June 11, 2017

Stephanie Zuppo (′15) is a hardworking cartoonist who has wholeheartedly accepted her role as a Vermont cartoonist. She has an obvious passion for comics that you can see in all of her various and sundry projects.

Your thesis project was the start of Belchville, VT. Since then you have run a Kickstarter to print a paperback book collecting the first three issues. Are you still working on this project? When can we expect a new chapter?

I am! Originally Belchville was released in minicomic issues of 24 pages each, but since running the Kickstarter for the collection, things have changed and I’m planning for the next release to be another 70-ish page book. Since I’m juggling so many other projects, it’ll take a little while to finish! I’m hoping to have it completed by the fall, though.

You have been a busy lady. You’ve also launched Conosaurus with your husband, John, which is a website for tracking comic conventions. Why take on so many projects? And how have you done it so successfully?

Oh boy… When I first moved to Burlington I took a full-time tech support job and was absolutely miserable. I had so many ideas at that point, but no time to fully flesh any of them out. After 9 months, I couldn’t stand it any longer… so I quit!

Steph working with husband John on Conosaurus.

This absolutely isn’t something that I suggest doing unless you’re a total workaholic and have savings or a partner who can help support you for a few months while you figure everything out. The first thing I did when I quit was get a very affordable studio space at a makerspace called Generator. Generator is a space full of artists, makers, entrepreneurs, and people in tech who constantly inspire and motivate me to keep going. I think a lot of my success can be attributed to becoming a part of that community! I’ve also been using a combination of Trello, Todoist, and Google Calendar to keep all of my projects organized and on schedule.

It’s been just about a year since I quit that full-time job and I’m finally developing some stability. I’m very lucky that everything worked out as well as it did and I’m much happier now!

You recently got a job as an adjunct professor in the game arts and animation department at Champlain College. What are you most excited about in this new position?

Yes! I’ll be teaching figure drawing and digital painting to game arts students! I’m particularly happy that my love of video games continue to come in handy in my professional life! 🙂

Interview with Angela Boyle ′16.