I started working on Sunny Side Down in 2018, when I was in my early/mid-twenties. I felt stuck — in myself, in who I was supposed to be, and in the growing fear that my time “to figure it all out” was running short.
To process those doubts, I created Sunny — a character who has to confront similar feelings in a far more literal way.
Sunny Side Down is a story about being trapped. Trapped in the past. Trapped by your circumstances. But mostly: trapped by the barriers you set yourself.
Every character in the story wrestles with this in some way or another. Even the world Sunny and Pit travel through reflects that sense of stagnation. A world stuck in the past and past its prime: old cars rusting in junkyards, struggling village shops, half-abandoned farmhouses, and the inevitable fading of summer into autumn.
This is what the places of my childhood in Bavaria became: Once lively, rural towns that felt victim to the displacement of retail trade and turned into ghosts.
But despite all the nostalgia I put in the story, I wanted it to be a dark comedy – heavily influenced by my love of English and German humor.
I couldn’t turn Sunny Side Down into a movie, as I desperately strived to all that time ago. But I realized that the story still mattered to me, and changing the medium opened up new possibilities. Working in a comic format lifted constraints and allowed me to discover new ways of expressing myself, which were simply not possible before.
I could now explore symbolism more freely, shift art styles to reflect character emotions, and choose a stylized look that invites readers to project themselves into the main characters. I was no longer held back by casting, budgets, or external logistics, and so many factors outside of my control.
I could now tell the story my way.
Sometimes things don’t go the way you planned.
But that doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It just means there might be another way through.
Seven years later, I think I’ve come to terms with myself.
It’s still scary sometimes. Like working on this project is scary. But it’s a good kind of scary.