that I had used speedcubers as a product in my comic. The whole book was based around my journey, I couldnt just edit it out. Suddenly things like “copywrited material” became a main fear, and we contacted Spin Master, the company who created rubiks cubes.

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We went through people in the company, and they initially sounded very exited about it, and happy to give me a licence to use it in my book. However, at the last moment, someone changed jobs within the company, and they said I couldn not publish or make anything commercial off my book. Looking back at this, it makes perfect sense. A rubiks cube is someone elses ip, and copywrite, if I was in their position, I can see why they choise that. However, for a young kid, this was absolutely devastating. I thought, at the very least, I could self publish it for free, so my friends and other kids like me who loved the puzzle could buy it. But now all my hours of hard work felt like nothing.

Looking back, even if I couldnt publish it, it was a GREAT experience for me. I still managed to print and bind a couple of copys, which I showed my clise friends when the first lockdown waas lifted. However, this devastating disappointment did hold quite heavy on me for a long time. For the next six months, I couldnt bring myself to draw another comic. One positive thing that came out of this, is i now have an EXTREAM caution for ever using copyrighted material. If im amking something, I ALWAYS think of my own ideas, and make sure the story is my own ip, without any products or mainstream brands in there. I drafted out a couple of other graphic novel series ideas, going in depth into the lore and planning, but I just couldnt bring myself to start planning thumbnails, and put myself through ti again.

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I dont know exactly what changed, but one day, several months after this, while I was pitfully doing some homework near the front door (as covid was still going strong), I mentally slapped myself. I lover these months when working on Speedcubers- I felt like every day i had a purpose and something to look forward to. It felt like i was putting my time into something that would help me in the future, and something I would be proud of. I was sick of moping about, and wanted to try again- and this time, a proper graphic novel. I was seven more determined than before- and decided I waNTED THIS new graphic novel to be traditionally published- so the standard needed to be even higher. And thats when I came up with the concept of WolfBound.

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Seeing wolves in films and tv shows, such as Beauty and the beast, they were always depicted as “evil” characters. I thought they looked quite beautiful- I dont really remember the reason why I picked wolves, or why i decided to go with that story, but I was determined to try again. I came up witht h concept of a girl who was bitten by a wolf, and shifted into a wolf when angry, or in pain. But not a horribly warped werewolf creator- rather a wolf, like thioese seen in the wild. But I wanted to add fantasy in this time- and mystery, as she discovers things about her passed away father, and clues hiting he might have been more than he seemed, and maybe his mysterious death wanst just by natrul acuses. She explores more of the forest near her town, and explores the forests secrets, as well as the mythical people who levied there. For WolfBound, I wanted to encouprate the idea of “real life” and “school”, that I had in Speedcubers, but add fantasy, with magical creatures, and a mythical forest.

As this was a MUCH bigger book, I wanted it to be much better than speedcubers. The thumbnails and format of the story went through many drafts, ans I tried to make the book better and better. My parents very kindly helped me cut down the intro for the comic, making it quicker, and with spelling mistakes throught the rest of it. However, all of it was from the ideas of 12 year old me. When I look back at it, I feel like im glimsing into what 12 year old me saw the world, and how they wanted to structure wolfbound. By the time I had turned 13, I had finished all the thumbnails, and most of the sketches for the book, which was over 250 pages long. AS I expected to ink and colour it in photoshop, I measured out each individual panel, suing a calculator next to me, insuring all the pages would be the correct hight. Over the summer of being 13, our family bought procreate and a family ipad, which I learnt how to scan in my pages through a scanner, and import them from the computer.

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Bu the time 14th bday had rolled around, school was now fully back in swing, and most regulations form covid had stopped. GCSEs were now upon me, and i found more and more of my time dedicated to school work. Again with the binary thinking, I had a stupid, unrealistic idea that I had to achieve all grade 9s in my 11 subjects (the equivalent of an A*), which brought extreme stress and pressure that I put on myself, with WolfBound process grinding to a stop. A lot of other things happened during my lief during 14 and 15, leading to quite bad mental health, and WolfBound progess ground to a halt. Eventually, at 15, I tried to distract myself from the heavy thoughts, by working on WOlfBound every day at 5 am until school started. Now Im older, I realsie this was quite unhealthy,. And working on a graphic novel suring school was extremely stressful for me. Nowm, I cant help but hope and wonder as I come closer to more free time, how making comics as a full time job would feel like. At 15, I had flatted and fully coloured the whole of wholfbound. Turning 16, I had the help of my dad to import it in the correct file format onto Indesign (my parents are graphic designers), and work to put the text in. At 16, I the started to research more into how to get published, gaining a readership, writing pitches and sending query letters to literacy agents.

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 To tell the truth, this year has been quite hard with progress on wolfbound. Having worked on this project for so long, nagging doubts of wondering if anyone would like it, and the fear of having tot ry something new was terrifying. Even creating the pitch ios difficult, as unlike more comic artists, WOlfBound is completely finished, as a pitch is meant to be written before any production starts. However, I still want to make my 12 year old mes dreams come true, and publish WolfBoud. Its truly my dream for it to be published by graphix, and to be able to continue sharing my storues and creating graphic novels as I grow older. Although wolfbound took me nearly 5 years to compleat, I feel with now what I have learnt, and having more time dedicated to comics, that future projects should take half the time. WolfBound is not the end- I have planned out two other books in the series, and the old graphic novel idea I had between Speedcubers and WOlfbound was a 7 book series, one i am still keen to develop more and share in the future. This year, I have been more active online, attempting to build a readership on socials (instagram and YouTube), and have quight a few people interested in WolfBound!! I even attempted to create a “webcomic” last summer, but I found it extremely difficult- i much prefer making a graphic novella as a complete project, with an end date in mind, and planning it out and making a graphic novel in the more traditionall way. Drawing a page a week, like how i used to when younger in my sketchbook was rather stressful- now ibe gone through the graphic novel process, ive truly fallen in love with it (ie doing all thumbnails together, editing before going onto drawing etc). 

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It truly makes me so happy people want to read my storeies,a dn I really hope to achieve this dream. Im cutrrently looking for a litracty agent, and finishing pitches and query letters to send out. If you are interested in contacting me, please send a message here! [link]. And if you are interested in reading WolfBound when it does come out, please sign up to my mailing list below, so I can send you an email and let you know when its released!