As a celebration of the fact that we’ve been making our Knock Knock zines for 3 years, we have been doing a creator spotlight on some of our most regular contributors. So far we’ve interviewed Kevin T. Rogers and Michela Cicconi, this week we’re shining the spotlight on comic maker Erika Price. Erika started submitting work in our 6th issue of Knock Knock- Creature Feature and her distinctive art style and story telling method has stuck out to us since.
What got you into creating art?
I’d always enjoyed painting but I think really it was when I started my GCSEs and I had art teachers who could see I had potential, but didn’t have the physical skills, and so pushed me to keep trying to reach slightly higher than where I was skill-wise and never let me give up and fail. then when I studied fashion I had a fashion illustration teacher who encouraged me to keep developing stylistically via repetition of the same idea over and over. I think that those teachers all sort of instilled a work ethic in me that made me suited to what I do now. As for getting interested in comics in particular, that came when I was very ill in my early 20s and I started to read some comics and very quickly wanted to make my own somehow, the idea of working on stuff that lasts longer than fashion does and tells stories was appealing.
Are there any creators who influence your work and how?
German expressionist art is a big influence, especially Kathe Kollwitz, Egon Schiele is another huge influence, Tsutomu Nihei’s books, Kieron Gillen has profoundly influenced the way I approach making comics too.
Do you have a favourite piece of horror media?
The Leopard by Sarah Horrocks, it’s just a beautifully made revenge slasher comic, it’s just gorgeous.
Do you have any projects coming up?
I’m working on a webcomic called Disorder at the moment, it’s a stream of consciousness horror comic, that I create as art therapy. it’s kind of like if William Burroughs and Junji Ito made a diary comic together
Your work has an extremely unique style, is there anything in particular which inspires your creative process?
I’m pretty into formalism, so how I layout my pages is something that I think about a lot. with Knock Knock I try to take it as an exercise in thinking of a story in as short a time as possible, also more recently I’ve been trying to use them as a place to switch up my art style and try new things out.
How do you come up with the content of your stories?
My Knock Knock pieces tend to be about either people going somewhere they shouldn’t/reaching too far and getting destroyed as a consequence, or people who are monstrous and have been abandoned to their self-destruction. this isn’t intentional though, just the pattern that’s emerged, I’m very psychoanalytical about my own work though, and both those story archetypes absolutely can apply to past parts of my life.
What scares you the most?
not being able to be who I am. Dying. also, insects crawling into my ear.
What’s your favourite piece that you’ve submitted to Knock Knock?
probably the one I did for the disease issue, though I’m quite fond of the piece for tech noir too.
You can keep up to date with Erika’s work on Twitter and Instagram
Disorder is an ongoing series and you can read issues here.
All past issues of Knock Knock are available to read in our zine archive!
