By Zack Quaintance — Cartoonist Kendra Wells’ new graphic novel, Real Hero Shit, is live on Kickstarter now, and friends? This book is an absolute delight. It’s a fast-paced and clever story that reads like sitting in on a very witty group playing Dungeons and Dragons (more on that below). I’m a big fan, and I’m honored today to have had a chance to discuss it with Wells, who is collaborating with the always-great Iron Circus Comics on the project.

Check out our discussion below!

INTERVIEW: Kendra Wells talks REAL HERO SHIT

ZACK QUAINTANCE: I love the tone of this project, and I was curious where the voice comes from? The whole thing to me feels like getting a peek at a very clever TTRPG campaign…

KENDRA WELLS: Thank you so much! I have been a huge fan of Critical Role for the better part of a decade now, and I credit them with a lot of the inspiration for this project so your feeling is definitely not unfounded. I love medieval fantasy, but for a long time the popular interpretation of it was very Tolkienian: a little stuffy, very verbose and dry and epic. My background is in comedy and improv, so it was only natural to want to give this story a sort of modern sense of humor to carry the cast along on their adventures. I write what I want to read, and I love stories like that!

ZACK: I absolutely love Prince Eugene as a character, and it felt like you did as well. What makes Prince Eugene such an interesting character to work with?

KENDRA: Eugene was the first character I created of the main cast, before Real Hero Shit the book was even a glimmer in my eye. I really adore fictional characters who fall into the "charismatic douchebag" trope, so writing for him felt like being a kid in a candy store. He is a good-hearted guy, deep down, but is incredibly spoiled and privileged and it's interesting to me as a writer to explore how a person reckons with that level of privilege when you're befriending people of a much lower social standing. Eugene was never written as a villain, but he has a long, long way to go to understand the hardships his new friends have faced and just how lucky he is as the literal prince of an entire continent.

ZACK: This book also feels like a culmination of a lot of things you’ve done in your career. Is this an extension of work you’ve done in the past, and if so, how did it grow from those projects?

KENDRA: Absolutely! I have been lucky enough to work on a lot of incredible projects in my career- I've done cartooning for The Nib since 2016, I was the lead character designer for Dimension 20 for both seasons of The Unsleeping City, and this past February, my first graphic novel Tell No Tales: Pirates of the Southern Seas (written by my dear friend Sam Maggs) was released. Real Hero Shit is the first project that has been all mine, and it's been an amazing and extremely intimidating experience. In the arts, there is a lot of emphasis on succeeding as early as possible and even though I am a spry 30 years young, I worried for years that my prime art-making time had already passed me by. Now that I've completed Real Hero Shit, though, I am so thankful I was able to take the time to hone my skills and my storytelling ability to make this book as good as it possibly could be. Without Dimension 20, I would have never been so challenged and creatively fulfilled (I designed 100+ characters across both seasons). Without Tell No Tales, I would have never had the guts to undertake a long-form project and never learned the nitty-gritty of comics creation and self-advocating. Everything has been an incredible learning experience, and I credit it all with Real Hero Shit coming out as good as it did.

ZACK: The artwork throughout this book is just fantastic, everything from the character designs to some of the hilarious facial expressions to silent 6-panel adventuring montages...can you talk a bit about developing character designs as well as the overall aesthetic for the book?

KENDRA: Gosh, thank you! Part of my beef with traditional/Tolkienian fantasy design is it is incredibly Eurocentric and honestly a little bland. There was never any question in my mind about how I wanted this book to look: like the real world I live in, only with elf ears. I took so much joy in illustrating crowd scenes and drawing fat people, people of color, women with beards, people with head coverings... There is no excuse in any book to not draw all kinds of people, but especially not in fantasy. You can't tell me magic exists but elves can't be Black, c'mon, get real.

ZACK: Finally, it’s comics so I have to ask...what’s the potential for more stories in this world or with this group of characters?

KENDRA: I initially wrote Real Hero Shit to be able to stand on its own as a single book, because I had no idea if I was going to have a chance to write more. That being said, I have SO much more story on the backburner about these guys, and I really really hope I get to tell it!

REAL HERO SHIT is on Kickstarter now

Read more great interviews with comics creators!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.