Behind the Scenes: Picking Sides by Hien Pham

Please welcome this Behind-The-Scenes post by Hien Pham! He is sharing his creative process of how he made the comic Picking Sides. This was originally shared on his own Patreon, so head over there if you want even more thought process posts from him. 

-Erika

Hey everyone!

New comic day! Whew! the making of this one gave me sooo much grief but I'm really fond of how it came out in the end! I really liked the page-by-page structure I've been using for these Patreon posts, so let's do that again for this behind-the-scene!

PAGE 1

Here's fun a fact right off the bat: the Side Bear's profile picture is directly referenced from one of my own dating app photos! The dog pictured is August who I walked for a couple years. Him and his brother Pablo belong to a friend of mine, and they live too far from me now so I don't get to see them much anymore (although they were quite rowdy to walk too so it's also a bit of a relief, haha).

The first draft of this script also included a moment of my initial hesitation toward the Side label, as it brought to mind the idea of "being set aside" and "watching from the sideline" which I was already struggling with on the apps. It did take me a while to come around to the term before eventually growing quite fond of it. Thanks to my editor Ziggy's insight, I ended up shelving this story thread as it had more to do with my relationship with dating apps than it did about my relationship with the Side label itself. Gotta keep focus!

PAGE 2

The art on this page was specifically designed to be disarming to make the content of the narration more jovial as opposed to being too serious! This is most evident in the first two panels where I talked about very real physical pains in the text, but the art lifted it up into a more lighthearted place. I originally experimented with more realistic figures here but I didn't have enough vertical space and the (comparative) realism didn't achieve the fun tone I wanted for this section.

Another story thread that ended up being too big for the comic was my experience before getting to explore my own sexuality, only knowing "gay sex" as being synonymous with "anal sex". The little bits of queer media I got to see all built up toward this "butt stuff" as the one and only goal of gay sexual intimacy (which, now I know, isn't true at all). Back then, I figured, if I wasn't keen on the idea of backdoor penetration, that must have meant I didn't like or want sex, period.

I spent about two weeks wracking my brain trying to wrangle those thoughts as well as trying to figure out how to talk about my journey in and out of the asexuality spectrum in a true and respectful, empowering way. In the end, those threads proved to be too big to share one short 5-page comic with the Side storyline, so I had to kill my darlings as they say, and put those thoughts away for another time.

PAGE 3

I also had a lot of trouble with the art for this comic... After all of the writing struggles, I spent another two weeks completely art blocked! I struggled to draw the first two pages, but I was rapidly running out of drawing gas. To be fair, I was going through some personal life dramas at the time, so of course I wasn't going to be able to flex my creative muscles.

However, once I took the time to wade my way through those troubled waters, the visuals for this page popped right into my head, and completing the line art here totally rebuilt my confidence!

There are three different Masturbateers I used for this comic, so, in order to keep track of who's interacting with whom, I decided that each Masturbateer would have a distinctive body hair texture and pattern! I hope you can see who's doing what (or whomst) on this page!

PAGE 4

While working on this story, I randomly asked on my local socials about who also identified as a Side. At this point, I'd already had conversations with Tom (blond mohawk and moustache) and Clay (cyan and yellow pup hood) about being Sides, but I was completely surprised by how many of my other friends who also felt the same way!

It also worked out that a couple of the Pups who reached out to me had already made cameos in Kennel Club Vol.2! So, here, I'm not only joined by people I legit know and cherish in real life, but also people who some readers might have already seen before! To me, it makes the "I'm not alone" sentiment so much more genuine and grounded. You'll never know who you share common links with without talking openly about these kinda things!

This page felt like a group coming out, and it's filled with a special "Perth local" spirit of comradery that I really treasure.

PAGE 5

I always really like to end my comics with a big panel at the end, and this one's no different. It was the perfect time to literally reach out to the audience and invite them to my Side of the story!

One last fun thing here, is I wanted to show how much my (stylized) self-portrait skill has improved in the last few years. There was one panel in particular, from thisb-Vibe Vector toy review, that I've always felt I really under-delivered. Thankfully, I've gotten to redeem myself quite a few times since, and this is one more for the record!

Thank you for reading!

That's it from me for this in-depth behind-the-scene! Thank you so much for reading and for supporting mine and OJST's Patreons! It truly means the world that I get to tell these stories every month, and I am so so SO grateful for your continuous support!

Take care and take it easy, everyone! I'll see you next time with another lengthy rambling!