TEHACHAPI, Calif. (KERO) — The 17-year-old is only just beginning, she’s in the planning stages for Soulstream volume two. Once her gap year is over, the recent high school graduate plans on majoring in animation.
Even every day civilians have hidden superpowers. A Tehachapi teen's magical ability is writing and illustrating comics, and the publishing powers have taken notice.
They may say never meet your heroes, but what about making them? The brainchild behind this superhero comic is 17-year-old Saida Woolf. Soulstream has sprung from her imagination and leaped to the shelves of major booksellers.
“The concept of it was just going around in my head for a long time because I really think it’s the story that I’ve always wished existed. If I had found it when I was 10 or 11, it would have been my absolute favorite thing,” said Woolf.
Tehachapi teen Saida Woolf was raised on comics. During winter break from sophomore year of high school, she created her own.
That’s how Soulstream came to be, a comic book series Woolf wrote and illustrated, about kids who gain abilities from powerful bracelets and set out to save a fictional world they portal through from the help of magic keys.
When asked what bracelet she would choose for herself, Woolf responded, “One of my characters can summon a whole bunch of swords, and I don’t know how to use swords, but I just think that would be cool! She can take the swords and make them float. A couple times she uses it as a skateboard. I would probably not use them to fight anybody but maybe to reach high places, I don’t know!”
It’s a fantastical universe of Woolf’s making. From character designs to a script, to pages, Woolf eventually showed her parents.
“My mom encouraged me to submit it to publishers just because I was already putting so much work into it, and we just wanted to see, I guess. And i didn’t think anything would happen, but they emailed us back two days later and said they wanted to publish it!”
Scout Comics is a comic book publisher that has a distribution deal with Simon and Schuster. They loved her story so much they wanted to make sure the rest of the world could enjoy her stories too.
You can catch Saida at her book signing in Tehachapi tomorrow from 12-4 p.m., but if you can’t make it, she’ll be at Bakersfield Comic-Con on Nov. 20 and 21.
