INTERVIEW: Emet Comics finds success focusing on strong female protagonists

Emet Comics, founded by Maytal Gilboa, is an indie publisher of comics books that features strong female protagonists. The name of the company comes from the word “truth” in Hebrew, and Gilboa’s artistic output focuses on empowerment and diversity.

Titles include Fresh Romance, The Wendy Project and Zana, among others. They recently collaborated with Ida Eva Neverdahl on Jelly Vampire, a humor-filled publication that focuses on the adventures of a 13-year-old girl and features lots of unicorns.

Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Gilboa, publisher of CEO and Emet Comics, about her company’s past, present and future. They have a lot of news to report, including the recent publication of Finding Molly and Fresh Romance Vol. 2. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.

What’s the mission for Emet Comics?

Our mission is to provide a platform for female creators and to explore the female experience through a multitude of genres. We help female writers, artists and filmmakers develop their stories authentically and then find a way to get those stories in front of the widest possible audience. This mission informs every aspect of our business and influences the types of stories we tell.

For example, our first book, Finding Molly: An Adventure in Catsitting, was written by Justine Prado and illustrated by Jenn St Onge. The story is a very relatable one, following the young Molly Sanchez-Talebi as she tries to make a living off of being an artist. It explores how difficult it is to live a passionate life and also tackles some generational themes and conflicts, as Molly is the child of immigrant parents. The story really resonates with our millennial audience, which is what led to its successful Kickstarter campaign.

Our second book, The Wendy Project, was written by Melissa Jane Osborne and illustrated by Veronica Fish. This book has a darker tone and explores a young girl’s grief as she has to come to terms with her brother’s death. Melissa developed a new take on the Peter Pan story, but through Wendy’s lens, ultimately exploring grief and guilt from a very female perspective. While each book is very different, they all explore something that is deeply meaningful to the creators who work on them.

What gets you and the company the most energized about a new project? What are you looking for?

I am always looking for a strong point of view and a creator who I believe in long term. It’s so important that the creator and I have a good chemistry and that we think about story in the same way because we’ll be working together over the span of two to three years through development, production and then marketing and selling the books.

I try to create a space where the creator’s voice can really shine, and I push each creator I work with to leave a piece of themselves in their work. Jelly Vampire is a great example of this. Ida’s work is so deeply personal to who she is. She calls her character Lulu Lulusen her alter ego, where Lulu’s fantasies and adventures are her own. Can you get any more personal than that? She’s developed her own language around her characters, like Lulu’s ‘Weird Pals,’ and her magical ‘Unicornificator.’

I love to see stories that are so deeply personal to the creator and that really reflect the creators personality and point of view towards the world. When Ida talks about the word sprell, it’s not a gimmick. Sprell is really how she lives her life every single day. I find that inspiring and contagious.

Have you met with success since launching in 2015?

Yes, of course! We have had many successes and then, of course, some obstacles because we’re talking about the comics industry after all. We sold one of our first books, The Wendy Project, to Papercutz and received rave reviews. We’ve successfully run and funded two Kickstarter campaigns for Finding Molly, Fresh Romance Volume 2 and Verona. We’re distributing our first two books through Diamond. …

I attribute these successes to how hard everyone is working and to the quality of the material we are committed to creating. And to timing of course! I think the world is ready for female creators to be on an equal playing field, which opens up many doors for us that may have been closed just a few years ago.

Will Kickstarter and crowdfunding be a mainstay for Emet?

Yes! We love Kickstarter. Up until this point, we’ve been using Kickstarter to distribute our books. I believe this is going to change. As we develop more of a relationship with Diamond, I hope to use the direct market to distribute our books. Kickstarter will be a way for us to crowdfund special projects that are more experimental and cause oriented — Fresh Romance and Jelly Vampire being great examples of that. Kickstarter has been a great way to raise awareness around properties and to build our mailing list, and I am so grateful this platform exists.

Do you plan to have large presences at comic conventions moving forward?

For now, we’ll probably focus on two to three major conventions a year like Emerald City, San Diego, and Wondercon. Conventions are a great way to grow our audience, sell books and meet new creators, but they can also be expensive and very tiring. So it’s a balance. Also [if] any conventions want to invite us — we’d love to come run panels, workshops for kids and generally help out in the programming! We’ve done a few events now with the Girl Scouts, and I have so many ideas for how we can make cons kid and teen friendly.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Click here for more information on Emet Comics. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s coverage of The Wendy Project and Jelly Vampire.