Trish Forstner is an Eisner and Ringo Award nominated artist who co-created Stray Dogs and Feral. She is known for her work in My Little Pony and for her covers on Disney comics like Darkwing Duck and Zootopia. While Forstner was a guest at Baltimore Comic-Con, she took a break from drawing commissions for an interview with Scoop.

Scoop: Are you having a good time at the convention?
Trish Forstner (TF): Absolutely having a good time. This is my, I don’t know, 13th year doing this show, but my fifth year as like published comic artist. So yeah, it’s a wonderful show.

Scoop: What do you like about Baltimore Con?
TF: This show is very book focused, original art focused, creator focused. It has a lot less to do with the media presence, even though they’re here, those types of entertainers. But a lot of focus on the creators. That’s what I love about this show. And I’m a local.

Scoop: You co-created Feral and Stray Dogs, which blend cute animals with horror elements. What inspires you to combine the two?
TF: Well, in the ‘80s, we had these great movies like All Dogs Go to Heaven, which was a very sweet looking movie, but had very dark undertones. So, we wanted to kind of take those things and turn them up a little bit. Turn it up a little bit more, get what we could have had as kids, get it now while we’re adults.

Scoop: What did you enjoy about drawing My Little Pony?
TF: Everything. They’re so cute. First of all, everybody lays waste to kids’ comics like they’re not worth anything, but every kid reads comics, or every kid wants to read comics. But I love them. They’re little marshmallowy fun things and there’s just something cool to take your mind off of the real world.

Scoop: Is there a specific character from My Little Pony that you like drawing the most?
TF: Rainbow Dash. Even though she’s very colorful, I like drawing her the most.

Scoop: What’s your creative process like when you’re creating comic covers?
TF: Well, if it was the Disney ones, they would tell me a little bit about what the story was so that I can kind of pull elements from that without being too spoilery and put those characters in those situations. For Feral, we’re just going for what we always do. What movie posters haven’t we done? And what situations have we not had these cats looking creepy in? And for Stray Dogs, obviously, it was what would look the sweetest? But then also the scariest. I mean, nothing says creepy like a poor dog hiding under a bed, you know, with a hand over the edge of the bed. Like, that’s sad, scary.

Scoop: What does it mean to you to meet fans at conventions?
TF: It means everything. I can’t believe that people come to shows to meet me, but it’s fantastic. I enjoy it a lot.

Scoop: What have fans been most excited to talk to you about at this show?
TF: Mostly about how traumatized they are over the books. [laughs]

Scoop: Which characters or books would you like to work on that you haven’t yet?
TF: I like to always play in the nostalgia area of comics, so any Disney afternoon type stuff. I mean, if it’s licensed stuff, that sort of thing. And then of course my own creator owned things, Stray Dogs and Feral. I love working in that universe, in the universe that we have control over, that we got to build. That’s like my favorite thing.

Scoop: What are you working on now?
TF: Right now? Derpy. I’m drawing a Derpy tiger as a commission for somebody. But, always Feral. We just wrapped on number 18, number 19 will be in the books soon, number 17 will be out next week.

Scoop: Are you doing any more conventions this year?
TF: This year I have Ocean City Comic Con left. That’s in December.

Scoop: Thank you.
TF: Thank you.