Oscar McKay

What I want is to pursue a life structured around making comics. If the path leads to ruin, at least I’ll have an interesting story.

Heartlines explores what it means to write—from the heart and soul—and where that writing takes us. Every writer’s journey is different, so we invite you to take a moment to read, pause and reflect on what it means to shape stories for the page.

Oscar McKay is a queer comic creator from Boorloo (Perth). They illustrate and write fun, wacky comics that are grounded in the mundane problems of their characters. Their work is influenced by their experience navigating a world built for a neurotypical brain, and as someone whose gender and sexuality are difficult to explain and categorise.

Oscar has two Bachelor’s degrees, the first in fine art and art design studies, and the second in illustration and graphic design. Since graduating, they’ve had comics published in several anthologies, including the West Coast Comic Anthology, Tale Town, and Monochromania.

As part of the 2025 Comic Creator Hot Desk Fellowship with Centre for Stories, Oscar has completed the first chapter of their debut graphic novel, Avoidance—a science fiction comedy set in a distant future. The story is about emotional manipulation and learning to recognise when others don’t have your best interests at heart.

Centre for Stories: When you’re not writing or illustrating, what are you doing?

Oscar McKay: I’m of the opinion that nighttime is the best time to go to the beach in Summer. There’s no sun, less people, and the water’s still warm from the daytime. I’ll often go down to Cottesloe with my snorkel, fins, and diving torch to bother fish. I’ve been training myself to hold my breath for longer.

I also have a few low-stakes hobbies such as embroidery, bird photography, and HTML that I’ll rotate through. I find it helpful to have creative outlets that I can just pick up as needed with no pressure. The things I learn often filter back into my main art practice in unexpected ways.

CFS: What motivated you to start creating stories?

OM: Writing and drawing have always been tangled up for me. I remember being 10 or 11 and filling up sheets and sheets of A4 paper with ballpoint pen drawings of magical characters and places. Once I got restless, I’d go outside to our trampoline and tell myself stories about what I’d drawn whilst mid-air. Then I’d race back inside to write it all down. The first comic I ever made was a birthday gift for two of my school friends about our superheroes’ alter-egos.

My psychologist was the first person to encourage me to make comics in order to process my emotions. Even when I didn’t have the words, I could start by wiggling a pencil on the page. I have a lot of very rough comics that nobody else has ever seen because that isn’t their function.

Throughout the years, the impulse to create stories never really went away. I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to.

CFS: Being a comic creator isn’t exactly a conventional career choice (which is why we love it). When did you decide to pursue being a comic creator?

OM: I think it’s something I’ve been working towards long before admitting it to myself. I never considered that it was a real thing people could do, or if it was, it wasn’t something I was capable of doing.

Getting diagnosed with ADHD in my late 20s had a major impact on my mentality. When seeking help several years earlier, I’d been told I was ‘too smart’ to have ADHD. At the time, I was skeptical. I thought that needing six hours and a panic attack to do the dishes wasn’t normal, but I’d learned to trust others’ opinions over my own. Growing up, I’d assumed that everyone had the same difficulties as I, and I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

So when I got the diagnosis, it was confirmation that yes, I wasn’t imagining things. For the first time, I had a sense of agency and control over my own life. As a consequence, I started to make decisions that weren’t about placating others but were instead based on my own wants and needs. I realised that I could know things about myself and be right.

For my comic-making, the turning point came after finishing my second degree. I was burnt out. In addition to studying part-time, I’d been working in a high-stress job for several years. Whilst I’m grateful for my time there, I couldn’t see myself staying forever. So, when I got the opportunity to take long service leave, I used it to have a good long think about what it was that I wanted.

There are lots of messages out there about how difficult it is to be an artist, and I don’t doubt them. But thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that if everything is going to be difficult for me anyway, then why not this? What I want is to pursue a life structured around making comics. If the path leads to ruin, at least I’ll have an interesting story.

CFS: What inspires you?

OM: So much!

I really love character-driven science fiction and fantasy, especially The Murderbot Diaries and The Locked Tomb series. It’s so exciting when you get all the fun and escapism of the genre, and then the author sneaks up behind you with a large novelty hammer titled: ‘Personal Issues You Didn’t Even Know You Had’. I always come back to stories about the messiness of the human experience.

Comics-wise, the webcomics of the late 2000s were really formative. Things like XKCD, Oglaf, and Hark! A Vagrant really spoke to my teenage self. They’re all funny, but they also all have this undercurrent of narrative truth.

I’m also continuously inspired by the comic-making community we have here in Perth. There’s a strong culture of sharing knowledge, and it feels like each work is part of a wider conversation. When I went to Perth Comic Arts Festival (PCAF) for the first time, I had a fairly limited understanding of what comics could be. I think something in my brain shorted out because I saw people making comics that were so much broader in scope than what I’d previously considered.

So, I’ll see something cool that someone has made, and it’ll push me to make something that I think is cool. Then someone else might be inspired by something I’ve made, and the energy loops back. I really don’t think I’d be able to make the work I make without it.

CFS: Can you share your experience of the comic creator hot desk fellowship?

OM: This is going to sound bonkers, but I’d previously spent so much time around other comic creators that I’d almost forgotten that other disciplines exist. Like, I’d be speaking to someone who was hot desking at the same time as me, and they’d tell me they were working on writing an essay, and internally I’d be: Oh! That’s right! Essays exist! So, it’s been really valuable to fill in some of those blind spots and gain a broader view of the writing scene in WA as a whole. It’s also just fun! I really loved listening to other writers talk about their areas of interest and things they’re passionate about. I love being reminded that the world is full of things to experience and learn. It’s life-affirming, you know?

I’m also much more confident now when I’m talking to other creatives. Some of that is having more confidence in my work and a clearer idea of myself as an artist. The other half is having the opportunity to meet such cool people and getting to practice being normal around them—at the bare minimum, forming sentences when I’m awestruck.

On a practical note, the hot desk fellowship has been helpful for cultivating discipline in my writing practice. It’s been so nice to be able to go to a new place without the distractions of home and have a dedicated space where I’m only working on my graphic novel, no matter what other deadlines I might have coming up.

CFS: Centre for Stories is all about taking things at your own pace, working with others, and providing a safe place for all. How has this space enabled you to think and explore your work?

OM:  I’ve never studied creative or professional writing formally, and I’m not about to go back to uni for a third time (at least for a long while yet), so I’ve been trying to absorb as much writing knowledge as I can and catch up on a lot of the baseline know-how.

Getting other people’s opinions has also driven my own ‘aha’ moments because they’ll look at things from angles I hadn’t even considered.

I remember having a chat with some of the Centre for Stories’ staff about my broader plot. I was sort of… bellyaching about how to balance humour and, I don’t know, big-literary-proper-serious meaning. I remember Rob saying something along the lines of: ‘Do they need to be separate things?’ He pointed out that Don Quixote, arguably one of the most influential novels of all time, is funny. It was a good point. I’d gotten so caught up in the idea that being silly and fun is somehow the opposite of meaningful that I’d been holding myself back. As a result, I’ve changed the way I engage with my practice. I’m trying to worry less about respectability and more about being genuine. My energy is better spent on whether the narrative choices I make serve the story I’m trying to tell.

On a personal level, it’s also been good to get perspectives from people who are marginalised in different ways from me and to talk about the commonalities and differences in our struggles. I think especially in the queer community, there can be a tendency to focus only on the ways our gender and sexuality impact us. When in reality, it’s only one part of our identities. It’s been a timely reminder to be more conscious of my own areas of privilege as well as the ways I am marginalised. Especially with the worrying global trend towards fascism, I hope that if I’m able to stand up for people in other communities when they aren’t being heard, people in other communities will be able to stand up for my community in return.

Time will tell how it comes out in my work. I can feel something cooking back there in the recesses of my brain.

CFS: What are you working on next?

OM: Chapter 2! Now that I’ve completed chapter 1 of Avoidance, I’ve been working with my mentor and taking the opportunity to look at the big picture and refine my plan for the remainder of the story.

No spoilers, but I’m very excited to draw what comes next! I’m planning to have the next chapter of Avoidance ready for Perth Comic Arts Festival next year. I’ve also been honing my skills and broader art practice on some shorter, low-pressure comics.

All Write is a program funded by Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and Centre for Stories Founders Circle. All Write is a writing program offering opportunities for emerging and mid-career writers who identify as CaLD and/or First Nations. All Write offers a series of opportunities for writers, including hot desks, events, residencies, publications, networking, and exchanges. It builds on our prior decade of work to represent a levelling-up of artistic excellence and professional opportunity for writers who are emerging and mid-career. It will be open to all those who are interested in applying and who are selected; and is suited to those who seek national and international recognition.

These stories have been licensed to the Centre for Stories by the Storyteller. For reproduction and distribution of these stories, please contact the Centre for Stories.

This interview was published in October 30 2025.