Sheila the Zombie Cheerleader
You're probably wondering how this whole zombie cheerleader thing began ...
Sheila came to life when I painted a horrible picture of a zombie that readers of my old blog really liked, which might have had something to do with her personality (a little sarcastic, with many threats to eat people's brains). I got lots of encouragement from my wonderful online friends, so I kept working with Sheila. I was having a ton of fun, plus, her personality and attitude came to me fully formed. Later I realized that this was because Sheila is the older, zombie version of Kitty, my favorite stuffed animal when I was little. There are differences between Sheila and Kitty. For instance, Sheila is afraid of chickens, Kitty is not (Kitty pretends she isn't afraid of anything). Also, Sheila threatens to eat everyones brains. Kitty just gives everyone the side eye.
I never imagined that my childhood friend would grow up to be a zombie cheerleader. That's Sheila in the picture (she's afraid of chickens).

Then I took a two week intensive comics class at SVA (School of Visual Arts) with Matt Madden and Jessica Abel because I wanted to learn how to make comics and graphic novels. We had two weeks to write, sketch, ink, and produce a mini comic. It was an immersive class that was intense and intensely fun! My mini comic, starring Sheila the Zombie Cheerleader, debuted at the MoCCA Arts Festival (I sold a few and traded a few and had a blast). Here's the cover:

Here are three images from the mini comic:



I'm always thinking up new ideas for Sheila. She might be in a mini comic or web comic, or even have an advice column some day (she gave advice on my blog once - she wasn't super helpful and kept telling everyone to eat brains, which for some reason people liked).
I even wrote a book with entries from Sheila's Diary, which was full of information on the world of zombies, love and crushes, a little bit of gossip, and football, because zombies love football. Sheila is a zombie cheerleader with strong opinions that she's not afraid to share!
Before that novel, Sheila was a secondary character in a zombie romance novel. Unfortunately, being the secondary character didn't allow her to be her usual zombie self. |