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Featured Artist - Ursula Vernon
by Reece Notley
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3Crow: Let’s get the courtesies and
genuflection out of the way… Ursula, thank you for sitting
with Three Crow Press for our premier issue. We are very
glad to have you. I wanted to speak first about your art.
Perhaps ask things that have been asked millions of times
before but could be a new perspective for our readers.
Ursula: Hey, glad to be here (and
c’mon, I owed you from that time you let me sleep on your
floor during Comic Con!) (editor note: Ursula was no
problem and provided endless minutes of amusement.)
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3Crow: You have a wide range of art in
different styles. What would you say is your favourite piece
and why? Can you tell us something about how you came to
draw it?
Ursula: Hmmm...hard to say. I paint
quite a lot, and I don’t know that I have one specific
favorite. I’m very fond of “Azeazelbunny,” though — it’s
been one of my most popular pieces, and there are elements
about it that I just kind of look at and go “Yeah, I did
that bit right.” Like the horns. I am pleased with the
horns.
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Sadly, I can’t remember why I wanted to
paint a giant demon bunny — I mean, really, though, who
wouldn’t? — but I remember slamming it out in one extremely
long and driven day. Every now you have one of those days
when you can do no wrong and every stroke on the canvas is
perfect. Mind you, it doesn’t happen often...
3Crow: Which piece that you’ve done has
given you the most surprising reaction? Is it something that
you did and thought; Ah, no one’s going to like this but
damn it, out it goes into the wild? |
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Ursula: Definitely the weirdest
reaction is the Biting Pear. At the time I just thought
“Weird random painting, probably never sell.” And it got
picked up as an internet meme — some of your readers may
have seen it as the LOLWUT pear — and every now and then I
get a completely random pear sighting. People have gotten it
tattooed on them, it’s shown up repeatedly in Spore, and
perhaps weirdest of all, it’s on signs and masks used by
Anonymous to protest Scientology, so every now and then I
get a photo of the pear at a protest somewhere in the world.
People at cons can’t believe it — I’ve had people ask to
have their photo taken with me and the pear. It’s all very
strange.
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3Crow: You are known for telling the
story behind the art. Do you feel this helps the viewer
connect with the art or is it something you feel that you
should share because it’s gnawing at you while you paint?
Ursula: A little from column A, a
little from column B...part of it is that I know people LIKE
the weird little stories, and part of it is that sometimes I
feel like I have to explain it, either because the story is
chewing on my ear, or because the story is funny or weird,
or because I feel like the piece will make no sense at all
without it. (Sometimes it still doesn’t...)
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The stories are sometimes my way of
insisting that what the viewer is seeing is Perfectly
Normal. Sometimes the art is like a joke, and the story is
my way of keeping a straight face while I deliver the punch
line, if that makes any sense at all.
3Crow: You’ve received wide acclaim for
Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat)
Brave Shrew and your work with Digger and Black Dogs Part
One: The House of Diamond is considered to be fantastic,
vital pieces to any Ursula Vernon collection. Do you have
any plans for another series after Digger is finished? Or
are you going to be going in a different direction?
Ursula: Well, I keep telling my friends
and loved ones that if I ever start another web comic epic
after Digger, they should take me out in the backyard and
shoot me. Digger...ran a little longer than I expected it
to. (534 pages at the time of this writing...)
I can’t say I’ll never start another
series — I suspect I may, once the pain of the epic has
faded, and left only a warm nostalgic glow — but I’ll
definitely do it on a different schedule, or in a different
format, or SOMETHING, so that I’m not slogging along twice a
week to get the comic out, week after week. |
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3Crow: Finally, what would you like to
say to the people who purchase your art and stalk your blog?
Ursula: Thank you all very much! If you
didn’t do that, I couldn’t do this, so thank you for
enabling me!
Ursula’s Art can be found at:
http://metalandmagic.com/
Her Blog .. where you can read about
Ganesh, her cats and the perilous adventures of an artist is
at:
http://ursulav.livejournal.com/
Both sites do contain adult content.
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