On September 24th, a counter-conference dedicated to comics took place at the HSE Art and Design School’s creative space, HUB. I participated in the event with my co-author, Eva. We gave a lecture titled «Two Authors—One Project: How to Conceptualize, Create, and Stay Friends, ” and shared our own experience working on collaborative projects. We discussed distributing responsibilities, finding compromises, balancing friendship and work, authorship, and how to maintain one’s identity within a partnership.
Anti-conference on the 24th. Photo: Evgenia Savkina.
We began by exploring how to determine if a project requires a collaborator and how to find someone with whom you can work effectively. We then discussed what happens when two authors have differing views and tastes: how to find compromises and make decisions without letting the discussion devolve into a competition over «who is right.» We also talked about balancing friendship and work—where to draw the line between personal and professional communication, and why close relationships can both help and hinder a collaborative project.
Additionally, we covered the practical aspects of collaboration: whether to agree in advance on rights, character ownership, and distribution of responsibilities; how to plan work while allowing for downtime; what to do when experiencing burnout or uneven workload. In the finale, we discussed individual authorship within a larger project—how to maintain your unique voice while creating something that might not have been possible to achieve alone.
Anti-conference on the 24th. Photo: Evgenia Savkina.
Anti-conference on the 24th. Photo: Evgeniya Savkina.
Clips from the online conference broadcast.
At the end of our presentation, we answered the audience’s questions—including how to navigate creative disagreements, what to do when workloads are uneven, and where the line is between friendship and professional collaboration. What emerged wasn’t a set of universal rules, but rather an honest conversation about how our co-creation works in practice and why we continue to choose to work together.We coordinated the topic and format of the presentation with the anti-conference organizers, and subsequently, we independently prepared the material and delivered the lecture at the HSE Art and Design School’s HAB venue.
