A long process
At first, Eunnie thought she might make it a web comic, but as a busy college student, she didn't have the time or energy to sit down and draw. "It turns out I need someone to hold me accountable, because I kept saying, 'Yeah, I'll make a comic, I'll make a comic with them,' but I never did until I got my agent," she said with a laugh. "She was the one who encouraged me to follow the story.

"It was going to be much shorter, like five chapters, but after thinking about it more and talking about it with my editor, I expanded it a lot. I think it's in a good place now for their story."

By the time Eunnie found her editor, she had already tried to start the comic several times. She even took an independent study semester to focus on it. After her editor suggested a Sapphic romance, she was ready to start writing.

"By the time I got to make it a reality, I already had some material," Eunnie said. Because she already had the characters and plot developed, she was able to make a lot of progress on the graphic novel in a short amount of time.

Eunnie spent over a year and a half writing. "I did have to cut back a lot. The original script was 475 pages," she revealed. Had the novel been as long as she originally planned, Eunnie would still be working on it today! Per her editor's suggestion, she decided to cut it down.

"That was for the [best], because I would have died if it was that long," she said.

Once she finished the script, she started sketching the story, which took about three more months. The character designs are inspired by popular anime styles, with soft, round features and cute, exaggerated eyes. "I am very inspired by [Korean] manhwa and [Japanese] manga and that sort of thing," Eunnie said. "I like shoujo manga [Japanese comics for young adult women] and anime, so I always like drawing rounded shapes. That translates to the characters that I gravitate towards. Honestly, it's vibes only. That's my philosophy for all of it: color, style, and everything."

She spent the next six months coloring, inking, and adding final artistic touches to the project. "From sketching to inking to coloring, it took about nine months," she said. "Yeah, the time it takes to carry a baby — this was my baby. It was a long-form project, and this was my first time working on something of this length and scope."

Actually creating a graphic novel was much harder than the web comics Eunnie is used to making. "When I'm working on an illustration, I can just do whatever I want in whatever order I want. But now, having to do one thing at a time, it was rough," she admitted. "I like doing things out of order in an illustration. I have to do this before I lose interest. If I get bored with this one thing, I will move on from it and never come back, but I couldn't do that for this one. That was a little bit of a challenge, but I did it somehow."

Queer joy and coming out
For Eunnie, writing a Queer love story was essential. She wanted to write such that the characters could fall in love without questioning their sexuality or coming out. "I think those kinds of stories are still beautiful and meaningful, and we'll always need them, but I remember at the time wanting [one] where it wasn't an issue at all, especially in contemporary romance," she said.

"This came about as a desire to see more Queer joy and Queer romance [that's] not tragic... [with] a happy ending. I think it would be less meaningful if they weren't Queer, especially on a personal level, [in terms] of what I want to portray with these characters and the idea of representation."

Writing a Queer romance gave Eunnie the space to contemplate her identity. With the help of her characters, she was able to come out.

"Throughout making this book, I realized that I was also a Lesbian," she said. "I remember laying in bed awake at night, constantly thinking about this story, how much it meant to me that they were girls in love, and how much I wanted to show my love for girls in this book.

"At one point, I sat back. I was rethinking everything I had done in my life and all the art I'd made. I was like, 'I think this means a lot more to me than I thought.'"

Writing characters with confidence in their identities helped Eunnie build confidence in herself. "Looking back on it now, I wonder if that's why I wanted to see characters who are confident in their sexuality, characters who never had to state it outright for other people to understand. They just are who they are. Maybe that's the kind of existence I was yearning for too?"

She hopes readers can take away the same sense of confidence and Queer joy she got from creating the characters in her book.

"Queer people are pretty familiar with this angst that comes from being who you are," she said. "I think they are already familiar with the struggle of being Queer, not only your internal struggle but also external with family and your loved ones — and then there's the level of the government and all of this, which is just the reality we live in.

"I think having reminders that you can still have happiness even in these circumstances gives us a reason to live. It's something you can hope for, to stay hopeful for, because if you're in a dark place, how else can you keep moving forward if not with reminders that this kind of hope and love exists?"

Can't get enough Eunnie?
Eunnie is already working on her next book. "If people are a fan of my one comic called Pink in the Night, which was a lyric comic to one of Mitski's songs, and also a piece titled Another Life, which is two women staring at their past selves in a painting," she said, "then I think they will like what I'm working on right now. That's the best way I can explain it. It is another Sapphic story, and I'm always excited about that."

However, fans may have to wait a while before it hits shelves. Those who don't want to wait nine more months for her next literary baby can explore some of Eunnie's work online: she releases original art and web comics on her social media accounts @eunnieboo on Instagram and Tumblr.