Winter the prolific queer creator of comics, zines and prose took a break from their busy schedule to talk about their career and their upcoming projects.
Q) I saw that you were doing a collection of your Prism Knights on Kickstarter, could you fill our readers in on the project?
A) Prism Knights is a series of short stories I wrote featuring queer knights as the main protagonist. Each story dabbles into a different identity/group of identities and how they all play off one another. Framing each story is a common (European) fairy tale and while they aren’t strict retellings they play a lot with iconic imagery from those tales. Folks often ask if each of the Prism Knights follow each other since this is a series but the series was originally created as a group of short story individual mini books that could be read solo or in any order the reader was interested in. The characters overlap occasionally to give readers a fun little surprise if they choose to read the whole group.
The point of these stories was to just have queer characters in fantasy settings, not necessarily focusing on their queerness but writing them like anyone might write a cis-straight fantasy-romance.
Q) Where did the original idea for Prism Knights come from? Do you think Queer people need more legends and fables of our own?
A) Truthfully? Back in 2017 when I first started Prism Knights I had been doing several conventions and selling in artist alleys and got really tired of the lack of sapphic stories (and the sapphic stories we DID get were often pushed towards soft and sweet). I really just wanted to write messed up villains and I wanted them to kiss and make out. Coquelicot was born from that, playing with a lot of frustration and anger in my younger 20s about the way folks like me (at the time) were being portrayed. It wasn’t always supposed to be a series. I thought this would satiate my hunger and then…
It kind of grew from there. Next I wrote Velvet during a time I was experiencing a lot of the aftermath of two huge losses in my family. I channelled it into my writing, hoping that folks could relate to this level of heartbreak I was feeling. As I was writing this one I found that I could let go of a lot of pent-up feelings in this type of catharsis. At the time I was selling the books as I printed them, raw, very little editing, and people were taking to them and really kind about the themes I was bringing to the table…. so I was compelled to keep going from there, listening and learning from other folks in my community, trying to take their wishes to heart and build a series folks could really connect with.
I think a lot of queerness is omitted from fables and legends (especially over time and warped by different biases). I’m working on another series right now, Myth Retold that retells Greek Mythology through a queer lens. As a queer, half-greek person myself I think stories like this that were transcribed by cis and straight folks (often extremely patriarchal in nature) deserve a fresh look, a different take. I think we have every right to twist and turn and crunch these up into stories that reflect us in the way we want to be seen.
People tell me how much they love these stories and how they’ve read their copies until they’ve fallen apart. I think that pretty much speaks for itself how nice it would be for queer folks to have and engage with myths/fables/legends that include and don’t erase us from view. Especially since we’ve existed for as long as the human race has.
Q) What creators do you follow for tips and keeping yourself inspired?
A) I follow a lot… a LOT a lot. I’m in online circles for webcomics, in discord servers for prose, in person talking to creatives at conventions. I think it’s important not to rely on any one person or small subset of people to engage with and keep yourself inspired. I learn a lot and have grown a LOT more spreading myself out into these spaces and keeping my ear to the ground on what people might want to see/hear more of. Maybe I can’t include it in a current story but I sure can keep that percolating in the back of my mind for when it might be pertinent later.
Sorry I don’t have any specifics. Different strokes for different folks. But if you want a real list, we’ve set one up on our website we try to keep updated with folks we’ve both worked with, with folks whose work is just really fun and exciting to us: https://windywallflower.com/wp/?page_id=2743
I’m also just extremely neurodivergent and don’t want to accidentally forget anyone, haha!
Q) You have a long time partnership with Tas (Windy) , how did that come about?
A) I started reading their webcomic! I was really struggling with my personal connections (friends) and going through a lot of heartbreak and loss and I started reading The Sanity Circus online and realised this person was making work with all the camp and circumstance I could ask for (circus?? instrument people?? bird shifters? magic?? high stakes??) We started talking and never stopped. At first we were long distance but after a couple years of struggling through it, we now live together and collaborate on all of our big projects: Augustine, Paint the Town Red namely–
It turns out we each love doing the part the other one hates doing. For example: I really struggle through pencils and colours but I love story building (scripting & thumbnailing) and inking. So we swap. It’s been working extremely well since we started a few years ago! We started putting our work under a proper business and coined it Windy & Wallflower (Windyflamingo was Tas’ original online alias and TheJokingWallflower was mine at the time we met each other).
Q) You have a lot of projects out there, how do you decide what to work on? What is going to the next thing you are putting out?
A) Deciding is always the struggle. Tas and I both have a lot of the same interests and themes. If a story just grips us and plagues us for long enough we start developing it, picking and poking at it until it turns into something we can actually start putting together properly. Right now we’re in the ‘picking and poking’ phase on a lot of titles we’ve floated around. Our current ongoing stories are:
[comic] Augustine: antiquity meets junkpunk in a long-form webcomic that is now almost 1/3rd of the way through its story.
[comic] Paint The Town Red: a gothic romp between vampires and werewolves, a comic print series we’ve been working on for just as long as Prism Knights.
[prose] Myth Retold: a group of queer Greek Mythology retellings.
Coming up we’ve been focusing a lot on a… couple of things but these two are the ones really gripping us:
[comic] From Hell’s Heart: A series we can only describe as ‘Moby Dick yuri’ or as we’ve lovingly nicknamed: Moby Dykes. A story that follows a butch fisherwoman who becomes obssessed with the sea and hunting down the cursed beast that lives within it.
[prose] Dragon’s Breath: A novella that plays up some of the original character dynamics in Prism Knights with much more eroticism. If folks are a fan of Prism Knights’ Sapphire and wanted a bit more well this story sure is something for you.
We’re hoping to release these (or the start of) next year though we don’t have any set dates for them yet.
Q) If people want more information about you or your projects, where should they go?
A) We keep our website: windywallflower.com updated with everything (new and old), that we’ve touched with our grimy little paws.
Otherwise we have a shop: shop.windywallflower.com
Our webcomics are free to read online at: comics.windywallflower.com
Our newsletter updates once a month with everything we’re picking away at: https://mailchi.mp/e78d2952a81c/wwnewsletter
We’re @windywallflower on any social media platform you can think of (though we’re regulars on bsky, instagram and tumblr)!
Final four questions –we ask everybody.
Q) When the zombies take over the world, where will you be?
A) Probably right here at home absolutely clueless toiling away on comics and stories — honestly, the other day the power went out and both my partner and I realised only an hour later when we saw the stove clock flashing.
Q) What is your favorite Fandom
A) The OC (original character) fandom! Does that count? I’m not really someone who takes part in fandom-type things. I coast by on the outskirts and peer at all the beautiful art people make of their favourites.
Q) What piece of art, be it in the form of music, a book, a film or picture, do you think people must experience before they die?
A) Right now I have 2 current suggestions because people are (finally) making things that absolutely are My Shit.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024 film). I’ve watched this movie 10-12 times since it came out… woops.
Des Rocs’ Dream Machine album. I have this thing on Loop any chance I get.
Q) Give one fact that most people would not believe about you?
A) Ironically, despite the above… my…. glue-movies are both… rom-coms/chick flicks (Devil Wears Prada & Mean Girls).
Paper Phoenix ink 