YouTube's LaurenZside releases highly anticipated graphic novel
Aug 25, 2025 [[read-time]] minute read
The latest coming of age story is about to hit the shelves, this time with a unique, spooky flare. Going Under is a graphic novel created by Lauren Weber of popular gaming channel LaurenZside that asks the question “What if Creepypasta & Urban Legend characters were real and lived alongside us?”
For over a decade, LaurenZside has been a cornerstone of YouTube’s gaming community. From her start in the platform's early days of star ratings to now approaching an incredible 10 million subscribers, her journey is not one of slowing down, but of building out.
With the release of her debut graphic novel, Lauren is expanding her creative world, transforming the "cute but creepy" brand she perfected on YouTube into a whole new narrative universe. We sat down with her to discuss how a decade of creating videos laid the groundwork for her most ambitious project yet, and why for her, YouTube isn't just a starting point—it's the end game.
You’ve been on the platform for over a decade. What initially led you to start your channel and how has it grown since then?
Lauren: It's been a long journey. I was on YouTube in early, early days, before gaming commentary was even a thing. I still remember being in my parents' basement logging on when there was the star rating system. Nobody made money, it was just uploading videos.
After college, I discovered a YouTuber that was playing an old video game and commentating. I became obsessed with watching that content and realized there weren't many girls doing it, which I thought was weird. My now-husband Bobby told me, "Oh, you talk like this when we play video games all the time. You should try this." So I started doing it for fun and then it just coincidentally took off.
“I still remember being in my parents' basement logging on when there was the star rating system. Nobody made money, it was just uploading videos.”
Your community is known for being incredibly loyal. What steps have you taken to intentionally foster that relationship?
Lauren: Everybody goes through that stage in life where they feel like nobody else likes the things that they like. At least, that was me growing up. I loved Pokemon and tech, and I didn’t have many friends to share those hobbies with. That's probably why I got into YouTube as early as I did, I was looking for community.
When a lot of my peers on YouTube got big, they started upping their production value a lot or getting teams or outsourcing a lot of their stuff. I still have a problem where I don't outsource enough. But at the same time, I feel like that helped me to stay grounded, authentic & the same person I was when I started the channel which helps my community stay the same too.
I'll have some people on my team that'll say, “Oh, you should play this game or this game because it's doing really good or it's really trendy.” I try to stay true to myself. If I wouldn't play that game, even if it's doing really well for other channels, I still won't play it on my channel. I feel like it rubs off on my audience knowing that if I'm playing something, they can see that I'm having a good time playing it or making that video.
What made you decide to expand into a new medium with your graphic novel, Going Under?
Lauren: The graphic novel has been in the works since 2018, technically. Not this exact version, but we had the idea to make an animated series. My niche was starting to become "cute but creepy," and I was seeing stuff coming out like Five Nights at Freddy's, The Amazing Digital Circus... so I knew this was a thing that people wanted.
We ran into creative differences, we had COVID, a bunch of stuff that threw roadblocks in our first iteration. We had to stop and start over with a whole new concept.
We asked my audience what other mediums they enjoy and it turns out they’re big into art. A graphic novel ended up being the perfect format to pay tribute to how much crossover my audience seems to have with art and being artists.
Can you tell us about the story and how it connects to your channel?
Lauren: We took the concept of my “cute but creepy” game series and built a story where our main character lives in a regular world, but can cross over into another place where all of these urban legends and creepy pastas exist. The Backrooms makes an appearance and other things that people have heard of before, playing with the idea of ‘how do we all know about these stories even though there's no actual evidence?’
The character in the book is based on me, but it’s not a one-for-one comparison. She’s obsessed with scary stories and struggling with anxiety about the future just like I was in high school. Mainly, we really tried to capture that passion I had and continue to have for unapologetically spending time on your interests, reading, researching and playing games.
What was the collaborative process like working with a writer and an illustrator?
Lauren: I wish I could draw as amazingly as the comic book came out, but I can't. The collaboration started because my agency had worked with a comic book company called Bad Egg. They gathered a bunch of work samples from different writers, art samples from different artists. It was a longer process than I expected, trying to make sure we found the perfect people that we thought understood what we wanted, but we got super lucky. Our team's been awesome. We've had various meetings, including a lot of brainstorming sessions. We constantly have a Discord group going where we're touching base, they're sending ideas and suggestions. We're giving feedback every step along the way. I'll get the script or the outlines and then me and my co-creator H.E. Caldwell get overall say if we think that it'll fit with what we're looking for. The entire group that we're working with has been so cool.
What was the biggest learning curve in moving from digital creator to published author?
Lauren: Just learning how publishing timelines work. And I'm bad with being hands-off. I need to feel like I'm doing something all the time or that I am doing everything. This was one of the first big projects where I had to trust that we picked the right people to help bring this vision to life, so it's been a very valuable learning experience for me personally to realize that there are people that get the vision and have the expertise to help.
“A lot of times YouTube seems to have been the starting point for people to do acting or something else. And I feel like for me it's kind of the end game...”
Have you had any particularly exciting interactions with fans surrounding the book?
Lauren: We went to Comic-Con last October and that was the first time we announced Going Under. It was really fun to announce it publicly and get a live real reaction from people. Afterwards, we did a meet and greet and there were a lot of cosplays of characters that I've made in Minecraft over the years, some even as far back as the start of my YouTube channel! It was so cool. My dream is that eventually I’ll get to see people cosplaying as characters from this graphic novel that we came up with and really bring it to life!
After a project this big, what’s next for you?
Lauren: I’m about to hit 10 million subscribers, so I've actually been asking this question to myself a lot. I started this because I wanted to have a female in the space that could be representative of who I wish I could have watched when I was in high school or college.
I feel like I keep going, because I keep waiting. I'm like, ‘someday somebody will surpass me.’ At first that used to terrify me and now I’m finding that I want somebody to do that, because I feel like the day that I stop uploading content, who's gonna fill that space for people?
A lot of times YouTube seems to have been the starting point for people to eventually move onto acting or something else. And I feel like for me YouTube is kind of the end game, just making sure I can keep finding things that keep me creatively stimulated. Maybe I'll do a podcast, maybe I'll do a deep dive on female gamers, maybe I’ll test out creating content in other genres on YouTube that interest me outside of gaming, but as of now, that's my game plan…to keep finding new things to create & share here on YouTube.
You can find LaurenZside on her YouTube channel and order her debut graphic novel, Going Under, which will release tomorrow.