Natasha Allegri

Natasha Allegri has a webcomic.

Actually, she has a webcomic called Normal Life which chronicles her day to day life, be she walking to class or asking a gay friend if his mom can spare a tampon. You know, normal stuff. Sound good? Well, there's more. Natasha's Normal Life occasionally morphs into beautifully illustrated one panels featuring mutated horses with octopus legs and hooked feet, or tales of fat little ne’er-do-wells and the football-eyed lizards they bring for show and tell.
Natasha Allegri has some talent.

She has some incredible imagination and some serious chops on the Wacom board. Now that she's out of the Daily Grind and we can all just hope that she keeps posting her beautiful comics as frequently as she did during.
… but enough of me blowing smoke up her ass, here's the Q and A.

STUMBLEBUM STUDIOS - You did a children's book for a college class and then sold it on Ebay? What class was it, what did the teacher think, and what did you end up selling the book for?

NATASHA ALLEGRI - The children's book was written for my English class. I actually did it the night before because… I forgot about it. We were supposed to take an essay we wrote before, and re-write it for an entirely different audience. Most people re-wrote it for a college audience, or professors, even a few as speeches for the American body. I figured I really didn't have time to do anything that required putting to use what we learned in the class, so I made it into a children's book. I finished about an hour before my class. I got an A on the actual project. I figured because it was easy to read compared to the others, and short. But I guess I figured to include other stuff, and it balanced to a B-. It sold for $100 to a lovely man named Gil Reese.

SS - You originally did your comics on paper, but then switched to a Wacom board? What was your process then versus now?
NA - When I used paper, I would print out the panels from a word document, like squares, then I'd draw inside those boxes and scan it, open it in a colouring program thing, and then colour it kind of like a painting style. It was a pretty long process. Now I just do the entire thing on my colouring program thing. It's still pretty tedious, and my hand cramps up like crazy, and I know some people feel that it kind of cheapens the comic since there's no actual physical trace of it. It probably takes more time to make it now however. I never really properly learned to colour things, and they still turn out kind of muddy, but I think my end result is more what I want then with the paper scan-technique thing.

SS - You get a million comments from people telling you how awesome you are, people send you things created from your comics, and people have taken to naming their kids Natasha Allegri. Is that a little weird sometimes?

NA - There are kids named Natasha Allegri?!? It doesn't really weird me out, I figure if people enjoy it, that's good. After all, I'm only doing this for the daily grind, not attention (BUT I DO ENJOY IT, don't get me wrong... people are awesome).

SS - Even though you get hundreds of positive comments from your completely free-to-read comics, occasionally you will get the random, douche-bag, negative comment? How's that feel?
NA - The negative comments used to really bother me. I believe over summer I would get drunk alone and cry and stuff? No, I mean, it doesn't bother me. I don't expect everyone to like my stuff, and I'm glad people voice their opinions if they don't enjoy it. It's nice to know that the internet makes people comfortable enough to be complete assholes.

SS- Natasha is a Russian name, Allegri sounds Italian, but from pictures, I would guess your family is from Kenya or Germany. Where is your family from and are they really in the mob?

NA - Hahaha. My first name, I think my mom chose it, mostly because she thought it was pretty (WRONG!!!). Allegri IS Italian, I believe, but that's from my step grandfather. I think I'm Bolivian, Japanese, American Indian, and some kind of Middle Eastern. I'm not exactly sure though about the mob thing though... that'd be pretty sweet though. I wouldn't need to study so hard for class, just put animal parts in the professors’ beds.
SS - Finally, how long is the line of boys that wanna be your boyfriend after Sean, and are married guys allowed in? No reason, I was just wondering.

NA - The line is THIS BIG, and yes, totally.

Alright, that's enough of me flirting awkwardly with Natasha.
Go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/normallife and flirt awkwardly with her yourself.