Kookie Magazine recently changed its name to “Youkie“, but apart from that target audience which is now everyone aged 8-12, little has changed. In my fourth collaboration with Youkie, I did a 8-page story (to be released in 4-parts, one each quarterly issue) with my 11 year-old niece Kelly called “Beating the Loneliness Monster”.

Kelly supplied the story and the character designs, which is about how popular girl Jessica meets a boy called Tom in an online game called VR Quest. Initially impressed by Tom’s sense of humour, Jessica eventually meets him in real life, and is… disappointed. Kelly wrote this story due to her pre-teen understanding of how people’s online personas are often different to real life ones, and how to deal with that in person.

Check out the latest Oct2022 issue of Youkie magazine! This story will be released in 2-page increments for 4 issues of Youkie.