Pride Month 2026: An Interview With ‘Ladies Of The Knight’ Creator Fiona Marchbank

A mentor-mentee relationship story about female knights participating in tournaments and being grouchy and loyal to each other, all while growing as human beings? While I wish I’d discovered this webcomic by Fiona Marchbank sooner, now is arguably the perfect time to get on the Ladies of the Knight bandwagon because a print edition is coming out this summer. With letters by Thomas Long, here’s what Marchbank had to share about drawing armor and writing for prickly, if lovable, knights:

Rachel Bellwoar: Ladies of the Knight originally started as a webcomic. What was it like designing the cover for this collection (I especially love the borders you created that feel like a reference to medieval texts)?

Fiona Marchbank: Ladies of the Knight has always been the fun thing I got to turn to between commercial projects, the writing and art where I got to just go ‘full Fiona’. It only seemed right to keep this energy up for the cover. I love doing decorative borders for my illustrations, pulling inspiration from medieval imagery as you mentioned, and choosing all the symbols to reference for the audience to figure out. I’ve been working on the comic for eight years, so it was lovely to revisit the comic to represent the whole story across the cover and illuminated border. Not to mention the design team at Oni Press created a fantastic logo, which is new for the print copy of the book!

Bellwoar: In bringing this series to print, was there anything you decided to change or tweak?

Marchbank: Most of the core artwork of Ladies of the Knight remains the same from web to print, though I did make a few minor tweaks to early pages as they were drawn years ago and deserved a little tweak here and there. However, anyone who has read the webcomic will probably be aware that spelling and lettering are not my strong suit. The script was given a thorough line edit by my wonderful editors, Grace [Scheipeter] and Azat [Sayadi], to make sure everything made perfect sense (and there were no remaining instances of ‘yousting’ instead of ‘jousting’) and the biggest change was we brought on letterer Tom Long to really polish everything off and make sure readers get the best comic we can bring them.

Bellwoar: While we get an origin story for Seraphina’s owl crest, where did the idea to have Seraphina’s helmet have a scar that mirrors her real one come from?

Marchbank: I’m sure we’re all aware of that thing in historical movies where they will find any excuse to have an actor remove their helmet so they remain identifiable to the audience. As the knights in this book are all celebrities too, but need to wear their helmets for safety, I liked the idea of using the helmet decor as a way to communicate to their fans which of their favourite sports stars are inside. Serafina is not the only one to have her scars painted on their helmet; we see Frances with her nose scar painted on, too. Æthelburg has hers engraved in (because she is extra fancy. No mere paint for her!)

Bellwoar: This collection is coming out in the wake of the HBO series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which similarly capitalized on the bond between a squire and their knight. What do you think makes that relationship so special and dynamic?

Marchbank: I’m a sucker for a mentor story.  You’re never too old to learn new things. Mentors are often presented as all-knowing, stalwart figures, but the young apprentice can often expose their flaws and things that the mentor could learn from them in return. It’s that combination of coming of age, found family and generational tension that really make them work, at least for me

Bellwoar: Frances is probably my favorite character and I love that her arc is just as rich as Seraphina’s and George’s. Why did you want to give Seraphina a best friend?

Marchbank: Serafina’s wife lives a life very different to her life as a fighter, and I felt it was very important that Serafina also had friends who could relate to that part of her life too. Her competitive nature would find it hard to be friends with someone on her own level, hence her animosity toward her equal, Æthelburg, but Frances is just chilling and here to have fun. Though perhaps with George’s infectious enthusiasm, she can also learn to aim a little higher.

Bellwoar: Was it difficult deciding when to include flashbacks and how much to reveal? I’d be curious to know, for instance, whether there was an instigating event behind Seraphina and Aethelburg’s rivalry or if they’ve just always been competitive, but at the same time, it’s fun having that mystery.

Marchbank: I’m not going to lie, a lot of the choices were because I just really enjoy drawing Serafina’s teenage/young adult haircut. It’s horrendous. She clearly cut it with her sword because who needs nice hair, right? It became important to me to show that Serafina wasn’t always a grown adult to be idolised, that she was young once, too. The flashbacks were a good way to show that.

There is definitely a lot of backstory to the Serafina and Æthelburg rivalry; people don’t just wake up one day and decide to have a rival after all! Knowing why they are rivals was less important than just knowing they are, and it gives young George a place to try to fix the rift with her own friendships, as she’s not interested in all her mentor’s baggage

Bellwoar: What’s been the best part about getting to remain with these characters and tell their stories over an extended period of time?

Marchbank: Ladies of the Knight spiralled out from a single illustration I made in 2017. It was never intended to become what it is now; the characters just jumped out of the page and decided to take me along for the ride (and I have no complaints about that). As with any long-running project, some of the original ideas morphed and changed, and my skills improved tremendously, allowing me to do more with the end of the story than I could have imagined when I began. However, through it all, the original idea of the perky squire and grumpy knight stuck around, reminding me where they wanted to go.

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Fiona!

Ladies of the Knight goes on sale July 14th from Oni Press.