Hello, and welcome to Saturday Reads! Here I share some of the interesting articles and interviews I’ve happened across during the week. Read them over your coffee, at your leisure, share with friends, and, ideally, enjoy!

NOTE: Bolded links are the “Reads,” whereas regular unembellished links provide more information and professional links.

Here’s an amazing interview with Tillie Walden, creator of I Love This Part and A City Inside (amongst others), conducted by Annie Mok. Tillie’s paneling is top-notch, perfect in its use of space and breath to render emotion with deceptively simple lines. She’s been drawing daily comics on her Patreon page for more than 115 days straight, so consider sending $3 or more her way to read them!

Christa Seeley of Women Write About Comics conducted an interview with Witchy webcomic creator Ariel Ries. WWAC writer Alenka Figa spoke with Paige Hall about Fat Mermaids: A collaborative Charity Zine (available until September 17, 2016) in an interview posted here.

The Justin Lab Report conducted an interview with the creator of Chic Pixel, translator Anne Lee, which was recorded and transcribed.

(Can you tell I’m really into interviews right now? Although, let’s be real – it’s amazing to learn about the thoughts, inspirations, and processes of these creative individuals!)

Here’s an article on Japan’s Doujinshi Culture of Creativity Through Theft and the Monster Trying to Destroy It by Rich and Michael Richey. Contrary to what the title of the article implies, the majority of creators and publishers in Japan believe doujinshi and other fan works are more akin to parody than theft. The broad acceptance of fan works has encouraged and paved the way for some of the world’s most renowned manga artists, but JASRAC (the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers) seeks to end their prevalence.

The article references a poll of 4000 doujinka in Japan, which is available here in Japanese.

This was an interesting article written by Alice Nicolov on how Japan’s manga scene is adapting to the needs of its LGBTQ+ youth.

Here’s a tweet thread about the validity of fan content! I agree with everything written here by Alyssa Wong. Fanwork is generally not well respected outside of fandom, but it provides a creative and emotional playground through which to seek out, share, and create relatable and, at times, healing content. Furthermore, there are plenty of professionals who have gotten work through fanfics, fanart, or other fandom-related work! Content creation is creation, period.

I hope you enjoy these insightful reads! Let me know if you have any suggestions for the week ahead.