I’m ARY, an Australian writer, designer, and the person behind DryHumour. My writing is influenced by a mix of Eastern and Western storytelling. Growing up, I bounced between manga, manhwa, novels, comics, anime and American sitcoms. Stories like Neon Genesis Evangelion showed me just how strange, ambitious and deep storytelling could be, while shows like Seinfeld showed me just how relatable, and funny, our flaws and quirks are.

I started writing stories almost by accident. In the eighth grade, I was given an assignment to create a comic book. My drawings were rubbish but I enjoyed it enough that I just… kept going, spending the years that followed writing stories, bringing them to school and hoping somebody might actually want to read one.

Later, in the tenth grade, we were tasked with making a two-minute video to learn about video editing. Mind you, this was 2006. I remember asking the teacher how long the video needed to be. He probably regretted telling me, “At least two minutes.” I made a ten-minute Linkin Park music video with an actual plot, inspired by the way Michael Jackson turned music videos into short films.

‍Then I graduated and I stopped.

I joined the workforce and focused on building a career in marketing like a good corporate boy. One panic attack later, I started dwelling on whether I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Something felt deeply wrong. Something felt missing, so I eventually left my job and spent some time figuring out what I actually wanted my life to look like. What was it that I needed to feel?

The answer, at least in part, was creating again.

First came radio plays, then webcomics, a short film, comics, illustrated books and graphic novels. Every project became an excuse to try something I hadn’t done before, and each one became slightly more ambitious than the last.

Along the way, I started collaborating with artists and other creatives, building new relationships with people who could bring something to these stories that I couldn’t bring to them alone. Those collaborations pushed me to grow as a creative too. I spent more time learning the craft, improving my writing and becoming a better producer.

Over time, those stories, experiments and collaborations grew into DryHumour.

‍My work tends to circle around relationships, identity, mental health, love, loneliness and finding different ways to express those thoughts and feeling. I don’t have all the answers to any of those things, but writing is how I try to make sense of them for myself.

With ARY and DryHumour, I hope to build a body of work that people can connect with, laugh with and maybe see a little of themselves in. And, one day, I’d like someone to see the name ARY or DryHumour and think:

Yeah, that's gonna be good.