Q&A with Nebila Oguz
This interview was posted to the SP insta on 6/28 and 6/29 on the release of Nebila Oguz’s zine I Didn’t Ask To Be Here. The zine is available at Partners and Son, and she takes orders through Instagram messages.
🗣️Over what time period were these comics drawn? How did it feel to revisit older work?
👤These were drawn between 2021-2023, although most of them are from 2021. All the black and white ones were from when I used to work as a temp at a boring office in university city. I would make the comics on blank paper from the mail coming into the office. I was unsupervised in my cubicle so I would spend about 90% of my work day just making one-page comics. It was great revisiting them.
🗣️You really raise a lot of questions to yourself in these stories. Have you come to any answers about the ideas you bring up, like wondering about the supernatural? Do you still grapple with wanting more adventure? Or have things changed?
👤I still do grapple with the same issues. Although I am currently working a job I find more fulfilling, I am still hungry for more adventure. I love the high life. I just want to be glamorous and travel aimlessly around the world without having to think of a career or the future.
🗣️What kind of materials do you use to make your comics? Do you have a preference for traditional vs. digital?
👤I always use ink and paper for my comics. I enjoy the texture of real ink on paper. For my colored comics I scan the pages and then color them digitally.
🗣️Who are the influences on your art style?
👤I grew up reading a lot of Archie comics, and I think that it had a big influence on my drawing style. My father had a big stash of Abdulcanbaz comics, a very psychedelic Turkish graphic novel series that had a huge influence on me. Lots of detailed line work and sexy women smoking. I also love pulp horror and romance, I still read them and use them as reference for my work.
👤You use patterns so well to create textures and fill space, and add so much energy and liveliness to the pages. Why do you gravitate towards that style of drawing?
🗣️I love creating texture! I think it adds so much and creates great visual depth. I am very inspired by 60’s and 70’s psychedelic art and I try to emulate that in my work. Growing up my father had a furniture store where he sold traditional Turkish rugs that had these amazing colorful designs on them. I would always do my homework in the back room that was covered wall to ceiling in trippy rugs. I think that this definitely had an influence on my current style.
🗣️How did you come to start making comics?
👤I didn’t get into comics until a bit later in life. I went to school to study sociology, thinking that I would get into academia. Then my father passed away my senior year of college and my whole brain was rewired, all I wanted to do was make art. I started working as a bartender in Times Square and making little comics about my frustrating experiences with customers. When the pandemic happened it gave me more time to explore the medium and realize that all I wanted to do was make comics.
🗣️I really love that creepy hypnotist who welcomes us into the zine. Do you have a name for him or any other details?
👤I don’t, but I love him too! I think I’m going to bring him back for my next zine and give him more screen time. I was inspired by Rod Sterling and the original Twilight Zone for his character.
🗣️Boredom and anger can make for good comics! Does it feel therapeutic to express these things on the page?
🗣️Definitely! I started making comics as a way to cope with things I couldn’t change in my life. We live in a world that makes no sense, and I think everyone should make comics just to cope with the absurdity of life. It’s the best therapy.