France, early 20th century.
A private detective gets involved in a case full of mystery, lies and secrets around the theft of works of art.
This is the premise of We Steal Time, the webcomic created by Anna Domènech to which we are hooked on Joso and which promises an unexpected ending.
Anna, only 16 years old, has just finished the third year of the Comic course at Joso.
A great talent and a great desire to create have resulted in this story that you can find on the Webtoon platform.
With this interview, we invite you to know a little more about the young author.
How did you come up with the story of Detective Poirer?
The story goes back to last year, when I drew by chance a character I called Paul; but he didn’t look anything like the detective of the current story.
I liked the character and started to set up a whole story around him that included secret organizations, time travel, family problems, detectives… In general, I put there everything I liked in a story and mixed it up.
As in cooking, even if you have things that are good separately, mixing them all together doesn’t assure you of an equally good or better result, but you have a good chance that something inedible will come out.
And something like that was said to me when I presented it to Giovanni Di Gregorio in the online screenwriting course, who recommended me to simplify it and give it some sense.
So I did, using the name of the previous protagonist (Paul) for the new one, detective Paul Poirer, who is a mixture of several characters that appeared in the previous version.
The story made sense and, of all the genres it encompassed, it ended up concentrating on two: the detective and another one (I can’t say the other, it would be a spoiler spoiler).
What kind of adventures will the person who starts reading it today find?
At the moment you will find yourself with the typical detective story (Agatha Christie style) with some clear suspects and a crime scene.
But I don’t plan for it to be that way for the whole story and, although there are still quite a few chapters to go, there is a twist that I hope will surprise the reader and change the dynamics of the whole story.
You write the story, draw it and do the inking.
For the new episodes, you’ve teamed up with another Joso student, Sanny PM, who does the coloring.
You and Sanny go to different courses, different days… How did you meet?
We met thanks to Mike Ratera, my teacher in the comics course.
He was teaching both of us, and when my former colorist had to quit, I was looking for someone to fill that role.
Mike recommended me to his student Sanny.
So he put us in touch by email and we started collaborating.
Could you describe a little bit the working methodology between the two?
Do you give guidelines or do you leave freedom?
What is your work system like?
We have a working method, but we don’t have “deadlines”, since we both do more than just Webtoon.
First I make the ink and pass it on.
I also explain anything that she thinks is not clear, such as details about the appearance of a character or furniture in a space (although I can tell her that someone has brown hair, but the shade of brown is chosen by her).
Also, if necessary, I recommend specific lighting or simply explain the feeling I’d like the particular scenes to give.
But otherwise, she has total freedom.
Once I’ve passed her the ink, I get to work on the one for the next chapter while she colors the previous one I’ve passed her.
Once Sanny finishes it, I’ve probably finished the next chapter as well, and then I give it to her to do the same and she gives me back the one she colored.
Completed the coloring, I put the dialogues, publish it in Webtoon and start working on the next one to do the same once she finishes the one I passed her.
Why did you choose the webcomic format?
Because I’m trying to get used to working digitally and, since I was already reading comics on that platform, it was the first option that came to mind when I decided to self-publish my story.
Did you have a hard time adapting to Webtoon’s type of vertical storytelling?
At the beginning yes, and I think I still haven’t fully adapted.
But with each chapter I publish I learn things I shouldn’t do again and things I should, and in this way I hope that in a short time my narrative skills will be enough for the reader to understand what is going on without complications.
You say you are a consumer of Webtoon comics.
Yes.
It used to be much more so than now, but every now and then I still read a story from there, as there are some very talented authors and very original stories that can’t be found in any other format.
At the end of each chapter, we see that you sign as Mjölnir.
Why that name?
Mjölnir is Thor’s hammer and it just so happened that when I decided on the name I had recently seen a movie of that character.
I thought it would be a good name.
I wanted to put some other name that had a meaning related to my name or what I do, but the truth is that I couldn’t think of anything and I ended up with that one.
You have just finished 3rd year of Comic.
What do you plan to do next year?
Next year I hope to take the digital color course so I can illustrate my characters and give better instructions to Sanny for the comic; and also to be able to continue on my own if she decides not to continue with the Webtoon.
There is no end to your desire to learn.
In addition to the three years of classroom at Joso, you did an online onlive scriptwriting course at Joso+ by Giovanni Di Gregorio and now you have signed up for the summer online course Initiation to Comic Scriptwriting by I. L. Escudero.
What do you expect from this new course?
I hope to learn how to write better structured, more understandable and natural looking scripts to improve the stories I write (including Webtoon).
You are very young and at the same time very professional, and it is obvious that you are very talented.
Is your goal to dedicate yourself professionally to comics?
I am not quite sure.
At the moment, I am studying the scientific itinerary to dedicate myself to medicine, more specifically to surgery.
But it is also true that I would like to dedicate myself to comics.
As I know that in both, comics and medicine, it takes a lot of effort to succeed, for the moment I am trying to take both as far as I can.
My (still improbable) dream is to be able to work in medicine while publishing comics.
But I know that I will probably have to decide at some point.
From Escola Joso we want to thank Anna for granting us this interview and we invite you to read We Steal Time:
