Ariela Kristantina was the artist of the Eisner-nominated Adora and the Distance, and now she’s breaking out on her own for the stunning new ComiXology graphic novel, The Girl Who Draws on Whales. Based on pieces of art Kristantina posted on social media, the book tells of a grand adventure involving the girl of the title, told through lovely pieces of art you’ll want to stare at for hours.
“Some of the best visual storytellers engage in scale regularly,” Kristantina told Comic Book Club over email. “I thought about it like camera shots in a movie. Sometimes you need to pull back all the way so the whale looks massive and the kids appear as tiny specks. At other times, you zoom in so you can see the emotion on their faces.”
To find out more about how the book, which is available today, came together… Read on.
Comic Book Club: I love the art style in this book, but it looks like you initially did some watercolors to start… How did you get from there, to here?
Ariela Kristantina: Practicality, really. I love watercolors, and they shaped the artistic direction for this book. They gave me the look and feeling I wanted—something organic, fluid, and alive. But doing a whole graphic novel in watercolor by hand would’ve been impossible for me. As my editor Will once reminded me: “We only have so many years in our lives.” Hahaha—so yeah, efficiency won this round. Instead, I let that watercolor sensibility guide my inking, giving Sarah Stern, the colorist, the canvas to work her magic. Her amazing touch preserves the texture, depth, and soul of traditional watercolor, making every scene feel as if it were hand-painted.
Scale is important for something like this, pairing enormous sea creatures with normal sized humans. What’s your approach to that?
Some of the best visual storytellers engage in scale regularly. I thought about it like camera shots in a movie. Sometimes you need to pull back all the way so the whale looks massive and the kids appear as tiny specks. At other times, you zoom in so you can see the emotion on their faces. Scale itself can become a narrative tool. For me, contrast and smart composition are the key. I’m also heavily influenced by manga, and I definitely leaned into that influence here.
Mild spoilers here, but given the fantastical nature of the book, it’s jarring late in the proceedings to see a modern gun. What were you aiming for here?
I didn’t really plan it, but while I was drawing that panel, I wanted it to feel jarring. Wangi’s world looks fantastical and folkloric—and then bam—a modern weapon appears. It echoes how colonizers often bring influences that feel out of place, yet impose them as the new norm. The presence of a modern gun in such a setting also hints at possible directions for a sequel (fingers crossed). There’s a lot to unpack in the choice of gun for that scene too, but I’d rather let readers dig into that themselves if they want.
This book is bursting with ideas… Was there anything left on the cutting room floor, for a potential sequel or otherwise?
Yes! I have some ideas for a sequel, though nothing is set in stone yet. During the Dutch colonization of Indonesia, sporadically, from the early 1600s to 1949, the colonizers often employed a “divide et impera” strategy to control a vast and diverse territory. I want to ‘steal’ that page from Dutch colonialism and bring that idea into the story: what happens when the kids must fight not just colonizers, but divisions among themselves? I’d like to explore more Kala Api scenes, bigger battles, and take a deeper dive into the world’s hidden lore that didn’t make it into the first book.
Any tips on what type of pens or inks to use to draw underwater creatures?
My tools don’t change much from project to project: I usually work with a G-pen, Maru pen, Rotring Isograph, and a Kolinsky sable brush. For ink, I use a mix of Daiso sumi ink (yellow or white cap) and Blank India Rapidograph, to use with the brush or pen.
I’d like to add that while about 70% of this book is done traditionally, the other 30% is digital. I make my own Photoshop brush to mimic the way my lines look with the G-pen or Maru pen.
The Girl Who Draws on Whales is available from Comixology today, September 23, 2025.
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