Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bing Li. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Bing, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I had to learn how to draw and write comics while doing other completely-unrelated-to-art full time jobs and school.

Right after high school I joined the Army and volunteered for a deployment to Iraq. I spent many hours in classes during medic training keeping myself awake by sketching in my notebook. This pattern of course continued into college. It was while in medical school that I forayed into my first drafts of the current Leaf Scar comic.

Despite not consuming a lot of media, I try to pay a lot of attention to those that I do consume. I wonder why the writers chose to show something at a certain time and not another. I try to find out what works and what does not. I also watch a lot of you tube video essays on analyzing media. This is how I learn writing. It’s very haphazard.

In my opinion drawing from observation is a skill that is useful to hone in no matter where you are in life. This is one of my concerns regarding AI art. Being able to see an object in front of you and make sense of the proportions and what it is that makes up the essence of that thing so that you can represent it in a drawing says something about being able to observe the world around you. I hope that valuing that skill does not become lost with the rise of the likes of Dall-E and Mid Journey.

Or, do we think that the art of drawing from observation will go in the way of doing math in your head once calculators had come around?

Bing, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Leaf Scar is a weird-fiction type web comic about events that unfold after a high school girl meets a shape shifting ‘squishy’ creature in the woods outside her Oregon home.

In this comic I hope to explore ideas about our place in the universe, explore what would happen if just some really unexplainable bonkers shit went down, and also show a grounded exploration of a couple of high school students coming to age during tumultuous times- rather relatable.

About me? I got into drawing comics because I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I also work as a doctor and at times direct a youth-enrichment program in the local community.

Making stories is for me a way to process and make sense of some of what I’ve experienced. I have met a lot of people through my work. Oftentimes during a very difficult time in their lives. I think storytelling has been a human way to make sense of life ever since prehistory.

What Leaf Scar offers is just another narrative- another human out there trying to make sense of things, but through some fictional little characters and some mind-bending scenarios.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We need protections for artists and creatives when it comes to how their work is stolen and used by AI models for profit. You can imagine the drop in morale if the more work you put out into the world in your style, the easier it can be copied for someone else’s profit. We are all navigating some new legal ground here when it comes to how creative work is treated. This won’t affect just creatives, this affects all of society when it comes to how we think of content and the intent and meaning behind what we consume.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had more respect for the gap between having a story idea and executing telling that story earlier. It is one thing to be developing ideas in your head and its a different thing to work on putting that story out there. I let many ideas sit in my head without trying to tell them, thinking that they just needed more time to incubate. It would have been helpful to start getting that practice earlier.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leafscar.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leafscars/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leafscarcomic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/binglizel?lang=ar