Making of: Grief Belly

Making of: Grief Belly

A look at the process behind the work I created for a comics anthology

In November 2024, I answered a call for submissions to a comics anthology being put together by Normandie Luscher (illustrator, designer, and faculty member at Syracuse University). In addition to Normandie, the impressive jury of artists that would be selecting stories included Jordan Sondler, Robert Young, and Yifan Luo.

From the call: “…if you’re an artist who wants to make art about how weird, frustrating and awesome it is to have a body, you are officially invited to submit!” Why yes, do count me in. Since this call was specifically for a story related to the body, I immediately knew what idea I wanted to take and make into a comic.

Grief Belly Origins

I’ve had the title and the general idea in my head since maybe 2022. It started as a thought-thread I informally called “Grief Belly” —

In the beginning, a tumor filled her belly with fluid, making her look, in her words, “7 months pregnant,” though she was pushing 60.

She would know, having actually been pregnant twice, with humans.

Spreading from her womb, the ovarian cancer eventually took over everything.

What had once given life…could also take it away.

When she died, I felt purposeless.

I didn’t want children, and now, without my mother on earth, I couldn’t understand why I was still here, too.

An invisible cord tethered us. Why didn’t it take me to where she was?

I stopped dying my grays and considered getting a pixie cut – an attempt to find more of her in my reflection.

I wore her sweaters and favorite earrings. I got her handwriting tattooed on my arm. I cooked her recipes...sampled her favorite foods...ordered her signature drink...

In other words…in my mother’s absence, I filled my body with her

but the only part that grew was my belly.

Now, I look pregnant, though I’m not. I don’t have ovarian cancer, either…nor the genetic mutation that would put me at higher risk for it.

To my utter surprise – despite years of contrarian conditioning – the sight of my full, soft stomach gives me joy (most days).

I couldn’t hate this belly that formed inside my mother. So some days I cradle it – this proof of the journey.

Visual evidence that my value is not tied to whether or not I bring new life or new bodies into the world, but simply that surviving this life, in this body, is enough.

I knew the words would need editing in order to become a thing. But I wasn’t ready to start cutting words until I had a better idea of the visuals – how would the story live?

Below is an initial brainstorm sketch, trying to get a sense of how I might lay the story out visually. I drew directly in Figma with the pencil tool and my laptop trackpad because it was the easiest way for me to move things around quickly.

Explorations like this are extremely helpful for me. I could suddenly see all the little details that detracted from the story.

I had a starting point for how to reign it in.

Show or Tell

When you are crystal clear on what you want to say, it’s easier to identify and cut the things that don’t work. I got laser-focused on the main point I wanted to get across, which centered on the “belly” connection: mom’s ovarian tumor, my empty womb by choice, and my stomach growing fuller from comfort food.

I also chose to keep it to one page of 6 square panels, giving myself a clear, manageable container.

I think the thing I am most drawn to with comics is the aspect of getting to show parts of the story, rather than saying it with text. What could I represent visually, and what needed actual words?

Below is the exact proposal I submitted – you can see how editing made the story much clearer. There was a “point” now, rather than it being more of a stream-of-conscious piece of writing. The text still felt a bit long to me, but it was suitable for the storyboard stage.

Creating the finished piece

To create the final artwork, I chose to work digitally in Procreate so I could more easily control the color environment (working in a print-standard CMYK profile).

I drew and redrew the second and last panels over and over and over again until they felt right. I wish I had something more insightful to say about this. 

I also tried out a few different fonts, but decided to go with my handwriting in the end.

While working on this comic, I was in a Discord channel with a few other early-stage comic makers. The benefit of this kind of community really cannot be overstated for independent artists. Having a space to say “I have no idea what I’m doing” and three other people can chime in with a “haha RIGHT? me neither” is invaluable, and frankly should be supplied with your diploma upon graduation from art school.

Here is the comic in its final form:

In the end, I’m really pleased with the final comic.

Creating work like this gives my grief a new path to take – usually one of catharsis. Grief Belly as a phrase and idea had been living rent free in my brain for a few years, so I was happy that it could finally live outside of me.

Some Final Notes

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the anthology exists IRL and can be purchased here.

I originally wrote this recap for my newsletter, with some words changed around. Feel free to check that out if you like.