What is the significance of this work to you?

Strong emotions have such a physicality to them, and I've always been interested in the idea of sadness coming from the body somehow, in a way that almost harks back to medieval theories of the four humours. I think at our lowest points, it can seem like the sadness we feel is something we've physically sunk into, and something we might not be able to get out of again.

What is the significance of the form you chose for this work?

I absolutely love short form comics, and I think they have a unique ability to explore abstract ideas in a way that really connects. It's a great medium for someone like me, whose artwork isn't very technical and is a little rough around the edges, because it's a medium where simplicity is extremely effective.

What was your process for creating this work?

The image of the fish disappearing into an underwater lake was something that I took from Blue Planet — it just really stuck with me and I knew I wanted to do something with it. The piece started out as an idea I had for a poem, which stayed as a note on my phone for a really long time because I didn't quite know what to do with it. One day, I  just had this idea of what it would look like illustrated, and particularly of what the final illustration would look like. I drew the the linework for each panel on paper and then scanned them into my computer and coloured them digitally. 

Lucy E. Allan is a Scottish writer and illustrator, currently studying towards a PhD in queer readings of Frankenstein.