For years, Juston McKee of UPPPERMINDINK has built a name for himself through illustration work, fantasy art, comics, and collaborations across the independent creative space. From co-creating Lich Lands to work tied to Traumatarium and projects with Now or Never Comics, McKee has spent years helping bring other visions to life. Now, he is turning inward. His newest project, The Consumed, takes deeply personal experiences surrounding addiction, grief, sibling relationships, and emotional loss, filtering them through a dark fantasy framework filled with dangerous temptation, looming darkness, and two brothers pulled toward very different paths.
The Beat spoke with McKee about processing trauma through storytelling, building symbolism into fantasy worlds, and why The Consumed became one of his most personal projects to date.
DIEGO HIGUERA: To jump right into it, do you want to explain the project for readers who might not be familiar?
JUSTON McKEE: Yeah! My name is Juston McKee, also known as UPPERMINDINK I’m an illustrator and comic artist from San Diego, California. I’ve done a lot of work with Now or Never Comics downtown. People have probably seen my art on shirts, hats, stickers, and pop-up events over the years.
I co-created Lich Lands, which came out a few years ago. I’ve also spent a lot of time doing fantasy illustration and trading card work. I was one of the lead designers on Traumatarium, which exists as both a Game Boy game and trading card game.
A lot of my work has been helping other people bring their ideas to life. But lately, I’ve been wanting to get back to making comics that feel completely mine. The Consumed started from conversations with my siblings. I’m the oldest of four, and we were talking about what it feels like watching somebody you love struggle with addiction.
Watching your family go through that. Watching somebody become someone different. Last summer, we went through something difficult as a family, and it forced us to process grief in a different way. I kept asking myself what happens when somebody you love is physically there, but the person you knew feels gone. What happens when you’ve exhausted every option trying to help somebody?
I’ve always loved fantasy. Dark fantasy, especially. Dark Souls. Elden Ring. Tabletop games. Stories about personal journeys. So I thought, why not take those influences and combine them with something personal? What came out of that became The Consumed, a story about two brothers chasing something powerful, but underneath that fantasy structure, it’s really a story about trying to help someone you love and realizing sometimes you can’t make that decision for them.
It’s about grief, love, loss, and understanding when you have to let go.
HIGUERA: Your project recently crossed its funding goal and is still growing. Considering how personal this story is, did fantasy make it easier to approach emotionally?
McKEE: Absolutely. That’s a great question. I used it as a therapy tool. I think there are things I wish I could have said in the moment, so I thought, why not process through something I love, something creative, whether it was a story. I had this little piece of paper I pulled out that I found the other day when I first wrote it. It was going to be a six-panel Instagram story. I doodled it quickly, just asking myself what the initial feelings were toward everything, and it just kind of spiraled from there.
It became therapy. There were things I wish I could have said or processed differently.
Originally, the comic was just six panels. I found that original paper recently, and it started from that small idea. But the more I sat with it, the more it grew. I needed time to process things as the oldest sibling. I think I took the brunt of it a little harder than some of my other siblings, so I started asking myself what you do in a situation like this.
I lost my best friend really young, so I was also processing old grief, thinking about what I would have done to help myself back then, when I was younger and now that I’m older. For me, creativity became the answer. Even if I don’t go too deep into it, even if it’s vague or on the nose, I think someone might read it and relate to it.
I always wanted something I could print and give to my siblings and say, “Hey, this is how I felt, and I know you were going through something too.” I created this so I could process grief and move forward with my life. This project originally wasn’t meant to be public. I wanted to make something for my siblings, something I could hand them and say, “Hey, this is how I felt.”
Then it grew into something bigger.
What started as a small idea kept expanding because I saw potential in it being a bigger story. I had more things to say, and I wanted to challenge myself.
HIGUERA: Yeah, it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, that’s one of the strongest aspects of it. Even in the middle of dark times, there’s always some light that comes through, and I really like that. I also appreciate how you frame your character as the sibling, someone who recognizes, “I don’t like what this is doing to my brother,” but still chooses not to walk away. At the same time, they’re not forcing anything either, because ultimately the decision has to be his.
McKEE: In line with that, it was important that at some point in the book Shark tells Bull that he loves him.
