Steenz

Christina "Steenz" Stewart (born 1990) is a cartoonist and editor living in the USA, who's known for illustrating Archival Quality and currently authoring and illustrating the daily comic strip Heart of the City. Upon taking over Heart of the City from Mark Tatulli in May 2020, they became the second nationally syndicated Black nonbinary cartoonist, preceded in this distinction by Bianca Xunise only a month prior.

Interview (2021)

 * It was very stressful at the very beginning (becoming a syndicated comic strip artist). That's a lot on someone's shoulders, to be one of three Black femme people making syndicated comics, ever, in the history of comic strips. I was sweating at my computer, like, “Oh my god, I'm supposed to be representative of an entire ethnic group.” But I did have the opportunity to talk to Bianca Xunise and Barbara Brandon-Croft [who became the first nationally syndicated Black female cartoonist in 1991] about how scary it is. Also, we're all in it together. I remember for my launch, I got emails from the [African American] creators of “Jump Start” and “Curtis,” that were like, “Welcome to the family.” That alone made all of my insecurities and stress completely vanish. I grew up reading their comics. To have them embrace me so quickly was really, really lovely.


 * Pretty much everything in my life culminates into these characters. Brent, one of my favorite characters, is that annoying, weird kid who really is into anime. There's always that super weedy Black kid in every class, wearing one of those flame polyester button-downs, and all he wants to do is talk about who can beat Goku. This archetype exists everywhere, everyone has met this person, and yet I don't see it anywhere in media. I could not name a single character that acts like that. So I was like, I'm bringing that in.


 * When I first got the gig, Bianca Xunise was the only person to ever ask me what it’s like writing a main character that's white. And I was like, I don't know. The assumption is that it will be easier for me to write someone who was Black, because I'm Black. I definitely had that thought, of “What am I doing here?” If I'm going to be the one to create these characters, and figure out the landscape of this universe, I want to make sure that what I'm doing isn't unrealistic.


 * I don't like reading about stories where trauma happens, you know? There's a reason Covid is not happening in my comic, because I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to write about Charlotte getting “hate crimed,” I would rather write about Heart realizing “Oh, yeah, I'm the odd one out here.” There are ways to talk about tough and complex issues, without making it exploitative, in a way that's light-hearted but real.


 * white people just don't think about being white.


 * It's all about visibility for me. It took me visually seeing another Black female doing the work for me to have my entire life changed. I always say yes to panels, yes to interviews, because I want to make sure that whoever is looking at the interview sees me. Then maybe kids will end up in a cartooning class saying, “I want to be like Steenz.”

Interview (2019)

 * I try to put as much of their personality into the kind of clothes that they wear and how they wear their hair or their make-up and so on and so forth


 * I do like the idea that not only white people have to have adventures. So when you’re designing characters, who they are, what their ethnicity is like part of them, but it’s not everything.


 * when someone’s like, “Design a black character,” well, what does that mean? That could mean literally anything.


 * anxiety and depression can also change how you see what people are doing and what they’re saying and what [they’re] actually meaning.


 * you don’t want your stories to all be people who just have their shit together all the time. They need to be flawed because humanity is flawed. Everyone’s got problems, y’know? And I’m just really happy that we’re able to get that across sensitively to people. ’Cause we also didn’t want it to go too far to the other end where it’s like, oh, ’cause she has a mental illness she’s crazy. That’s not what we wanted to do.


 * I feel great about having won the Dwayne McDuffie for diversity because… me being black and her dealing with her mental health, like we’re writing stories from our own perspective. And, the more that you have people, marginalized folks, writing from their own perspective, you get more stories that have not really been done before. So, it’s exciting to see this version of mental health. It’s exciting to see this version of people of color, where they’re not really dealing with like microaggressions at the moment because like the building is haunted.


 * I definitely am very deliberate and strict when it comes to my schedule. So, while I was working on Archival Quality, the big bulk of it anyway, I was working at the library. And so that was still full-time work. So I would do eight hours at the library, come home, take a nap, wake up, get some dinner with my husband, and then work for four hours or four pages, whichever came first. And that’s how I worked for the majority of the time. And just making sure to stick to that schedule is a lot mentally, just because there are days where I’m like, “I never wanna draw ever again.” But it’s definitely worth it. And, once you get into that habit, it’s really easy to keep the train going.


 * As long as it’s on a calendar, it will get done.


 * I like to make sure that I have time where I don’t draw at all. So that schedule, I will do it like five out of seven days. And then those two days that I have, I can relax and, when I get back into it, I don’t get burnt out. Because burnout is real. I mean, when I finished Archival Quality, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna draw again.’ And I don’t think I drew anything like in earnest for like four to six months.


 * definitely stretch more. That’s another thing. I started working out recently, where I would like actually work out for, like, anywhere between like thirty minutes to an hour like four days out of the week. And it’s helped TREMENDOUSLY...Get in a good amount of sleep. Y’know, people like to romanticize “work culture”
 * Responding to "is there any advice that you have now that you would give yourself?"


 * one of my things that I like to do is – when I work in editorial – is find people who may not have had an opportunity to tell their stories before.

Interview

 * I started reading regularly in 2008. I had grown up with the DC Animated Shows like Batman The Animated series, Justice League, and Superman, but didn’t get into reading comics till out of high school.


 * Sean Galloway, Chris Sanders, Dustin Nguyen, and Brittany Williams!
 * responding to "What artist influenced you and your work the most?"


 * at the moment I’m completely obsessed with Kamala Khan.


 * I feel like sometimes it’s easier to put what I’m thinking into images AND words. Words aren’t enough for me. I want people to see the face and the personality behind my words. It gives it more meaning.


 * I would love to see more of us (women of color and other marginalized voices) in mainstream comics. When it comes to webcomics, we’re KILLING the game. Mildred Louis, Wendy Xu, Ariel Ries, Gisele Jaboteh, Shannon Wright, Bianca Xunise, I mean we’re knocking it out of the park. But when it comes to mainstream print, it’s different. I think in order for that to change we need more WOC writing and illustrating more than just other POC characters. Put one of us on Iron Man. Have a WOC creative team for Justice League. Let me see more of us writing for ALL characters and from that is where the growth begins.