The Kubert name is quite famous in the comic industry, what with an art school and Andy Kubert and Adam Kubert’s legacy of work with major publishers and their legendary characters. With the third generation comes Emma Kubert, who has drawn on that legacy, lending her talents to titles such as DC Superhero Girls, Teen Titans GO!, and her own Image Comics ongoing series, Inkblot, co-created with Rusty Gladd. Now, through Tapas she brings us a new, original story of family, romance, and following your artistic dreams with Brush Stroke.
A semi-autobiographical tale about 21-year-old art college student, May Collins, who finds her life turned upside down when her father falls into debt and her dream of becoming a renowned painter falls along with it. Her last resort to save her dream is to move across the country to live with her estranged mother and work as a part-time employee at Brush Stroke, her mother’s boutique art supply store. May is a passive introvert who must confront her ambitions, mental health, romantic entanglements, and strained family ties while navigating her budding career as a prestigious fine artist.
Brush Stroke is a semi-autobiographical tale. How much of it draws from your personal experiences versus the opportunity to venture into imagining paths you wish you had taken?
The events of Brush Stroke are somewhat fabricated, but the setting and the emotional content are taken from my personal life. I grew up with my parents who worked at the Kubert School and Kubert Art Store, a sequential art trade school and the attached art store. After attending the kid’s Saturday sketch classes in my youth and eventually becoming a full-time student, I have finally become a teacher there. The Kubert School is an entire community filled with friends, work, and romantic relationships, and the ideal epi-center of inspiration for Brush Stroke.
Just like May Collins, our protagonist, who is a young artist dedicated to her craft, I constantly fall into the art world every day, not wanting to come out of it. It’s a special kind of escapism, one where you can easily create and manipulate anything and everything, but in the end, life finds a way to get inside the bubble. We aren’t just artists, we are human and we will always have to deal with human things, whether it’s pleasant or not.
What inspired you to tell this story?
I wanted to tell this story as a therapeutic opportunity for myself. I was inspired to dive into my love of romance in a simple slice-of-life tale because of all the romantic books, movies, and comics I love. I pride myself on the authentic emotional content I bring into the characters and worlds I create, so hopefully someone else will find solace in that honesty too.
How would you describe your artistic style and how do you feel it has evolved over the past few years?
I like to describe my artistic style as “animated”. I love adding energy and emotion into the characters I draw. I think the main way my art has evolved is more about organizing my mindset and simply finding the individual look for each project I tackle. Every story should always have a unique aesthetic that resonates with the content, and Brush Stroke being a webcomic about an artist, I wanted to really play into that with the simplicity of the character designs and the exaggeration of May’s inner art world.
What drew you to Tapas for this series? Did you have any difficulty adapting to the format?
I specifically made Brush Stroke to pitch to Tapas because they are incredibly creator-friendly and open to new ideas. I had no difficulty adapting to the format, but it’s mostly due to my training in sequential art and understanding how to create visual stories in a variety of media (i.e. webcomics, storyboards, periodical comics, illustrations, advertisements, etc.)
The Kubert legacy is a pretty impressive one. What kind of shadow does the name cast for you as you make your way in the comics world?
I wouldn’t call it a shadow so much, but more like a beam of light. The Kubert Legacy is very well-known in the industry, but it’s not just because of the talent, it’s the mindset. My father Andy and my grandfather Joe draw because they love it. They taught sequential art because they wanted to share their knowledge with other people who love it too. It’s that simple, and it’s that simple for me as well. I’ve learned from their experiences and my own. I draw and write what I like and push forward with every chance I get, simply because I absolutely love what I do. My family paved a wonderful legacy of being great artists and great people, and all I want is to be a part of it too.
