YouTube Star Joe Sugg Talks Username: Evie & Getting Into Comics

Joe Sugg is one of YouTube’s most well known personalities who, over the course of his vlogging career has amassed over 2 million subscribers. Known for his unique impressions, the YouTube star is also a huge geek. So much so that he has his own graphic novel coming out called Username: Evie. The new writer will team up with artist Amrit Birdi, colorist Joaquin Pereyra and letterist Mindy Lopkin to bring the original story to life.

ComicBook.com caught up with Sugg to talk about the project, where the idea came from and more. Check out the interview below and the first 9 pages of the story!

For folks who might not be familiar with the story – set it up for us, what’s it about?

The story is about a young girl called Evie who lives at home with her father. Her Father is terminally ill and he knows she’s not having the best life at school, so he goes away and makes a virtual world. He spent the last few years of his life building a the virtual world for Evie to escape to. Once her Dad passes away she enters the virtual world ‘E-scape’ and all sorts of adventures happen.

Were you always a comics fan? Or are you new to the cause? Any favorite comic books or graphic novels?

I am a huge fan of comics from growing up, I used to be a fan of English comics the Beano and the Dandy and I was also a big fan of graphic novels, like The Walking Dead and the Watchmen.

What pushed you over the edge to make this story a graphic novel?

Mainly because of my past, I grew up obsessed with comic books. When i was at school I had an assessment to make a trailer for an apocalyptic/dystopian film. I did more research on graphic novels at the time and my teacher lent me the Watchmen comics. When I read that it inspired me to do a bit of extra work creating a graphic novel front cover so it looked like the film was based on an existing graphic novel

Can you talk about the process a little bit? Was it weird at first?

It was weird to start with. As as you know graphic novels aren’t a solo project, they are done by a team, there’s a lot that goes into it. Working in a team was a new experience for me, because for my video’s I’m used to doing so much on my own – filming, editing etc. I was really nice, but weird of me at the same time.

I loved the connection to modern day technology. Everything from selfies to text messaging – there’s a ton that connects with a younger audience. Can you walk us through the thought process of including that?

For me it was really easy to include that as my job as a Youtube is putting myself online so i know all of the technological jargon. And I wanted that to be a key part of it as i know most of my audience will understand that. I’m sticking to my roots while expanding in to other projects.

Are any of the characters based of people in your life?

Not necessarily in my life, but I’ve had a lot viewers tweet and contact me on social media who are going through tough times in their life, so a lot of the characters personality reflect this. For example there are a lot of my viewers who deal with loss of family members and grief, so i wanted to make sure this was a subject in the book so they can relate to it and hopefully help them through the tough time.

How much of yourself do you see in Evie?

She starts of the story very timid and shy, which is kind of like me before i started my Youtube channel. I was always very very very shy, it takes me a while to come out of my shell, which i feel that Evie does in the book.

The fantasy aspects of the story work really nicely when blended against the backdrop of the main story. What made you decide to go the fantasy route rather than say, hard sci-fi, or straight up horror?

I’ve always been fan of the contrast between a real world and a virtual world, i really like the fact that my video’s are kind of like an escapism for our viewers at home who want to escape the real world, so i wanted that theme in the book

To wrap this up – what are you hoping fans take away from this when they’re done reading it?

I hope that i will leave them wanting more, as i would love to expand this into a series and make more graphic novels with completely different storylines. I want them to feel that they have gone on an adventure and an emotional roller-coaster.

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So what do you think ComicBook.com readers? Let us know in the comments below!

You can grab a copy Username: Evie by clicking here!