Rachel Bellwoar chats with Lisa Manuzak Wiley about her graphic novel The Witches of Pepperwood Bay…
Usually witches dwell in forests and gingerbread houses, not lighthouses, but that’s exactly where Juniper and her sisters, Lily and Clover, live in Lisa Manuzak Wiley’s graphic novel, The Witches of Pepperwood Bay. Originally published as a webcomic and with letters by Haley Rose-Lynn, here’s what Wiley had to share about volume one:
Witches of Pepperwood Bay started out as a webcomic. How has it been reformatting the series for print (for instance, the webcomic incorporated gifs)?
When I first started the webcomic, I wanted to format it so that I could easily turn it into a book if the opportunity came, so it wasn’t too hard to convert the original pages. I would upload a page at a time, and the animated GIFs were simple 3-4 looping frames within a panel, so I just had to choose my favorite frame or the most appropriate one for the print version. If given the chance (and the time!), I’d love to reverse-engineer the book and make gifs of the whole thing!
With webcomics, too, it’s more ongoing, versus for print you have to choose when volume one will end. Was that an easy decision to make?
It was a little hard! Since we wanted to split the story into two books, we had to find a spot where things wrapped up just a bit, but the mystery was ongoing. There was a bit of finagling to make things fit into each volume with similar page lengths, but I think we did the best we could!
In the backmatter it’s explained that the beach setting was inspired by your childhood in Hawaii. So often witches are associated with Gothic or spooky settings. Did you relish the chance to pushback against those expectations?
Absolutely! I’ve always loved spooky and magical things, but not scary horror so much – incorporating a tropical setting helps to mitigate some of the scariness and also offers a lot of creative space for thinking about beachy magic. It’s so fun to try and imagine what kind of witchy things might happen under the bright sun and palm trees.
Does Hawaii have any magical traditions or history with witches that you were able to incorporate or take inspiration from?
There is definitely a DEEP history of Hawaiian folklore! While I grew up around a lot of superstitions and legends (night marchers, menehune, don’t drive over the Pali Highway with pork in your car), I didn’t want to directly take from these stories, but there might be some mystical things *inspired* by my upbringing in the islands.
Each of the three witch sisters in this series has their own personal style. Did any of their character designs start out very differently from where they ended up?
I had a pretty good idea of the personalities for each witch from the very beginning, so creating their designs didn’t really change at all! Juniper is steadfast and somewhat traditional, so her clothing and hair are structured and practical – a lot of straight lines. Lily is more open-minded yet shy, so her clothing is still traditionally witch-like but a bit layered with a little flair here and there (short wispy hair, stitching on her clothes). Clover is outgoing and energetic, which is reflected in her more eccentric clothes (crop top, bouncy skirt, lace-up ballet shoes) and wild, wavy hair.
I love the unusual choices for familiars, too, like a crab for Clover and a mini skeleton for Juniper. How did you land on those?
I really just wanted some fun familiars that would be appropriate for both the witches and the setting! One of my favorite movies is Muppet Treasure Island, where Long John Silver has a talking lobster instead of a talking parrot, and I just love that idea of turning tradition on its head. So I can see Clover taking a crab as her familiar, especially since she loves the ocean and spends a lot of time there. Juniper has Sage the cat, which is a more traditional familiar, and seems true to Juniper’s adherence to “the rules”. And Lily has Ozzie the skeleton, who isn’t *actually* a skeleton, and speaks to Lily’s affinity for spirit/occult magic – read the book to find out more about Ozzie!
In volume 1 the sisters are sought out to find Ms. Fiddleneck’s missing teapot. Have you always enjoyed a good mystery?
I do love mysteries! I don’t read a whole lot of mystery books, but I love urban legends and unexplainable phenomena, wondering about the possibilities of our world, and getting to the bottom of something unusual.
We haven’t really seen the sisters interact with humans yet. I’m assuming the larger world doesn’t realise witches are real?
On the island of Pepperwood Bay, magic and mythical creatures are pretty common, so even the humans living there aren’t fazed by it. The portal also allows them to travel to other places where magic is common, but there are probably other places where the people don’t believe in magic or witches, which would be an interesting plotline!
Is there a sister you relate to the most (for instance, I appreciated Lily’s nerves around talking to people)?
Definitely Lily! I’m really shy by nature, and I’ve always been the peacekeeper for my sisters (in any situation, really). My family still teases me about when I was a kid, and I was too afraid to ask for anything at a restaurant. But Lily does open up when she feels comfortable, like talking to the sea sprite, whose language she can understand and speak. Similarly, I like to open up when talking about art or books!
Are there any magical creatures you’d still like to introduce into Pepperwood Bay?
For sure! There are tons of creatures that I’m interested in and would love to design for the Pepperwood Bay setting – ghosts, pixies, gryphons, dragons, phoenixes, etc. I could go on forever!
Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Lisa!
The Witches of Pepperwood is on sale now from Papercutz.
Rachel Bellwoar
