Known for her work on IDW's “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” comics, various Star Wars projects and recent work with Marvel, Katie Cook creates her own world with “Gronk: A Monster’s Story.”







Cook started the comic strip to take a break from outside graphic design work. Gronk is the story of a young (relatively speaking) monster who runs away to the human world, and comes to live with Dale, her large Newfoundland and cat. Wackiness and cuteness ensue as they adjust to their new lives.







For this year's Free Comic Book Day, Cook expanded beyond the four-panel structure into a full comic narrative as Gronk told her origin story.









The Swerve Magazine: How did you first get into comics?





Katie Cook: I've been a big comic fan since I was a kid. It's really one of the things that I learned to read on, newspaper strips like “Peanuts” and “Calvin and Hobbes,” and then Archie comics when I was a little bit older, and things like Spider-Man and Batman, so they've always been a part of my life, and it's awesome to have that be my job now.







SM: What led you to pursue comics as a career?







KC: Quite frankly, I've never really wanted to do anything else. Ever since I was in kindergarten, I've told my parents, “I'm going to be a cartoonist when I grow up.”







SM: What led you to create “Gronk?”







KC: “Gronk” has been my personal project for the past few years. I came up with the character about 10 years ago when I was in college, we were supposed to do a self portrait, so instead of doing they typical angsty college art student painting where everyone has black eyes and drippy paint, I created this little green monster, and I said, “This is what I would look like if I was a monster.” I did a bunch of little situations with this little monster, like acting really awkward.







She became this little character that I doodled in sketchbooks and posted little cartoons of, until eventually maybe five years ago, I started the webcomic with her because I was kind of determined to a personal project. I've been drawing this character forever, why don't I just do something with it. Webcomics are free to put out there on the web, all they take is my time. I started the webcomic, and now it's turned into something a little bit bigger, so I'm really happy about that.







SM: So you started “Gronk” mostly for creative expression?







KC: Yeah, just for fun. To have a me time project. I think at that time, I was working on the “Fraggle Rock” comic, and had just quit my studio job. I had been a graphic designer, and was taking on a lot of freelance to make up for the loss of my full-time employment income, so I wasn't necessarily taking on stuff that I loved with all this outside graphic design stuff, so I wanted to have a day that was just my artwork. That's really what “Gronk” was, it was a day for me instead of designing cupcake liners. The boring stuff that no one tells you is going to become part of your life when you do graphic design.







SM: I never would have anticipated cupcake liners.







KC: Oh, I did an entire thing. Hundreds and hundreds of different cupcake liners. Christmas ones, birthday ones, Easter ones . . .







SM: In addition to “Gronk,” you have done a lot of licensed properties. At this point do you pursue a lot, or do choose from what gets offered to you?







KC: I'm lucky that I'm at a point in my career where a lot of stuff gets offered to me. I've been working on IDW and Hasbro's “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” for three years now, and it was so funny how that came about. I basically just put out on Twitter, “Hey I really think that the new incarnation of the show is really fun. It's super silly and weird, and very well done.” And I got an email from Bobby, our editor at IDW, he's like, “You like it? You wanna write it?”







It's funny how much of my work lately falls into that category falls into pure dumb luck. I'm very grateful that a lot of my work happens that way, it's a lot better on my end as a freelancer that I don't have to beg for work right now, which is amazing. I've gotten to work on so many things that I really loved from my childhood, like Fraggle Rock, like Star Wars, My Little Pony, stuff for Marvel. It's amazing that I get to wake up everyday and say “Oh, I've got to go do this Marvel thing, boo-hoo.” It doesn't suck.







SM: You work on things like MLP and Fraggle Rock that are totally kid-centric and other stuff like Star Wars that, while general audiences, is a bit different. Does your approach change in how you handle these projects?







KC: For me, I approach kids comics as all-ages comics. I think kids comics tends to have this negative connotation that I don't love of fluffy bunny tea party time. I don't think that that is correct. A great all-ages book is something that kids and adults can really appreciate and can appreciate on different levels. If there is a gag in there that a kid reads one way, but an adult will interpret it another way, like it's just the tiniest bit more clever because you have those years of experience behind you, I really love that in a really well-done all ages book.







It's sad because there are so many adults out there who won't touch what they consider a kids book because they think that it will be too dumbed down for them or something that they won't enjoy. I think that's really sad, and a lot of people miss out on a lot of great books because they don't understand that kids comic title.







SM: The market for all-ages material has really grown in the past couple of years, what do you think led to this expansion?







KC: There is such a huge focus on that fact that it's really OK to be a nerd right now, which is amazing. A lot of the licensed comics are really bringing comics back into kids hands. I think that we were in almost a dark period a few years back where we didn't have a lot of great kids titles, and that has changed, and I really applaud things like “Adventure Time” for having such a quality book that tied in with the show. It was a property that so many kids and adults really loved, and then they put out a great book to go along with it.







So many things have spawned from that, “Bravest Warriors” is really great, and I think that opened doors for some of those creators to go onto other books and create other all-ages material that is really spectacular. “Lumberjanes” is great,” IDW puts out an array of licensed books that have a great kids audience and adult audience like “My Little Pony,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Transformers” and “Samurai Jack.”







I think the licensed comics really do have a place in bringing in new readers. I have kids, and when my daughter sees that it's a book that's tied into something that she enjoys, she's more likely to want it, but then that opens up her knowledge of what a comicbook is, and understanding what it is. That way, when I give her “Owly” or something like that, she already understands the format because she's already experienced it through My Little Pony comics.







SM: In addition to Gronk, what else are you working on?







KC: I still work on “My Little Pony.” I had a story that just came out on the Queen Chrysalis back story, and I'm working on a few more. I'm working on an upcoming Marvel anthology, which I'm super excited about because a few months back I did a story for “Spider-Verse” where Marvel asked me to create my own Spider-Man character. They asked me to re-envision if the spider had bit an 11-year-old girl instead of Peter Parker. That was a blast. Absolute childhood dream, I got my own Marvel Universe, and I'm really excited to expand working with Marvel and doing some more stuff for them.







Also, a new creator-owned book that is in the very early stages that I'm excited some creative focus into. And more Star Wars stuff, always more Star Wars stuff, one of my number one nerd passions, so more Star Wars always makes me happy.



“Gronk: A Monster's Story” can be found at http://www.gronkcomic.com

