ProFile: Natalie Nourigat

Natalie “Tally” Nourigat lives in Portland, Oregon, where she writes and illustrates graphic novels, webcomics, storyboards, concept art, character designs, superhero comics, children’s books, animated PSAs, and movie reviews.  Natalie is a member of Periscope Studio, and has worked with great companies like Dark Horse, Image, BOOM!, and Oni Press. Her graphic novels include “Between Gears” and “A Boy & A Girl”.  Natalie loves traveling and learning languages.  She majored in Japanese in university and spent 2013-2014 in France (Annecy and Paris).  You can find her drawing around Portland with a sketchbook in one hand and coffee in the other.

What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?

I think I was trying to find the comics medium for a long time, that combination of text and images that’s so good for telling a story.  I remember when I was 6 I did my best to retell a scene from my favorite movie with a series of images.  When I was 12, I was writing a lot of prose and interspersing drawings to help tell the story.  When I finally read my first graphic novel at 13, it was like, “Oh!  This is what I was trying to do.”  Once I started reading comics and had that model to study, I switched pretty much immediately to telling my stories in that medium.

What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?

I agonize over my scripts before I start drawing.  Writing doesn’t come easy to me, especially dialogue, and I can spend weeks writing and rewriting even a short comic.  Having an editor helps a lot (including the times they say “hurry up!”).

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?

Don’t compare yourself to others too much.  A little competitive drive is good, but you wouldn’t want to draw like anyone else, even if you could.  It’s better to develop your own, unique thing.  As you create more and more pages, your personal voice will emerge and a lot of people will love it because it’s different than other creators’.

More at http://NatalieNourigat.com/