Nick Seluk - Pt.1
Please tell us lots about your awesome ZEN Deck!
- Heart and Brain ZEN is a mental health-themed card deck. The Aces are relaxing landscapes, the foundation for the cards. Then each number has something that can inspire good mental health practices, like a bicycle for exercise, a house plant (I just love plants), music, and relaxation. I designed the entire thing in the same hand-drawn style as my comics, so everything should feel very familiar, especially if you’re already a fan of my work.
If people haven’t come across ‘Heart & Brain’ yet - please tell us more! How did these organs come to be your star characters and how do you think they feel about being in Flick?
- Heart and Brain are the consummate odd couple. Brain tries to be organized, follows society’s rules, and everything must be done a certain way. Of course, the pressure of trying to follow a perceived direction rather than your own can cause a lot of anxiety because you can never make everyone happy! And to make matters more difficult, Heart, with all of its optimism, love and free-spirited nature, can create more problems with its impulsiveness. They are almost constantly at odds, but just as things seem bleak, they find ways to agree. And I think self-care, as seen on Flick, is exactly where they meet.
Why did you choose certain objects for certain cards/suits?
- I listed out many of the things that help me stay calm and found the numbers/suits that felt right. It took a little reorganizing as I went, yet I can’t explain the exact method other than my gut said, “Yes, that’s the one.”
How do you want Flick players to feel when they collect your deck?
- I hope players will feel calm, and I hope the hand-drawn style makes the experience casual and pleasant.
Which is your favourite suit and why?
- I think I like them all for different reasons! I would have to pick Hearts, for obvious reasons :)
Which Flick artist and deck do you dig the most?
- There are so many good ones! I really like Andrew Heath’s work. I have seen him at comic cons and always stop at his booth (just as a fan, we don’t know one another). It might be the former graphic designer in me, but I really appreciate his design skills. He works in a way I never could, and executes everything so well.
We can tell that your work, comics, merchandise, and books - the Awkward Yeti World - are really something you love to do - is this any part of the creative process that you would purposely put at the bottom of your list to do? How do you tackle a new project? Is it difficult to force ideas for projects or do you have the freedom to think creatively?
- I really do love it! If a project has a clear vision or solution, whether mine or someone else’s, I can focus on it really well and I’ll love doing it. When I don’t know where I want to go with it, I am like any writer: doing everything but writing. Because of that, I try to give myself a lot of creative freedom with my work, and if I work with a client they either need to know exactly what they want, or allow me total freedom to do it my way. That’s usually how I get the best end result.
Do you have a project that will eternally be a WIP?
- So many! I started writing a sci-fi novel at one point. I got a few chapters in, then thought it would make a cool board game. Then I returned to the novel but decided it should be first person. Then I thought it should be a comedy. This process may continue until the storyline is no longer relevant.
Want more? Stay tuned for Pt. 2 coming soon…. ❤️ + 🧠
