We recently had the chance to connect with Dineo Mosiane and have shared our conversation below.
Dineo , it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do you think is misunderstood about your business?
Many readers see the unserious nature of my comic and are waiting on bated breath for me to create work that has depressing and gritty content. That’s not the case at all. Although my characters do face common struggles in their life and identities, and the often darker comedic subject matters, I really want to create queer black media that focuses on having fun and positive sexual expression.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
For sure! My name is Dineo, but often I just go by Dee or Moosepudding. I’m a cartoonist and comic creator, with my main project being Melody Misfits. A comic about an eccentric girl group rock band that pays for gigs and shows using their frontwoman’s money from her hitman job. Teddy Headstock (the blue one), Pippa Overdrive (the pink one), and Taffy Tremolo (the red one) have to deal with the baggage of being rock stars and climbing up the ranks of popularity, while Pippa’s crime job and past cause major conflicts in their goals.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child, I was very into rock and emo culture. As well as being present in queer spaces. However, growing up black, I felt pushed out of these spaces I cared about so deeply due to a lack of representation, to the point where I believed I didn’t belong in these spaces at all. Now that I’m working to create my own media with characters that I saw missing growing up, I’ve met so many people who also feel like outcasts in these spaces, and understand now truly diverse the communities I call home are.
What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
I believed that since, at first, since my webcomic flopped, I should just scrap it. In my eyes, it meant the story wasn’t engaging enough and should be given up on entirely. The first run of Mleody Misfits was on Webtoon, and no one read it, for good reason. It was rough.
I decided to give up on it after failing, but, like an addiction, the plot kept calling back to me. Instead of scrapping it, I took it apart and reengineered it. It’s so much different now, but it connects with so many more people than it did before. Most importantly, it connects with me now, which was lacking in the original run. Failing doesn’t mean giving up. It means you get to learn and try again.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
That AI is gonna replace all artists, and we should just give up. What people don’t understand is how badly we naturally crave human connection. I mean, that’s what being human is, at least to me. It’s all about connection. Art is nothing short of a direct communication of human thoughts and ideas. No matter what gets pumped out from a machine, people will get tired of it and go back to wanting to create or fund something they’re proud of and connect with.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I believe I was put on this planet to create art. No matter how silly, or stupid, or horny, or unerious it is. It’s me. Despite having a hand disability, art is incomparable to any other job or hobby I have. It’s a bit of a sick joke that my hands are naturally jacked up, but despite it all, I was born for this.
Though I’ve had to reroute how it’s done. A lot of my art used to be done with the idea of catering to other people and being as safe as possible, which is why I used to have insane art block. But I don’t know what I’m told to do anymore, one look at any of my works will tell you that much, haha.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://moosepudding.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moosepudding
- Twitter: https://x.com/immoosepudding
Image Credits
Dineo Mosiane (Moosepudding)
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