Catching up With “Pink Lemonade” Indie Comic Creator Nick Cagnetti

A few months ago, I was at my local comic book store and happened to see a bold looking book — complete with neon pink and motorcycles. It would be an understatement to say that “Pink Lemonade” from Oni Press caught my eye. I picked up the issue, and it was smart, funny, and full of interesting characters with dimension. In my opinion, there’s nothing like “Pink Lemonade” out there right now, and it is certainly worth your attention.

I approached the person behind the pink — writer, artist, and creator of “Pink Lemonade,” Nick Cagnetti — to see if he was interested in talking about his journey through the indie comics world. Luckily, he was, and here’s our conversation:

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Tell us a little bit about yourself… how long have you been working in comics… how did you get started?

NICK CAGNETTI: I was born in Arizona and live here currently, too. I went to Arizona State University, studied intermedia art and started making comics with my friends every waking moment I wasn’t in class. It sorta became consuming but all that work was really growing my skills.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Tell us about your title, “Pink Lemonade.” What motivated you to create this character?

NICK CAGNETTI: “Pink Lemonade” actually started when I was in college after finishing another comics project, I needed to try something new on my own and get my thoughts out into a comic. It quickly sprang up and I did a run of painted comic strips where the character and her world got figured out by me strip by strip.

I just sorta went for it seeing where it would take me and by the end of those it got to a nice clean stopping point where I could pick it right back up with full-length comics from there. I didn’t really have any prior writing experience on my own so doing the comic strips first really helped, I felt a bit more confident going into doing the books as a result.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Tell us about Pink herself. She is a super-interesting character. Sassy, smart and fearless…

NICK CAGNETTI: Her mission statement from day one has just been to go out there and do cool stuff and be nice to people, I think she’s relatable because even before readers first meet her we know she’s been through some hardships but she’s always trying to just be positive and keep seeing the good side.

Especially as she gets to these books there’s a lot of shadier real-life issues that encroach on her simply existing happily, and seeing how she deals with it all in her own way is part of the fun of it. I want to be like her!

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Is your character Ron Radical modeled on anyone… perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger?

NICK CAGNETTI: It’s a bit of Schwarzenegger and anybody fitting into an action hero slot, but also just riffing on the 1990s Liefeldian kind of character/style in comics of the era. I wanted to take that kind of character into context today where it probably feels played out and the guy is just kinda sad and feels the same about himself so him meeting Pink Lemonade really turns his life around for the better and he realizes he doesn’t have to be just an action dude anymore.

All the characters find themselves being taken advantage of by the entertainment complex so there’s that other form it takes of being forced into roles by expectations and the characters having to find their agency to just be how they wanna be.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Tell us about your own imprint, Radical Realm Comics. How did you start your own label, and are you still producing titles?

NICK CAGNETTI: Radical Realm Comics was named after Ron Radical because that was the earliest comics project I tried to draw ages ago and it got abandoned after only a few pages, but the roots are respected so that was the name. I didn’t think the Ron character would get another shot at life but shortly after beginning the “Pink Lemonade” books it became clear to me that there was a perfect spot for him.

Not really producing anything new through the imprint but it’s just the home for all my small-press/small print-run stuff.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: So… the $1 million question — how did “Pink Lemonade” get published by Oni Press? That must have been a dream come true! Is Oni reprinting the original issues, or are you producing new content for them (or both)?

NICK CAGNETTI: I still gotta pinch myself! It was a real ‘everything happens for a reason’ kind of thing because an editor at Oni (shoutout Zack Soto!) picked up the first issue when it originally came out from smaller indie publisher It’s Alive! and held on to it. I had left the original publisher and was shopping the series around for a long period as I kept working on it, nearly at the end of my rope searching for a new home I posted on social media just asking if anybody wanted it and I got a message that same day from Zack. It was hard for me because only issue 1 & 2 came out before and for the longest time nobody could see what I was working on for years.

Oni re-released issues 1 & 2 (all with new lettering by Francois Vigneault, too!), issue 3-onward marked all the new material nobody out there had seen but it was worth it for me because it’s all one big story and a lot of new readers got introduced to the books then the way it was intended.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: Tell us what your plans are for the character… is this an ongoing saga, or do you have an ending for her?

NICK CAGNETTI: It’s hard for me because there’s an expectation in comics for them to just go on forever a lot of the time, and I like lots of adventures to be sure but I want the stories to be as special as they can be. With the series I was able to do everything I wanted to and say what I wanted to say, and I feel like it should make for a potent tale by the end — an accessible complete story that takes you to a lot of unexpected places — I’m excited the series is getting the trade paperback treatment this July! Everybody should pre-order it, you’ll dig!

That said, I love working on the character and I’m already getting ideas for where it would go next so I feel like the chances of more “Pink Lemonade” in the future is pretty good. It’s just gotta be a pertinent story I gotta tell like and feel right like it was for me this time.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: What are your plans beyond “Pink Lemonade?” New titles of your own, or are you working on something unrelated. Would you like to write for Marvel/DC eventually?

NICK CAGNETTI: A little bit of everything at the moment! I’m planning the next books, there’s a few projects that are in that stage bubbling up more and more. One that’s another solo project and one with a friend. I might be drawing a short story soon for a cool thing.

It’s kinda nice after finishing up all that “Pink Lemonade” to have lots of more variety bouncing around in the head! Someday I’d love to do something over at Marvel or DC, too. I’d even take a cover! Writing and drawing a Spidey thing would be like the ultimate childhood dream moment, though.

INDIE COMICS ZONE: What advice would you give for someone who is trying to create their own title and get published?

NICK CAGNETTI: Honestly just dive in and make stuff. You’ll learn a lot working on projects, and hopefully be energized to keep moving forward in different ways. Look at what you love about comics you love, look outside of comics, too. Get involved online with your peers and support each other, see what others are doing.

I started out just putting my early books online for free and as I felt like I was getting better did I start having books printed and sold. From there I got real serious about taking everything I had learned into making a book as polished as I could get it with the “Pink Lemonade” series, that first issue was just full of stuff that was mundane and hard to draw but you gotta push yourself to make it look right and make the mundane exciting.

Make stuff you care about, ’cause if you are excited about it the chances are that excitement will translate back to readers. The feeling like it’s hopeless doing this stuff can be overwhelming at times but you gotta just keep throwing stuff out there and keep on doing it — sometime something will stick!

Follow Nick on social media — on Twitter and Instagram.