Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Keezy! I'm a cartoonist who primarily writes and draws short comics and graphic novels (but I also do some illustration work). My second graphic novel, Hello Sunshine, come out with Little Brown/Hachette Books in September 2025, and I have two more in the works, plus a number of short comics (including Sunflowers (Silver Sprocket, 2023), which was nominated for an Ignatz award). I like writing horror, mystery, and stories about different kinds of love. Most of my work features LGBTQIA characters, and severe mental illness is another important theme in a lot of my comics.
What do you use to get the job done?
I'm pretty lowkey! I use a laptop + external hard drive and a small-size Wacom Intuos tablet and pen for my day-to-day work, and an iPad for my on-the-go/casual work. I find personally that the tablet is more ergonomic for me than something like a Cintiq (or my iPad, for that matter), where you draw directly on the screen. I can hold it in my lap and relax my shoulders and neck while I look at the laptop screen, and my arm doesn't have to reach too far; I've never felt that I needed a larger size of Intuos, either.
I used to do pen and ink, colored pencils, and watercolor more often (that's how I got my start) but it's been a while since I've tried my hand at traditional tools. I think I honestly just prefer digital work!
I use Clip Studio Paint as my drawing program these days (I switched off of Photoshop in 2018), but I also use some additional software in my workflow.
One of my necessities is Pureref, which you can drop or copy any image into and then move them around as needed. It's really helpful for both reference collections, and for stuff like being able to see all of my comic pages at once.
I also use Affinity Designer for some of my text-editing, and Affinity Publisher to set up PDFs; Adobe Photoshop for some comic lettering needs; Google Docs to write my scripts (although I'm currently exploring other options); and Dropbox to back up my files.
What would be your dream setup?
Honestly there isn't too much about my actual setup that I would change at the moment, outside of maybe a bigger computer monitor! If I had a dream office, that would be something, though. I currently work out of a 198-sq ft microstudio where I also live full time, and I admit it's quite tight. I would love to have room to expand my work setup and have more shelving for comics and reference books, more wall space for inspiring images, storage room to keep my own comics and prints tidy and accessible, stuff like that--maybe even a cat to keep me company, haha