Interview: The Blackheart Gang - REE TREWEEK

Ree Treweek is part of the trio that is the Blackheart Gang, a talented illustrator "with red hair, freckles and braces; she also has a very short temper, a ticking time bomb of sorts." She has very generously answered my questions and provided lots of unique imagery and insight in what is the first part of the Blackheart interviews on SiouxWIRE.

The Tale of How is available to download HERE and more information is available in previous posts HERE, HERE and HERE.


You grew up believing that a giant snake living beneath your bathtub would drink up all the soapy bath water once you had pulled out the plug. Can you share a little more about this belief and does it have anything to do with the description of The Household that says, “The function of The Household is to purify our bath water and to make soap”? And will we ever see “Rooster Bear” in animated form?
I grew up on a farm just outside of a small town called Kokstad. When i was younger a powerful Songoma (African Witchdoctor) called Ghotsa lived in the area. It was believed that he had control of a river spirit who took the form of a giant snake. When angry, Ghotsa could summon the snake out of the river. Outside of the water the snake took the form of dust Devils or great winds as he would travel by spinning his tail round and round.

"The plan is to begin on the bear Histories once we are finished with the Dodo stories."

When my brother and i were little and refused to get out of the bath our Xhosa nanny, Fabia, would pull out the bath plug and once the water began spinning she would tell us that the snake was appearing and if we didn't jump out we would be eaten by him. Terrified we would leap out of the bath. Not long after first meeting, Markus and I did a three page fantasy comic strip based on this experience. It was from this that the Household idea began to form. I then made up a book of a collection of drawings I had done over the last few months. After binding it myself, Markus went out to a coffee shop and spent the afternoon making up stories to the pictures .....research of The Household had formally began.(see the images throughout this article)

The Household is completely powered by our old bath water which turns a giant cog in the centre of the universe. Soap is indeed one of the main industries of The Household - in fact after the 100 yrs of madness the Piranha birds eventually make their way to Soap world and become soap merchants. We will definitely see rooster bear animated one day-he's kinda Markus's character that researches the Household. The plan is to begin on the bear Histories once we are finished with the Dodo stories.

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