We reached out to YetiArrow to learn more about where these ideas come from, how the comics take shape, and what keeps him making them.
The artist shared that a big part of this project is rooted in living in Dnipro, Ukraine, during the war. Making comics became a way to step away from the horrors, even if just for a moment. "You’ve heard about the war - it’s as bad as you thought. Everything is awful, we all suffer, and I personally am always looking for some mental escape. An hour per day where you think about something other than the war. I'm an artistic person, so my escapes are usually artistic. We had major electric power issues last summer, so I was looking for some new project that I could do without power, while sheltering during air raids etc. Doing a webcomic seemed like a fun idea. You can draw in a sketchbook, you can stack a bunch in advance and auto-post them if you are out of power. They don’t have to be topical. Seemed like a good idea for me. I also kind of forced myself to focus on something comedic, to separate myself from the sad reality. Still happy about that choice."
YetiArrow’s biggest inspirations are The Far Side and New Yorker cartoons. "If I draw a comic in black and white, people say that it could be something from The New Yorker. If I draw a comic in color, they say that it reminds them of The Far Side. Makes sense. I tried to get into The New Yorker and send them a lot of comics for consideration, many of the ones that you’ve seen on my Instagram. Didn’t get in. Honestly, I felt that my comics were good enough, and I thought that my chances are good with the I-am-a-Ukrainian-making-comics-during-the-war story. Turns out it’s not as interesting as I thought."
When it comes to format, the artist said he chose one-panel comics mostly because they seemed easier to draw. "I am having a really hard time with drawing. Writing is fun, but drawing is really mentally draining for some reason. I like 4-panel comics and tried to draw some, but I couldn’t finish them and quit by panel 3. With one-panel comics, you can finish the picture in one attempt, while sweating hard and forcing yourself to continue. It’s kind of like doing a plank."
When asked about his creative process, YetiArrow shared that it’s hard for him to force an idea on demand. "I mean, I can do it, it just won’t feel inspired or funny. Most of the time, I don’t think about the comic and go on worrying about other things. But then, once in a while, I start thinking about it and fall into a cool flow state, where jokes just start coming one after another. It can be 10 or 20 ideas at a time. Then, when the time comes to draw a new batch of comics, I go through my notes and choose the ones that I like the most. Usually, this flow state comes once every couple of weeks, just in time when I am short on new comics. But if it doesn’t come, I have to go through old rejected ideas just to do something. Turns out they aren’t as rejected as I thought.
I draw my comics with pencils, pens, markers, and watercolors on watercolor paper. Then I take a photo with my phone, clean them out, and color them in Photoshop. At the beginning, I colored them by hand with watercolors and pencils, but the colors were too bleak, and this took too much time. So now the colors are all photoshopped, but the inks are still real. I’ve tried to draw on an iPad, but I hated the process. I already stare at a screen 23 hours a day, at least I can step out of it for a minute to draw on physical paper. Feels kind of nice."
Creating something can bring a lot of joy to an artist, and for YetiArrow, the most enjoyable part of the process is simply knowing it's done. "I like looking at my archives on my Instagram page and think that I’ve done something when I could have done nothing. This feels nice. When people say that they’ve liked a comic, it also feels nice. Glad that you got a chuckle. That was my idea to do that. I planned that chuckle and executed it."
Once an artwork is finished and out there, it’s no longer in the creator’s control. People interpret it in their own way, creating their own stories. While some artists hope to evoke certain emotions, we asked YetiArrow what he hopes people take from his comics. His answer was humble: a laugh, a like, maybe a subscribe.
"There’s no hidden meaning or a deeper story there than a surface-level joke that you hopefully get in 2 seconds. I hope that some reader can like my comics enough to scroll through the archive and have fun for 5 minutes.
In a real-world scenario, huh. If someone reading this can help Ukraine in any way, please do. I assume that everyone who can already does this, but if you can do more, please do. We do what we can, but we would also appreciate any help. I bet most of my readers don’t know anyone from Ukraine and don’t have a personal connection to our war. Well, if you’ve read my comics, now you do. There’s nothing about the war in the comics, but they are made by a guy from Ukraine. If you’ve read my comics, you understand me in some capacity and can relate to me. I am usually drawing my comics in the evening after work, and more often than not, Russian drones are attacking my city at the same time. Sometimes it’s rockets. I try to neatly shadow the backgrounds with a paintbrush, sometimes under the light of a power bank, because there’s no power. There’s another air raid alert, there are multiple alerts every day. I pray that my house won’t be hit. It really seems impossible that something like this is allowed to happen in our modern times. Still, we have to live through it. If anything or anyone can help us, I hope they do."
"I want to emphasise that there’s nothing about the war in the comics. I am doing pistachio jokes and stuff like that. Even when I get a war-adjusted idea, I try to force it out, as this is supposed to be a fun project. But, it would be kind of interesting to read the comics some years from now and see how much of this stuff got through, without me knowing it. Art is fun and works in weird ways. My favorite childhood stories were the Moomins books by Tove Jansson. They felt like fun little adventures. Pretty recently, I found out the story behind them, that Tove Jansson wrote those books in Finland during World War 2. As I re-read them all, I see now how those books are filled with worries about nuclear war, refugees, depression, and similar themes. Must have been an awful time. But the books are great. I think that I kind of know how that feels now, and I hope that my comics are good too. I am trying to do them as well as I can, and I am happy that I’ve made them."
