Lyndsey Little, creator of OniGirl comic, joined Leah to talk about her love of monsters, the monster boarding school where her comic is set, and the best foods for nostalgia day!
Support Lyndsey's kickstarter to bring glorious color to OniGirl
Follow Lyndsey on Instagram and Tik Tok
Show Notes
Stories to Dismember podcast
Most Oreo Oreo
Godzilla Movie Monster Evolution
Biblically Accurate Angels
Rivkah Reyes on Friday Night Movie Podcast
Beauty and the...
Lyndsey Little, creator of OniGirl comic, joined Leah to talk about her love of monsters, the monster boarding school where her comic is set, and the best foods for nostalgia day!
Support Lyndsey's kickstarter to bring glorious color to OniGirl
Follow Lyndsey on Instagram and Tik Tok
Show Notes
- Stories to Dismember podcast
- Most Oreo Oreo
- Godzilla Movie Monster Evolution
- Biblically Accurate Angels
- Rivkah Reyes on Friday Night Movie Podcast
- Beauty and the Beast
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Frankenstein
- The Blackcoat's Daughter
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Lyndsey Little 00:00
Hello, my name is Lyndsey Little and my favorite thing is Monsters.
Announcer 00:05
Welcome to the Finding Favorites Podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.
Leah Jones 00:18
Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. This week, I am joined by Lyndsey Little. She is a cohost of the podcast "Stories to Dismember”, a horror movie review, and the author and artist and inker of OniGirl, which is a webcomic that is coming to life on Kickstarter. Lyndsey, how are you doing this morning?
Lyndsey Little 00:50
I'm so good. Thank you so much for having me, Leah. This is great.
Leah Jones 00:55
I'm so happy to actually get to talk to you with voices.
Lyndsey Little 00:59
Hmm, I know this is the first time we've actually communicated this way. But it doesn't really feel like it to me, if that makes sense.
Leah Jones 01:09
It makes 100% sense. So Lyndsey, you may recognize her voice from the Best of 2022 episode. She left a voicemail for it. But we are members of the DOS chord so we know each other through the Doughboys fan community. So we talk all the time on discord chat. And it does feel like those are real friendships. So I'm not even going to say, Oh, it feels like or it doesn't feel like because it feels like it because it is.
Lyndsey Little 01:40
And we have heard each other's voices we just haven't heard directly in the moment.
Leah Jones 01:45
Yes. We haven’t had synchronous communication.
Leah Jones 01:54
So how is this weekend kicking off for you?
Lyndsey Little 01:58
Oh, my gosh. Well, yesterday, my partner and I got our marriage certificate. So that's one step closer to the real thing. And for the most part, we just plan on having what we call a nostalgia day. Which is when we choose some of our favorite films or video games from childhood, grab some of our favorite snacks from childhood. And we'll literally just spend a majority of the weekend doing those things, having a whole complete marathon of nostalgia.
Leah Jones 02:34
That's a brilliant idea. I love it.
Lyndsey Little 02:35
It's so much fun.
Leah Jones 02:37
What are some of your go to snacks for nostalgia day?
Lyndsey Little 02:44
Grilled cheese is probably one of the more nostalgic snacks for me or foods I guess; or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Just really keeping it simple. And as far as like prepackaged foods. Pop Tarts always come to mind. I feel like Oreos are kind of cheating because those are classic. I think those will always be popular. But I'm very tempted by those very recent; that recent drop of Oreos that has the cookies and cream filling. Stratton was tempted to buy those when he was at the grocery store earlier, and I wanted to say, Oh, get off… get them… get them… but we already had bought so many snacks.
Leah Jones 03:31
Given to the temptations?!
Lyndsey Little 03:33
Yes, I know.
Leah Jones 03:37
I haven't seen the cookies and creams. Well, I've seen, is it the super stuff? The ones that are like quadruple stuff that they have out right now, that are like hot. So sick.
Lyndsey Little 03:47
They already have really thick.
Leah Jones 03:51
Yeah, there's already double stuff regularly on the market. So I guess one of the main Oreo factories is in Illinois or used to be in Illinois. So we get all the flavors. All the special Oreo flavors come out and in Illinois first. And my sister, when she was at a smaller law firm would organize tastings anytime she found a new flavor.
Lyndsey Little 04:21
Ah, the dream. I'm so jealous!
Leah Jones 04:28
Yeah, so I might have to wander down to CVS and see if we've got the cookies and cream.
Lyndsey Little 04:34
Hmm. It must be good.
Leah Jones 04:37
I'm sure it is.
Lyndsey Little 04:39
Yeah, it's Oreo but with more Oreo!
Leah Jones 04:42
Right. It's like an Oreo with an Oreo filling. It's a very meta cream just to worry.
Lyndsey Little 04:47
Yes, exactly. Right. Sounds great.
Leah Jones 04:55
Yeah, and I hear you on the on a grilled cheese. That's good nostalgia food. Now when you're doing an nostalgia grilled cheese; is it margarine, white bread, craft slices or do you upgrade it for your adult sensibilities?
Lyndsey Little 05:16
It depends if this is specifically nostalgia day, it probably is more curated. It probably has smoked gouda on wheat bread and mayonnaise on the inside, because that's how I was taught to do it. Mayonnaise on the inside to make it extra creamy. And then butter on the outside fried that way on both sides.
Leah Jones 05:43
Okay.
Lyndsey Little 05:45
And then maybe some other stuff like a blackberry jam to go with or whatever jams in the fridge: strawberry jalapeno. But we've had many a grilled cheese in this household.
Leah Jones 06:00
Yeah. I've never heard the hack of putting mayonnaise on the inside. But as I'm thinking about it, it makes sense that it would just get make the cheese melt here. And especially if you're not using Kraft American slices, those are made for melting, all cheeses sadly are. So I could see that mayonnaise is also really a Gouda or a Cheddar, giving it a little bit more of that moisture. That's really that's a good food hack. Yeah.
Lyndsey Little 06:33
And I think you can also fry a grilled cheese just with mayonnaise on the outside instead of butter, but I prefer butter. I'm from the South, so of course I love butter. So that's how I do it.
Leah Jones 06:46
Yeah, I typically use Country Crock for the outside. But that's because, I didn't grow up in a butter household. I grew up in a Country Crock household. And I buy butter now as an adult, and I appreciate it. But it's not enough of a part of my life to keep it outside of the fridge, so it's soft enough when I want a grilled cheese. My butter isn't always prepared to make bread. So I just revert to the Country Crock.
Lyndsey Little 07:24
Well, the Country Crock is nostalgic for me too. For some reason I forgot it existed until you said that. But now I'm just hit with a wave of nostalgia. And if you buy Country Crock, then you've just got free Tupperware along with your purchase.
Leah Jones 07:44
Where we are used to keep the green beans. And then if there's still a little butter in there, and then you throw the vegetables in while there's still country crock in and you get a little extra dressing. Great! You know the fancy pastas where they finish it and they've got the big Parmesan with a hole in it and they put the whole hot pasta in it to get it coated. I say that…
Lyndsey Little 08:10
I have never done like that before, but…
Leah Jones 08:12
What! I've done it once. Yeah, it was a buffet at a holiday party. And it was the risotto station. Because when they finished the risotto by just dumping your whole serving into a Parmesan wheel.
Lyndsey Little 08:34
Oh my gosh. For listeners, you can see why our connection is the dose scored because so far we've talked about Oreos, and Grilled Cheese and Pasta, and I love it.
Leah Jones 08:52
So Lyndsey, you are in addition to planning your wedding, you're also in the middle, you've got two weeks left on your Kickstarter for OniGirl for the first issue. This is an issue that you have fully drawn and written and the goal of this Kickstarter is to ink it right to do the color?
Lyndsey Little 09:17
Yes, to do the color for it because it is it is fully written and drawn. And you can also read it already if you wanted to. It's on Webtoon, if you just search O-N-I-G-I-R-L, you'd be able to find it there to read it for free. And it's already been published in black and white. But it takes so much time to create even a single page of a comic. I used to work on it while I had a full-time job so I would spend my evenings working on it and essentially, I would end up working about 70 hours a week with the edition of my comic. And it just takes so much time to do, so that's why this Kickstarter exists so that I can color these pages and make OniGirl be presented the way that I always really wanted it to be ¾ in Glorious Color. That's literally the title of the Kickstarter.
Leah Jones 10:24
Is OniGirl your first comic character?
Lyndsey Little 10:34
It’s kind of is. When I was a kid, I used to write little comics. But they were little hobbies that I had. I never really stuck with anything. And as an artist, I've always, possibly with undiagnosed ADHD, I've always had like different projects that I've started and stopped. But this is the only project I've ever had, where I've just stuck with it and been totally passionate about. And I could easily just do that for the rest of my life and be happy with it, because I enjoy it so much. And it's a comic that is so deeply a part of myself. There's just so many elements in it that draw from my own life and my own experiences, that are just so very raw and personal, that it just really means so much to me.
Leah Jones 11:39
So on the Kickstarter, you talk about how you first concepted OniGirl in 2015, but 2021 is when you started publishing that project. How many issues are out on Webtoons so far?
Lyndsey Little 11:56
So currently, it's up to Chapter Four. You can read four chapters on Webtoon. And essentially, that's also about the equivalent of four comic issues, like the little single floppies. But I already have so much of it written out in my head for future issues. So there will be a conclusion at some point that just is a matter of when I can do that.
Leah Jones 12:27
Yes. So we need people to come and fund this Kickstart. You are about halfway there. Oh, you're literally $12 short of being halfway there. I wish I'd seen that. You're like 50.01% of the way through your goal. The goal is $3,000, which as far as Kickstarter goes is a very reasonable project goal. Like some people come on and they're like it's a million dollars or $500,000. And the goal is so that, you can be paid to be an artist, right? Yeah, the goal
Lyndsey Little 13:13
It is! Because at the moment, I work as a Freelance Illustrator. And I do all kinds of things, I work on card games. I've illustrated a lot of card games. I've done some comic work for other people. But to be able to create my own work, it literally does take so much time! And the only way I'm able to create that work is if I have the time and money to work on it. And I know that there is an audience for it. I have 6000 readers on Webtoon. But Webtoon is a free platform. So it's really a matter of, do people want to see this project to fruition enough that they care to support it or to share it amongst other people that they know who might appreciate it. So I hope so. It's still a project that I'm going to continue on at some point whether or not this Kickstarter gets funded. But this Kickstarter being funded will allow me to continue to work on this passion project, but also continue to release those Chapters because I want to continue with the plotline from where it was left off. I want to get to Chapter Five.
Leah Jones 14:42
Yeah. That's great. And I hope I have said this explicitly on the podcast, but if I haven't; I believe that artists deserve to be paid for their work. And that's why I think a Kickstarter like this is important because you're saying, I need space to breathe. The only way I can work on my passion project is if I can also… you exist in a capitalist society so you and your partner have bills to pay and supplies to buy and so the only way to be able to continue creating art is to have patrons. And so this is a way that people can come in and support you so you can maybe dial down the hustle a lot as a freelancer and spend time that you would be marketing yourself or doing invoices to have some breathing room to make your art. I think that is really worthwhile. And people that are listening, you have two weeks. It closes on Valentine's Day. So you haven't till now…
Lyndsey Little 15:59
I know that wasn't a threat – you have two weeks!
Leah Jones 16:03
You have two weeks, people! Make it your Valentine's gift to me. The host of Finding Favorites, that you will go in and back OniGirl, so that the author can have the mental space to work on this project and bring it to color which will help her get more followers on Webtoons, which will get her the attention of a publisher that will treat her fairly and pay her fairly for her work.
Lyndsey Little 16:34
That would be amazing!
Leah Jones 16:38
So that's the goal. Is that a goal? Would you like to have a publisher and work full time as a comic book writer?
Lyndsey Little 16:46
That would be the dream; that would be so ideal. It's very difficult to make it in the comic industry. So I don't even have my expectations that high. That would be lovely. But I'm not getting my hopes up about. If I just had to essentially be my own publisher, and just sort of crowdsource the funds to continually make OniGirl pages and just have them posted on my own site. I would do that.
Leah Jones 17:12
Yep.
Lyndsey Little 17:15
But if a publisher was ever interested, that would be even better. Because honestly, I can be my own boss and crack the whip on myself, but it's so much more difficult. I'd much rather somebody else do that.
Leah Jones 17:32
I 1,000% understand.
Leah Jones 17:48
So Lyndsey, I know we could talk OniGirl for the full hour. But we're also here to talk about Monsters. Question mark!
Lyndsey Little 18:00
Yes, so it is sort of, it is related in a way because I don't think it was mentioned but OniGirl is about a school full of monsters. Specifically, it's about a school of monster children, who go to this school not just to learn the normal subjects that we learn in real life, but also how to assimilate the behavior and appearance of humans. So that when they graduate from the school, they can go on to live in human society. Because it takes place in a human dominated world, where people don't believe monsters exist or the few that do; don't want them to exist. So you can draw from a lot of parallels in real life with…
Leah Jones 18:48
It's not subtle.
Lyndsey Little 18:51
No. And that's why I love monsters. And that's why I wanted to talk about monsters because they make for such a good allegory for people who are disenfranchised. Anyone who's in the LGBTQ community, person of color, disabled or differently bodied, I should say, or anyone who's ever just felt like another. Like I grew up in a horrible environment for a kid, like I grew up in an abusive environment. And I always felt like another because I was treated so badly. I felt like a monster basically. And I just I grew up loving monsters. But it wasn't until an adult that I could appreciate monsters because of that symbolism that they hold so frequently. Beauty and the Beast, the Beast is a character of redemption. He's a monster, essentially, but he redeems himself. He shows that inside he's more than what his appearance is. And I love that so much. Phantom of the Opera is a more extreme example of a monster. He literally kills people. But to some degree, you have empathy for him. There's just a variety of what a monster is in media. But there's just so many instances of it where you can just appreciate them on that deeper surface level.
Leah Jones 20:51
So you mentioned Beauty and the Beast.
Lyndsey Little 20:55
My favorite fairy tale and Disney film.
Leah Jones 20:59
Oh, is it? When you think of my first monster; is the beast or is it Monsters Inc or Frankenstein? Who's your origin story monster?
Lyndsey Little 21:17
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Leah Jones 21:23
Are they monsters?
Lyndsey Little 21:24
In my heart, I consider them sort of like monsters. They're not monsters in the traditional sense, but they're still in other because they do their best to fight crime, but they still have to live in the sewers away from people. They can't reveal themselves to people. So there is that desire to do good, but knowing that they're another. So I love that. It's just another facet of that whole thing.
Leah Jones 21:57
In which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were your first turtles? Or were they like Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-He-Was-In-A-Half-Shell ¾ was it that type of ninja turtle? Or was it the grittier comic book? Or was it the live action? Was there a live action movie?
Lyndsey Little 22:15
There was? Yeah
Leah Jones 22:16
Live action movie. So what turtles are your turtles?
Lyndsey Little 22:20
So I did grow up a little around the cartoon. I think the cartoon was slightly before my time. So I was aware of it and I had seen some of it. But the movies came out when I was a toddler. And that is what I was obsessed with. I grew up with the first in the second film, and they're more meant for adults really. There's some cursing and there's a little bit of adult themes in there. But my dad would get me to sleep by watching those. I was a toddler and they would pop those into the VHS, that's how I would wind-down in the at night until I went to sleep. And my dad says he has stories of me when I was little when he would be sleeping in his own room and he would hear me going “Yeaaahhhhh” from the living room or Whoaa…...
Leah Jones 23:34
SDd you ask for pizza for every meal?
Lyndsey Little 23:42
Yeah, but I just sort of feel like, that's how most people are right?
Leah Jones 23:48
I think with or without the Ninja Turtles you want pizza?
Lyndsey Little 23:51
The pizza, it does look especially delicious in a Ninja Turtles adaptation.
Leah Jones 23:58
So you start with the Ninja Turtles is your first monster. Is there one kind of OG monster for you, that more people recognize as monsters?
Lyndsey Little 24:13
Godzilla? Godzilla looks like a monster.
Leah Jones 24:18
Godzilla, I think is doesn't have a copyright on it. So it's like an open, it's not called Open Source. What's it? What's the copyright word for any Sherlock Holmes Sellers; is available to anyone who wants to write Sherlock Holmes stories.
Lyndsey Little 24:39
I'm really not sure about that with Godzilla.
Leah Jones 24:46
All I'm trying to say is there's lots of Godzilla story. Which Godzilla got to you, got to baby Lyndsey?
Lyndsey Little 24:56
I don't remember, somebody could probably correct me on this; but I don't know if it's the original Godzilla – the very first Godzilla and black and white. But that's primarily what I would watch with my little brother. But the Godzilla that I love the most is what my partner Stretton calls the cat mouth – the Godzilla. Because it's still an early Godzilla, but he just has these big, bulging eyes! And a literal cat shaped mouth, and it's to me is the cutest iteration of Godzilla.
Leah Jones 25:41
I am just really quickly looking on Google images. I'm going to just see if I can find. Alright, let me try – Classic Godzilla.
Lyndsey Little 25:56
If he ever talked to Prince sloth? I don't usually call him that. That was weird. If you ever talked to Stretton, he wouldn't be able to rattle. The different Godzilla is off to you because he's the one who really introduced me more into the whole world of Godzilla.
Leah Jones 26:16
Yeah, it's wild when you just search Godzilla classic. Just how many versions of Godzilla there have been over the years.
Lyndsey Little 26:27
I could just ask him really quick.
Leah Jones 26:30
Oh, wait, I have found USA Today. The 60-year evolution of Godzilla. Cat face Godzilla is your favorite than Godzilla. Was that another one that like your family had recorded. You had the tape of it and you would rewatch it? Or did you catch it on TV?
Lyndsey Little 26:50
Yeah, that was a VHS tape that my brother and I had. We had a few of the Godzillas – Godzilla and King Kong. Oh, I was just going to say I think that's why I like Godzilla more than King Kong, because he seems more like a monster than King Kong does. Like King Kong obviously is not a normal gorilla but he's still just a big gorilla.
Leah Jones 27:17
He's a big gorilla.
Lyndsey Little 27:19
Somebody King Kong fans are going to get mad at me now.
Leah Jones 27:23
But his origin story is just like he's a big gorilla that people caught right. He's not a big gorilla who got… I don't know much about King Kong. He doesn't have like a nuclear meltdown background. He wasn't created in a lab. It's not like the Planet of the Apes who were lab... the apes are us. But they come out of a lab. They come out of like a failed human experiment on monkeys and gorillas versus I think King Kong is just like… big! Is Godzilla lab creation or outer [Not Audible [00:28:12]] monster?
Lyndsey Little 28:13
I think originally he was a dormant creature who… oh, gosh... See, I'm not even an expert enough that I can get my facts straight. Godzilla, a giant monster spawned from the waste of nuclear tests, is discovered in the sea and rises to threaten Japan. And I like this a little bit. The only hope of stopping Godzilla is the Oxygen Destroyer - a weapon as deadly and as morally troubling as the atomic bombs that created the monster. So there's even political commentary when it comes to Godzilla because that was the whole inspiration for Godzilla.
Leah Jones 29:07
[Not Audible [00:29:09]] to Japan. America created Godzilla. America, by releasing the nuclear bombs. I know exactly it’s a nuclear waste.
Lyndsey Little 29:22
Absolutely. And that's the whole reason for Godzilla skin texture because it's based on the scars that the Hiroshima victims had. There is just so much you can appreciate monster media at a surface level easily, but when you when you just get deeper into the reasoning behind film, why they exist, it's just so good. I just I love being able to connect, I guess with people on a human level through monsters. That's just my favorite thing. I'm so glad that we're talking about this on this podcast because I do think that's my favorite thing.
Leah Jones 30:29
If you were Professor Little, and you were going to write a syllabus – a monster syllabus! But let's just say it's like a winter term, it's just a six-week class. So you don't have to do a whole 20-week semester. Let's say you are going to do a six-week class on monsters. What are some items, movies, books, essays, what are things that go with your curriculum? Or what are ways that you would want people to explore monsters this can be a comic, this can be an illustration class, it can be a watch and discuss class; it can be whatever you want. But if you had six weeks to teach adults about monsters; what are some of the tools, the questions, the activities that you think you would do?
Lyndsey Little 31:22
That's really fun. I feel like it would be interesting for people to do a deep dive research into some of the earliest monsters, even maybe biblically or from any other culture really. Just bring out monsters that you don't really hear discussed nowadays, but are still part of the culture. Because even biblically, I think angels are kind of monsters, the way that they're described. And yet, at the same time, when they appear to people and they hide away their 100 eyes, or whatever. This is purely from a Christian point of view. I guess. I'm not a Christian, but I used to be. But I feel like that's something that's not really discussed, even amongst Christians. And I think that would be really interesting is how we have come to accept angels as being these humanoid creatures that are meant to be beautiful and angelic! That's a little too on the nose. But in reality, they were wild. They had 100 eyes or they were shaped like a wheel with 100 eyes and flames and I don't know 100 heads... I don't remember it.
Leah Jones 33:09
Yeah, there's been kind of a funny meme; it's not really a meme going around. But this Halloween, I saw a number of costumes. My friends who have maybe returned to church as adults, but have reconstructed their relationship with Christianity. They're like, “Oh! Well, if you’re going to be literal about Leviticus, I’m going to be literal about angels.” And a friend who made a costume. She was like, “I'm going as what the Bible says an angel is.” And so she just bought like a ton of googly eyes. And she was is it a seraphim? Is that the word there?
Lyndsey Little 33:54
That is it.
Leah Jones 33:58
From the Bible,
Lyndsey Little 33:59
Seraphim it is. And there's like – [sings] seraphim. Yes.
Lyndsey Little 34:14
Oh, but there's four and it lines up with the Jewish tradition, according to this. Well, point being is that there's some wild stuff, not just in the Bible but in many other like ancient religions with monsters. So it'd be interesting not just to draw from that, but also see how they have evolved over time, how we see them in media. Or even newer monsters like what are some new monsters that have been invented? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is certainly one. But maybe there's something in there about mutation because that's what they are. It's literally in to name, they are mutants.
Leah Jones 35:01
And I think you could do a whole class called Marvel and monsters. Is that it [Not Audible [00:35:15]]?
Lyndsey Little 35:14
That's the question, isn't it?
Leah Jones 35:18
Are the Guardians of Galaxies monsters or superheroes? What are they?
Lyndsey Little 35:21
Oh my gosh! I'm getting chills because I love this question. And that's kind of a little bit what my comic is about, too! Because most of the monsters in my story, they can pass for human or they're right on the edge of passing for human. They just need to figure out what more they can do to safely live amongst humans. And it's just kind of ridiculous for my characters, because if it weren't for their appearance, they probably could live amongst humans. But it's just a commentary on our society as well, because we as humans don't always treat each other the way that we should. And it's purely based on superficial things. It's completely unreasonable.
Leah Jones 36:25
Yeah, I mean, a lot of that makes me think about… I'm on Tik Tok. And my algorithm has a lot of content about autism and ADHD, and masking and people starting to unmask since the pandemic, and trying to be their true selves and people learning more about stemming and learning more about what their bodies need to stay regulated. And how so much of the last 20 years of pedagogy or the last 100 years of pedagogy have been about teaching, forcing children, who maybe need a little bit of movement in their life, to be still and to suppress that and to keep it inside; until they're having meltdowns at the end of the day or when they get home because they've spent all of their energy trying to keep their autism or ADHD hidden. So that's what I heard when you said this is a school for monsters to learn how to hide; hide their true self so they can exist in human society.
Lyndsey Little 37:53
I love that you said that.
Leah Jones 37:56
But isn't it also white standards of beauty. It's black women having to straighten their hair, or have weaves that look like white hair. It's women in India, buying skin bleach to appear lighter. So there's just so much but when you put the frame of monster over it, it's a mirror people can look at.
Lyndsey Little 38:31
Yeah, exactly.
Leah Jones 38:34
And they can't quite look at their own society and their own systems. But they can start by having empathy for the monsters.
Lyndsey Little 38:46
Exactly. totally nailed it.
Leah Jones 38:52
What response do you have to people who think it's this great gotcha when they're like, “Haha, Frankenstein is not the monster, he's the doctor”. We all remember the name Frankenstein; because Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one other than the Bible. She helps bring us science fiction as a genre. And I think modern monsters maybe don't start with Mary Shelley, but Frankenstein's monster. So I just think it's interesting that we associate the name of the creator with the monster and not the monsters’ own name.
Lyndsey Little 39:43
Yeah, well, I think it goes to the way that different people consume different kinds of media, what they're getting out of it. Because even with horror films, you have people who appreciate them on a superficial level; who only watched them for the monsters or for the blood or the violence. And on the other hand, you have people who are looking at what these films are actually about. And usually it's about the human condition. And you can appreciate both. But some people don't even see those underlying themes when it comes to horror movies, or monster movies, or any kind of media with monsters. And I think it's a missed opportunity to not just understand the medium or whatever it is that you're consuming, but also yourself. Because I feel it's a great opportunity for growth, when you sit down and try to analyze these kinds of things.
Leah Jones 41:17
So in OniGirl, the students are all monsters. Is it a world where they grew up in Monster families, and their parents are like, “Hey, this is just part of it, you're going to have to go to Monster School? So that's my first question. And my second question is, are they all the same? Do they all have the same monster traits? Or do they go to school and find out what their monster traits are, and then get specialized classes on overcoming that particular monster trait?
Lyndsey Little 41:50
I love this question. That's it. I love that so much. So in my world, different monsters come from different upbringings. I have some monsters who have human parents that adopted them, and who have sent them to the school because these parents are not equipped to actually deal with them. And I have human parents who don't want to deal with their monster children, and send them off to this school so somebody else can deal with them. And then I have empathetic human parents who just want to find help for their children, and I have monster parents as well. And I like exploring all of the different relationships that can be had between half monsters who are struggling with their identity, like my main character, my protagonist, and other monsters who can pass very well. But they let it go to their head a little too much. And they don't accept the privilege that they have. It's sort of what we were touching on earlier when it comes to people who have white privilege or pretty privilege. There are people who will step over others as long as they can succeed in society. So I really am trying to explore every facet that I can about human society with my monsters. And I forgot what the other question was.
Leah Jones 43:50
Yeah, I should have not asked them back-to-back because they're a big meaty question. Do all the kids who come to school have the same monster traits like, does everyone have a tail, but some people have a short tail, so they can wear skinny jeans? I don't know. Does everybody have the same monster traits? Is it a monster spectrum? Or is it a little bit more of a Frankenstein, you're a little bit more of a Godzilla. What is Monster Me? Not me, so it sounds like it's not like... how do they qualify? Maybe how do they qualify or like because in Monsters Inc, which is a very bad example! The monsters and Monsters Inc. have all different body types. It sounds like your monsters are maybe are all in different emotional states but are their bodies look like human bodies? And they're working on their monster emotional state? Or do some of them have leather print, leopard spots, and they also need to learn makeup?
Lyndsey Little 45:12
This is a great question too. There's a very big range with monsters physically as well. This school, of course, is meant for monsters who have a chance of passing more as humans. But there's also that question of, is that even okay to do to just completely wipe away the identity that they have just to be able to survive? There is that question. But putting that aside, they do, for the most part, have more human like qualities. But then they might have horns sticking out of their head, which my protagonist does. And she hides it with different hats and things. But there's other monsters that have more to hide. I literally have a couple of slime characters in the story. How do you hide that? And I did introduce a lizard character like a humanoid lizard type of character. That is basically like an anthro-type character, where they literally have the skin, the tail, everything that would point to them being a lizard. But I explain how a monster of that degree can still live amongst human society. Those are other things that I tried to explore in this.
Leah Jones 47:07
Where's the boarding school?
Lyndsey Little 47:12
It's a fictional island. Initially, I had named it Comishima. But then I learned that, that is an actual place and I didn't want to appropriate this real place. So I renamed it to Yokaijima, which basically means spirit aisle, and that doesn't exist, I don't think. So I think I'm safe. So that is that is where the school is located. And it's very heavily influenced by Japanese culture. And just the appearance and setting of it is very Japanese. But I don't really want to culturally appropriate from anybody. So, the world I'm building is sort of a mishmash of different cultures and even the monsters. They pull them from different kinds of cultures. I have a Gorgon type character so you've got Greek mythology in there. I have lots of Japanese monsters, of course. But I even have a monster that I'm trying to insert into my comic at some point that literally draws from the region I grew up in, which was Appalachia in rural Georgia. The Tailee pole is where that originates from. And I'm trying so hard to find a place where I can insert this type of monster just to have a little bit of my own personal nostalgia inserted in there. So yeah, I do try to have a mishmash of monsters from different cultures in my story. But because it's a modern setting and these are monsters that have evolved over time, so that they look more human; it's my way of being respectful of all of these different cultures while also making it my own by saying, well, so much time has passed that these monsters only resemble what they previously were ages ago.
Leah Jones 49:49
So it's like kind of an international boarding school of all these descendants of different Classic Monsters that were more identifiable as monster. And over time monster society has put together some of these safeguards where it's like let's get our kids off to boarding school and help them learn to be more human so they can be more successful than we were.
Lyndsey Little 50:19
Exactly.
Leah Jones 50:22
Or the human parents who accidentally adopted a monster! There's a lot there!
Lyndsey Little 50:34
There's so much that to play with in this. There's so much to talk about.
Leah Jones 50:39
Do they have movie nights? Do you imagine that they watch monster movies? Or do they watch like fairy tales? And what did they do on their student movie nights? What do you think movies they watch?
Lyndsey Little 50:54
I haven't explored that a whole lot. But I will say, the very first chapter of my comic does have repeated references to a game that's very popular amongst the students. And it's essentially, it's a reference to Animal Crossing, which is one of my favorite video games. But it's called Ghost Town. And in this game, you play as a witch, and you can cast spells and exchange spell ingredients with other players. And you can create an avatar that looks like a monster. So in my mind, this is a game that shows representation for these monsters. These monsters appreciate this game, also on the level of it, having monster representation in it, and they can bond with each other over that. And I feel like Animal Crossing in real life is such a good bonding game. It's a game that just facilitates that so well being able to bond with each other. So I loved the idea of bringing that into my story as well.
Leah Jones 52:18
Amazing! So as we start to wrap up, is there anything about monsters, monster movie recommendations, that you haven't gotten to that? I didn't ask about that? You want to make sure that we talk about?
Lyndsey Little 52:37
Oh, do you know the actress Kiernan Shipka? She played Sally in Mad Men.
Leah Jones 52:48
Oh, right.
Lyndsey Little 52:50
The movie that I would recommend is The Blackcoat’s Daughter. It has Kiernan Shipka in it as the protagonist, and she goes to a boarding school. But she's awfully lonely. And you could say that there's a monster in the story. I won't get into it too much. But I love the premise of it so much because it asks the question, “How lonely would you have to be, to be able to bond with something evil?” That's basically the premise of the movie. I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but I fell in love with it's so hard when I watched it. It's so affecting and it's beautiful, too. It's a beautiful movie. There are so many beautiful shots in it. And it has this beautiful and eerie. I don't know if you'd say landscape. It takes place in the winter so they're able to do a lot with that kind of imagery. But it's I highly recommend that one.
Leah Jones 54:16
Interesting. My friends at Friday Night Movie podcast just interviewed Rivkah Reyes. She was in the cast of School of Rock. They have an upcoming short film called Gianna, which explores the inner saboteur that we have lurking inside of us. I think you would really like it. And then they also talked about a movie called it was just at Sundance called Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, which I think is a comedy horror. But Gianna, it was written and produced by Rivkah Reyes. They brought in another director. But they were talking about when the inner saboteur is embodied. It sounded fascinating but also maybe too scary and maybe [Not Audible [[00:55:28]]. It seems like Rivkah Reyes has a lot of really neat projects coming out.
Lyndsey Little 55:37
I'll look into those.
Leah Jones 55:41
Well, Lyndsey, people can support you with the Kickstarter, which I will think too, OniGirl issue one in glorious color. Where else can people find you on the internet if you want to be found?
Lyndsey Little 55:58
On most of my socials, you can find me @Lyndsey.little that's L-Y-N-D-S-E-Y . L-I-T-T-L-E and you can find me on Instagram and on TikTok and I'm sure you will be able to find me on a lot of other social media platforms. But those are the main ones I use. And I will continually post about OniGirl whenever I have more news there. So those would be the two main places to go to if you want to keep up with OniGirl.
Leah Jones 56:33
Awesome and people can also subscribe to stories to dismember your horror movie review podcasts, which is too scary for me. I am too scared!
Lyndsey Little 56:47
It depends on how scared you get because we do describe the movies, but we do it in such a silly fashion where three of us are such silly people, that I don't know if it would truly scare anybody. Sometimes I'm actually afraid, are we turning off any listeners who are coming to this for scary content? Because that's not what we provide.
Leah Jones 57:20
But I know review scary movies.
Lyndsey Little 57:23
Yes, we recap them so well or describe what they are from beginning to end. But we appreciate the films that times but even with the films we really love we'd like to poke fun at film so there's a lot of that. The cover is going to be misleading because it is scary looking. I designed and drew the cover for our podcast. So when you look at it you will think, “Oh, this looks satanic!” But it truly isn't how we actually are.
Leah Jones 58:06
Outstanding! Well, you can listen, obviously Finding Favorites; you are at the end of the episode - you've listened to it. Follow and smash that subscribe button. Please rate and review on either Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Good Pods, whatever pod catcher you're using, please go leave five stars and hit the link go over to Kickstarter and support Lyndsey's effort to be paid as an artist and bring glorious color to her comic. And keep enjoying your favorite things.
Announcer 58:45
Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.
