Anna Degnbol’s elegant alien characters will “show you how to dream”

When trying to conjure the theme that sits at the core of her work, the illustrator Anna Degnbol lands on “longing”. In Anna’s vision, her characters – often based on otherworldly beings like ghosts, devils and aliens – spend a lot of their time longing; longing for alternative worlds, intimacy and magic. “They are portals,” says Anna, “they bridge the gap between worlds and show you how to dream.”

Anna’s characters do have a distinctly alien edge to them, elongated and pointed hands and ears, and an ethereal, flowy nature about their being. This is accentuated by the striking clothes that adorn their bodies, with bold silhouettes and structures, exaggerated collars and sleeves, and unearthly materials. Fashion is a prominent influence for Anna, from historical garments to contemporary runway looks, and classic costume design for theatre and cinema. “A dramatic hourglass jacket by Thierry Mugler, a 60s geometric space suit by Pierre Cardin, a heart-shaped gold YSL pocket mirror,” she lists. “They live in my brain and flow onto the paper. To me, fashion also can serve as a portal into parallel universes.”

This fascination with transcendence and alternative worlds has roots in Anna’s childhood, which she spent drawing and reading comics with vigour. Initially ones like Elfquest and Thorgal, before later immersing herself in manga, like Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss and Nana. As a young teen she started publishing her webcomics on a site called Smackjeeves – a now defunct webcomic forum. This obsession with comics has stayed with Anna throughout her career, and last year her comic Perfect Sleep was published in Denmark and the US.

The comic centres on L, a “dream designer” who works for a corporation called Good Sleep. Sourcing inspiration from the speculative fiction form, in the blue-scale comic, good sleep is scarce and natural dreams no longer exist – both have been replaced by synthetic dreaming and sleeping which is bought. “The comic creates a space for asking questions about the ethics and consequences of selling our inner worlds for access to various services,” says Anna. “Not much different from the way we live today.”

When it comes to technique and medium, Anna dabbles in a broad range, including ink, paper cutting and Procreate. Though, for her personal work, she says that “nothing beats the feeling of pencils and paper. Pure and simple.” She continues: “No overly expensive materials or complicated setups are needed. It feels grounding to whip out a piece of paper and just start. It gives me the autonomy and freedom to create worlds anywhere I am.” She even has a favourite paper and pencil combination, Strathmore’s Smooth Bristol paper and Faber Castell’s Polychromos – “a match made in heaven!”. It’s true, Anna’s use of pencil is really something to behold. The soft blending combined with moments of block colour and definition, the ever so slight sense of the haziness of an analogue touch, enhancing the ethereal feeling of the mystical worlds she so passionately crafts.