VARNER, Alyssa

Photo courtesy: Telegraph Herald

VARNER, Alyssa. (Dubuque, IA-- ). The first issue of Varner's "Blown Away," a planned six-issue comic book, was released in April 2015. The entire self-published project including writing, illustration and graphic design was her creation. She also became the book's marketer and salesperson.

A graduate of WAHLERT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL, Varner studied creative writing at the University of Iowa. She moved to New York in 2008 to get into the publishing industry. Picking up illustration and design, she enjoyed the creative process. After taking a class on anatomy for cartoonists, she got involved with a comics writing workshop.

The result Blown Away, a sci-fi noir comic featuring black and white interiors and an emphasis on expressive facial illustration, is placed in rural Iowa in 1980. Its main character, Hallie Pearson, is known as "Tornado Hallie", a journalist who lost her best friend to a mysterious tornado and has been haunted by the event for five years.

Varner credited Charles Burns, creator of the indie comic, "Black Hole," as her No. 1 artistic influence as well as Alan Moore's writing in "Swamp Thing," "The X-Files" television show and Tim Seeley and Mike Norton's comic "Revival."

---

Source:

Frenzel, Anthony. "Dubuque Native Gets Creative with indie Comic Books, Telegraph Herald, THonline.com http://www.thonline.com/news/feature_stories/article_5f2ebf77-e289-5b71-8fe8-986554def1ee.html