When walking downtown, it’s hard to miss Brooklin Stormie’s work. Be it on a promotional poster for Peterborough Folk Festival or on her Renaissance on Hunter road mural, Stormie’s animated, foliage-laden illustrations are hard to miss. This year, the local illustrator also celebrated a new milestone—the forthcoming release of her debut book, a science-fiction graphic novel with Annick Press titled Astronautical!

I made my way to Stormie’s apartment on the afternoon of May 13th to talk about her place in the Peterborough art scene and, of course, her book. I was immediately impressed by her decor, especially given the fact she told me she’d only moved in a few weeks ago. Before I could spend too long gawking at the array of paintings and prints on her walls, Stormie was off to reassure her dog, Milou.

She explained to me that he gets scared of new people, and confirmed my suspicions about her dog’s name. Following a brief digression about our childhood adorations of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin, we sat down to begin the conversation that follows.

Louanne Morin: Do you want to start by talking a little bit about yourself, how you came to Peterborough, and how you came to be an artist?

Brooklin Stormie: I’ve always loved to make art. I think it’s kind of funny because the thing I spent most of my time doing when I was three is still the same thing I spend most of my time doing. Drawing has been a throughline in my life; I always knew I wanted to tell stories in some way, and drawing is one of the languages you can use to do that.

I actually grew up here in Peterborough, but I moved to Toronto to study illustration at OCADu (the Ontario College of Art and Design University) back in 2017. I ended up moving back here because of the pandemic, and then sort of fell in love with Peterborough all over again and decided to plant myself here more permanently.

LM: What made you fall back in love with Peterborough?

BS: I found the arts community here very welcoming. I was able to work here. I was surprised—when I graduated from OCAD, I felt like I'd have to be in Toronto to find freelance work, to meet clients, and to network. Because of the pandemic, so much of that went online anyways, and it gave me the opportunity to grow my career here instead.

I love the quiet, sort of gentle nature of this city. I love being close to the woods, and nature, and lakes. I just think that this place has a really cool spirit and I love to be a part of that.

LM: I think that love of nature shows in a lot of your art. Do you feel like Peterborough has helped shape your practice?

BS: Yeah, I feel like it’s very connected to this place. I sometimes wonder what came first: do I love this place because it made me, or do I just happen to connect to this place? I’m not sure what it is, but there's something about this space that is harmonious with my visual world and my voice and what I want to say.

LM: I’d love to hear about the milestones that have made you feel accepted in this community.

BS: I’ve worked a bit with the City of Peterborough, doing a few art projects over the years. Wendy Trusler was spearheading those projects, we did some road murals for I think three summers? 

I’ve done a lot of First Friday events over the years. It’s something about the people here that are working in my field, they’re just connecting and forming community, versus fostering competition. In my art school experience, I found that sometimes [competing with each other] was encouraged.

Maybe it’s my comfort with this city, but I just feel very at home and very connected. Everyone’s doing such cool and interesting things, and supporting each other in that.

LM: I’d also love to hear about your new book.

BS: It’s a graphic novel that I wrote and illustrated for the last three years. It's being published by Annick Press, who have been so lovely to work with, and really supported the project. It’s my first one, so all of this is new to me, learning to talk about it. It’s a science fiction fantasy of sorts, geared towards kids nine to twelve, maybe eight to twelve, but I’m hoping other people like it too. 

It’s just really exciting to get to share it, it’s called Astronautical!

LM: You launched Astronautical! at Take Cover Books earlier this month. How has the reception been? 

BS: The launch party was super fun and lots of people came. There’s always that fear that you’re gonna host an event and just be there by yourself with a giant cake. I feel very supported here, it’s wonderful.

LM: Do you want to talk a little bit more about what inspires your art? 

BS: I tend to think of myself as a folk artist. I’m really influenced by things that are around me and easily accessible, and I like to draw them in a way that is playful and maybe simplistic, but with rhythm and a movement to it. 

I do feel like nature and the environment influence me a lot, and also things I’ve learned about science and how the natural world actually functions together. It’s really beautiful and inspiring to me.

For Astronautical!, we did a science back matter section. Even though it’s a fantasy story, there are real scientific theories woven into the world, and they’re explained at the end of the book. Whenever my editor and I would hit a roadblock and weren’t really sure what to do, I would do some research into a scientific process that would inform the story and help us move forward.

The story is actually based on the life cycle of a star, and how that could be interpreted through anthropomorphic characters. It was really fun, playing with the boundary between what’s real and what isn’t.

LM: Is it fair to say that there’s an educational character to a lot of what you do?

BS: Absolutely. I’m really interested in education and making it fun. I do some art education at the Art Gallery of Peterborough, and a little bit at the library as well. I’ve been doing some workshops, I find that’s been a really fun extension of my practice

LM: It seems a lot of your work appeals to kids. Does that give you more of an opportunity to do that educational work?

BS: I never really set out to make kids’ media, that wasn’t the goal, but it organically was the audience that my work appealed to. 

I think there’s something special about the way that we think when we’re kids, and it’s something I want to tap into myself, as an adult—I want to think more like I thought when I was younger. There’s a wisdom there that I want to tap into, and I want to make things that kids are excited to read. It’s become a really important part of my work.

LM: Did you have an intended audience when you started making art? 

BS: I never thought about an audience, actually. I thought about the kind of art I wanted to make, the kind of art that inspired me and it was a lot of kids’ media. I love cartoons, specifically Cartoon Network shows and Studio Ghibli, things that are enjoyed by kids, but I’ve just always liked them. 

LM: Beyond Cartoon Network and Studio Ghibli, are there any other artistic inspirations that stand out to you?

BS: Those are two of the big ones in my mind, but I also read a lot of comics and graphic novels, so I’ve been inspired by a lot of other cartoonists. I really love N.D. Stevenson, who wrote Nimona, I love the Bone books by Jeff Smith, I love Scott Pilgrim—a lot of Canadian comics.

There’s so many creators that have done amazing work in that area, and I’ve just been really inspired by that. I go to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival every year, and I always say it’s like my Super Bowl! I just get so inspired there and see so many young people making amazing things, it’s wonderful.

LM: I see a lot of those influences—Bone and Scott Pilgrim—in your style. Despite being sort of cartoony, those series also address more serious themes and subject matter. How do you reckon with that in your own practice?

BS: I love talking about this, because this is something I think about a lot. In my head, it’s like tonal and stylistic dissonance. There’s something really powerful about that, and something that I was always drawn to, even as a kid; something that looked appealing but had this depth and darkness to it that I think is really special and fun. 

You can kind of create this Trojan Horse for meaning and these really conceptually rich ideas, that’s something I strive to do with my work.

Something that my editor and I talked about a lot with the book was like, “what’s the take away? What’s the meaning here? What do we want kids to think about when they read this book?” 

That was a challenging thing to determine because I’m someone who starts with the world-building. We ended up creating these sort of emotional character arcs that center around repair and relationships changing, and embedding that into a story that is very comedic and lighthearted—trying to find these pockets of meaning that you can weave into the story.

LM: Do you feel like you’ve arrived at any kind of larger meaning?

BS: The concept of things being repaired, whether that’s people or objects. I was really inspired by the kintsugi philosophy of repairing things with gold and how—I know it’s almost a cliché—things can be different but stronger for having been broken. There’s the idea of responsibility and coming of age, growing up, moving through life, and changing.

A big part of the story is the relationship between siblings, and I have a sibling, so I’m exploring that, and our connection helped inform the story. That give and take of wanting to take control but wanting to give space for other people to grow is something that I’ve felt in my life.

It’s a balancing act, right? It’s like wanting to be mature and to keep growing, but also not to silence that voice that just wants to play, be curious, and have fun. 

LM: Would you say that your art is a way to express that inner child?

BS: Absolutely. I think it’s the clearest way that part of me speaks—it’s the most affected by my experiences in the world. It feels like it comes from somewhere beyond, so it’s fun to see what comes out of it. 

LM: Anything else you’d like to add?

BS: Just thanks to everyone for all the support. I’ve been really overwhelmed by it. A special thanks to the folks at Take Cover Books who hosted my launch party and the people who continue to make this place livable for artists.

Astronautical! is currently available for pre-order at Annick Press and at Take Cover Books.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.