“SNAKE EYES” FULL RELEASE ON AUGUST 13

Snake Eyes, the eleventh issue of Planet Scumm, is guest edited by horror novelist, Hailey Piper (previously seen in Planet Scumm #6, #7, and #9!). The submission call for this issue went out only to cis women, trans women, trans men, and non-binary folk. Our creative director, Alyssa Alarcón Santo, reached out to Maura McGonagle to illustrate the issue after falling in love with their spacey colors and distinct aesthetic.

We’re all SO psyched on Maura’s art, we are giving away 5 x 7 prints of this illustration to anyone who preorders the issue.

Drink in the psychedlic sunshine of Maura McGonagle’s cover ART below.

IN CONVERSATION WITH MAURA McGONAGLE

In which Alyssa interviews Maura about their life and art. Alyssa’s brother, Jordan, was there too.

Alyssa: How do you describe your art?

Maura: I like drawing colorful, vibrant work. I do a lot of psych stuff with a fantasy and sci fi focus. I like to call myself a narrative artist. I like working with any sort of narrative. I feel like “illustration” sometimes can just mean “one picture,” but I like to do more like... comic work. Just make sure there's some sort of story in the piece no matter how long or short it is.

Jordan: Birds are weird, right? You ever think about birds?

Maura: All the time, unfortunately. They're scary dinosaurs. And you know, why do they have to stick around? Just kidding—it's good for the environment or whatever. You know, they look at you with their dead eyes, and you realize that you're just a primate that they'd eat if they had the chance.

Jordan: Yeah, they have cold, dead eyes. Like a doll's eyes.

Alyssa: How are you feeling about working in procreate? You got an iPad fairly recently, right?

Maura: Yeah, like in the last two years. It was actually a gift from a lovely friend and original patron of mine. Her name's Melissa. And she sent it to me, and it was just... completely life changing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm always like, speechless even thinking about it. So I got into Procreate right away, because that was the app that everyone was using. And I really liked how natural it feels because I'm a traditional ink painter. I always liked working with ink and watercolors.

Alyssa: I don't know how we did anything before Procreate to be entirely honest. Like the old days... just lugging around 100 sketchbooks, scanning all the time.

Maura: Oh, I'm not miss scanning. In any sense. It was so frustrating, because it had to be eight and a half by 11. If you went any bigger than that, good luck going to Staples and finding that one person who can help you with the large format scanner. You're never gonna find that one person. It’s just not gonna happen.

Find more of Maura’s work on their instagram.

Alyssa: Your comic, WITCH, is wonderful. I've been loving watching it grow as you've been working on it. What has been the most unexpected thing you've learned about running a web comic?

Maura: You always know how much work you're going to do, but you never really, fully, completely appreciate it. For instance, I’d try to cut it off around like 38 pages, but, really, you're quadrupling that. It's not just 38 pages. You're drawing 38 pages, thinking up 38 pages, and then you're coloring, and then you're doing the words… so you're just doing hundreds of pages on top of being a freelancer.

Alyssa: You are really just a master of color. Do you find you have a general color palette that you gravitate towards or is it just an innate sense of color? How much planning goes into it?

Maura: I'm so flattered because color is something I really struggle with. What helps me is, with Procreate, you can find harmony colors. And that's been amazing. I find myself drawn to something like, just slightly bolder than a pastel. And then I can find something that harmonizes and plan around that. But I usually find it's easy for me to match a color with a story’s tone or symbolism.

Alyssa: Um, so this last year has obviously been quite a mess. Have you picked up any hobbies throughout that time?

Maura: I am just hitting my hobbies. My day job is at a liquor store. So last year... we were so slammed. I’m happy to have a job, don't get me wrong. But there was a period of time where we weren't even taking breaks. So it's just exhausting. And I feel like I was just so exhausted for a year on top of the emotional exhaustion. So my new thing is I just got a little plush moth. And I'm not into taxidermy--it just kind of creeps me out. So I got a fake moth, and I'm gonna make fake taxidermy.

Jordan: What's your favorite celestial body or constellation?

Maura: Um… I guess I think our moon is cute. More seriously, I think it's really charming that the center of our universe supposedly tastes or smells like raspberries

“SNAKE EYES” CONCEPT ART

“The idea for the cover was to capture the idea that gender is something to contemplate. It’s a journey, it’s not fixed, it’s a challenge to meet every day. But not in a negative way—that’s essential.

It’s an act of creation, a push and pull with the universe creating this beautiful, multi-dimensional dance that’s asking the question what will you be today?”