Steenz Quotes

at the moment I’m completely obsessed with Kamala Khan.

when someone’s like, “Design a black character,” well, what does that mean? That could mean literally anything.

Sean Galloway, Chris Sanders, Dustin Nguyen, and Brittany Williams!

When I first got the gig, Bianca Xunise was the only person to ever ask me what it’s like writing a main character that's white. And I was like, I don't know. The assumption is that it will be easier for me to write someone who was Black, because I'm Black. I definitely had that thought, of “What am I doing here?” If I'm going to be the one to create these characters, and figure out the landscape of this universe, I want to make sure that what I'm doing isn't unrealistic.

I would love to see more of us (women of color and other marginalized voices) in mainstream comics. When it comes to webcomics, we’re KILLING the game. Mildred Louis, Wendy Xu, Ariel Ries, Gisele Jaboteh, Shannon Wright, Bianca Xunise, I mean we’re knocking it out of the park. But when it comes to mainstream print, it’s different. I think in order for that to change we need more WOC writing and illustrating more than just other POC characters. Put one of us on Iron Man. Have a WOC creative team for Justice League. Let me see more of us writing for ALL characters and from that is where the growth begins.

anxiety and depression can also change how you see what people are doing and what they’re saying and what [they’re] actually meaning.

white people just don't think about being white.

I feel like sometimes it’s easier to put what I’m thinking into images AND words. Words aren’t enough for me. I want people to see the face and the personality behind my words. It gives it more meaning.

I do like the idea that not only white people have to have adventures. So when you’re designing characters, who they are, what their ethnicity is like part of them, but it’s not everything.

I don't like reading about stories where trauma happens, you know? There's a reason Covid is not happening in my comic, because I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to write about Charlotte getting “hate crimed,” I would rather write about Heart realizing “Oh, yeah, I'm the odd one out here.” There are ways to talk about tough and complex issues, without making it exploitative, in a way that's light-hearted but real.

As long as it’s on a calendar, it will get done.

It's all about visibility for me. It took me visually seeing another Black female doing the work for me to have my entire life changed. I always say yes to panels, yes to interviews, because I want to make sure that whoever is looking at the interview sees me. Then maybe kids will end up in a cartooning class saying, “I want to be like Steenz.”

I like to make sure that I have time where I don’t draw at all. So that schedule, I will do it like five out of seven days. And then those two days that I have, I can relax and, when I get back into it, I don’t get burnt out. Because burnout is real. I mean, when I finished Archival Quality, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna draw again.’ And I don’t think I drew anything like in earnest for like four to six months.

you don’t want your stories to all be people who just have their shit together all the time. They need to be flawed because humanity is flawed. Everyone’s got problems, y’know? And I’m just really happy that we’re able to get that across sensitively to people. ’Cause we also didn’t want it to go too far to the other end where it’s like, oh, ’cause she has a mental illness she’s crazy. That’s not what we wanted to do.

one of my things that I like to do is – when I work in editorial – is find people who may not have had an opportunity to tell their stories before.