We were lucky to catch up with HexComix recently and have shared our conversation below.

HexComix, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Our entire company exists because we took a risk, both as a group and as individuals.

Lisa had been working as a professional illustrator and Lynly had a background in IT and had just moved to LA. It was New Year’s Eve 2014 and, having been friends for years, Lynly was encouraging Lisa to find the next level for her art—being that it was and is amazing. The next level for Lisa looked like taking a years-old idea and creating a comic book, which neither had any real experience with. Luckily, Lynly did have experience solving significant, complex problems and the two of them got busy. After a short while, it became clear that they needed a writer.

That is where I came in! I had just left my advertising job—where I sat beside Lynly’s husband for a year and a half—to dive into television writing. Knowing my writing aspirations, he pitched me and after just one meeting, we were all fast friends and even faster collaborators. Production of the very first issue of our comic series HEX11 began immediately. Once we said that collective yes, our lives began to shift and the things that were no longer aligned with this dream began to show themselves.

We entered comics as unknowns, right on the heels of GamerGate, and had absolutely no idea how we would be received. The industry was still very male-dominated and very superhero-dominated. We were coming with neither of those things but we knew we had something special. So we doubled down and didn’t just produce and print a comic book, we incorporated ourselves as a business so we could self-publish.

We started the company with $500, we left jobs, we left bad living situations, and I left an unsupportive marriage, all without any guarantee that this venture would “work.” At one point we were even living together—all four of us—in a two-bedroom apartment in Venice Beach. Lisa and I literally slept in an adult-sized bunk bed for four months and only disbanded once Lynly got pregnant with her first child. All the while we were producing the book and attending comic conventions. We traveled to a total of nine shows that year, even as our lives were in various stages of total transformation.

Lisa being the overall creator of HEX11, has said many times that it felt so strange to talk about it out loud at first, but as the three of us began to develop it, she began to really see the potential it could have by opening it up to others. As a result, we have all learned to befriend risk as it’s taken us and HEX11 further than we could have ever imagined.

Put simply, taking large risks will yield large results but you also have to be prepared for all the ways that risks will change your life, not just the ways you hope it will change. We are huge supporters of dreaming big but we also know that big dreams require big responsibility.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are an all-women, fully independent comic book creative team and independent publisher.

We started with an incredible idea for a comic and as it was coming together, we got clear that we didn’t want to sell to a larger publisher and risk losing the story we wanted to tell. After nine years, we are one of the more successful and prolific comic book teams out there.

As a result of our experience and achievements, we’ve also become mentors in our community. We offer creative guidance and insight via our Patreon community and we are professors of comics composition at OTIS College of Art & Design here in LA.

The fact that we are all women might set us apart from a majority of independent teams but it isn’t the only thing that makes us unique and it isn’t a statement we’re trying to make. We are dedicated to telling high-quality, inclusive, and inspirational stories that feature and highlight marginalized voices. It is an ambitious goal and one that we are committed to above all else.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

We think it starts by valuing the contribution that artists and creatives make, both now and in the past. Art created by human beings experiencing the world is invaluable and offers us a priceless, authentic window into our history. With the misuse of AI—something that isn’t an inherent problem and could be a supportive tool—we’re seeing a, frankly, insidious extension of capitalism. A way to own the un-ownable and to synthesize creation.

As a society that is careening into a technological space that none of us have seen, we need to recognize the profound value of artists and protect them. What we’re seeing with the current WGA strike is a perfect example—support the talents of human beings and compensate them accordingly. The death of the human artist will be the death of a loving, compassionate, empowered society.

We’d like to see a world that utilizes AI for administrative means, freeing up us humans to make more art, to feel secure enough to follow our dreams, and to bring our own divine expression into the world. If we all felt structurally and financially stable, think of the beautiful art, inventions, and overall creations that would spill forth!

Yes, we feel that strongly about it!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The connection our work creates between us and our readers. Over the years, we have had the privilege of meeting many of our fans and followers thanks to comic conventions and hearing the ways that HEX11 has impacted them is always mind-blowing.

Putting your art out into the world is a highly vulnerable experience but so, so necessary. It connects us to each other and that connection is easily the most rewarding aspect of our artistry. Making someone feel seen, appreciated, or like their story is validated and matters—it’s the reason for all of it. Without even realizing it, we built a real community of readers and fans that all connect around the experience our book has given them and this community never ceases to amaze and humble us.

It really speaks to the overall collaborative nature of art. Letting an idea grow into something beyond what one of us would have envisioned—by allowing others to add their thoughts and perspective to it—is massively rewarding. Not only in our creative process but also once the idea is realized and out there – connecting to an audience and creating a community of people bringing their own perspectives and having their own unique experiences of it. That creative collaboration never ends; it keeps expanding and evolving.    

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hexcomix.com
• Instagram: @thehexcomix
• Facebook: facebook.com/hexcomix
• Other: patreon.com/hexcomix

Image Credits
The photo of us as a group is by Jason Dixson Photography (from left: Kelly Sue Milano (writer), Lisa K. Weber (artist), Lynly Forrest (producer/editor)) Everything else belongs to HexComix