It’s Hilda and Twig publication day, and we’re celebrating with a Luke Pearson Q&A!
Luke Pearson, creator of the Hilda and Twig comic series, answered a selection of questions which we curated from our social media call-out. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question. Although Luke couldn’t answer them all, we loved reading them! Without further ado, here is an insight into the mind of Luke Pearson:
Having my own children has affected the Hilda stories in a few ways. Baba in The Mountain King was very much inspired by chaotic toddler antics and Hilda’s dynamic with Burku in Wake the Ice Man is reflective of the way my kids interact with each other and their friends. In terms of parenting, my real life is not very Hilda-esque, but there is plenty of myself in Johanna, while aspiring to be more like her.
I basically named him the same way Hilda named him, it’s something cute that references his little antlers. But also (I can’t remember if it was conscious or not) the name was definitely in the back of my mind because of the character Twig from the Edge Chronicles, which I was a big fan of when I was younger.
I think the filmic inspiration for Hilda generally comes from animation. Obviously Studio Ghibli is in there. I remember when I was drawing and thinking about Trolberg for the first time I was influenced in a big way by the film A Cat in Paris.
Learning to draw Twig more often and more expressively than I previously had done. He’s very rarely the focus of a panel in the main books, so I could just wing it and hope for the best. But for these I wanted and needed to have a bit of a better idea about how his legs work and how he looks doing more varied actions. My partner took me to a doggy life drawing class which helped!
Maybe an activist or educator, on human, animal and magical creature rights. Maybe she’d run a rescue service for spirits? It would be something hands on and outdoorsy, but she wouldn’t be an adventurer for adventuring’s sake.
As a bedtime story reading dad of small children, I wanted to do some books that had the cosy, innocent feel of the first Hilda comic and felt closer to a picturebook you could read in one sitting. Another reason was continuing the story after Mountain King felt like it needed more thought, given that the animated series went beyond it in the timeline and I wouldn’t want to (and couldn’t really) re-tell season 3 in comic form. I do plan and hope to do another book in the main series though.
Go looking for troll rocks and then sit on the wall to watch them come to life.
Try and meet the Wood Man.
Eat a Jort.
Boring answer, but Hilda. I guess that’s why she’s still the main character. For the tv series, I know I’m in the minority but I’m really fond of Victoria Van Gale.
They’ve just migrated, they’ll be back soon.
I’m not planning to. It would definitely be interesting, there’s lots of story there, but there’s also a lot of sadness, which is already covered or inferred by the events in the series. But never say never.
FROM X:
The main inspiration for Hilda came about between researching for a university project about Icelandic folklore and a family holiday to Norway, on which I spent a lot of time looking at rocks and imagining which ones were actually trolls.
I sometimes wish I’d kept Alfur present as a character in the comics. It was something I considered in The Bird Parade, but there’s not a lot of spare page space in those comics and I felt like he’d end up just being there and not doing much.
If you mean a Hilda game, it would be a really chill, cosy, accessible adventure game. It might feel like a point and click game, but you can also jump and freely climb on rocks and stuff. You can fast travel places on a woff.
I initially imagined it being set in the 70s in terms of technology and vibes. The animated series is more tied to the 80s-90s. Ultimately it’s non specific, it’s just pre mobile phones. Trolberg is heavily inspired by Norway and other Scandinavian landscapes, but again it’s not specifically anywhere that actually exists.
I’d be interested in touching on some Arabic folklore. There was an abandoned script for the animated series that featured a Roc, which I was fond of and would love to revisit somehow. I also was obsessed with drawing manticores when I was younger so that could be fun.
Thank you for your answers, Luke!
Hilda and Twig by Luke Pearson
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