EAT THE FUNNY
PAGES
~
The Complete Interviews 2011-2012
By Constantine “Costa” Koutsoutis © 2013
costawrites.tumblr.com
teachwhatworks.wordpress.com
costakout@gmail.com
2013
I started EAT THE FUNNY PAGES in 2011 as a critical journalistic project related to comics, a raw
text interview about comics culture, craft, and whatever dumb questions I could think of. I
wanted to make it as bare-bones and no-frills as I could.
Between June 2011 and May 2012, I wrote to as many people as I could think of, people I knew,
people I didn’t know, and tried to coerce people to cold-write to me. It was less about meeting
and talking to people I admired in comics (though I always love that) and more about creating a
resource, really. They’re arranged in reverse order from the last one I did with writer Matt
Wilson all the way to the first one with cartoonist Kevin Czap.
Thanks to everyone who agreed to talk to me.
-
May 29, 2012
Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson is many things. Funnyman podcaster, mouthpiece for a mysterious supervillain
with an arguable PhD, and co-creator of the webcomic Copernicus Jones. Despite being too
cool for the school, he eventually answer my emails begging to be allowed to talk to him, albeit
I was required to sign some sort of waiver that I think means I now owe him most of my organs.
Hey Matt, ‘sup.
I’m chillin’. In the manner of a villain.
You’re a writer, not only of a book that’s arguably influenced heavily by comic book
superheroics and villainy, but also of a webcomic that, ironically enough, has nothing to do
with superheroes or supervillains. Despite the connection, we both know there’s quite a
difference style- and technique-wise between comic scripts or prose. Has that been an issue
at all?
It’s really all just being in the right state of mind for what you’re doing. More than anything, it’s
about voice. It’s almost like acting, getting into character. If I can get inside King Oblivion’s head
and write in his voice, it’s off to the races. When I’m writing the comic, I try to give Copernicus
and all the other characters a distinctive voice. The format doesn’t really make that much of a
difference, as long as the voice is consistent.
Was writing the first thing? Or comics? Is there a desk drawer full of your personal attempts
and drawing Wolverine or Batman somewhere that we’ll never see?
I more or less left behind drawing in elementary school. I drew a bunch of Wolverines and
Batmen in my time (I was particularly fond of drawing the Joker falling off the building from
Batman ’89 as a kid), but by the time I was in middle school all my superhero/comicsy stuff was
in writing. I had this one character, Mattman, who I created as a sort of superhero parody, and
I’d write stories about him for English class assignments. They were about as good as you would
expect from a middle schooler.
Do you keep everything? Is that notebook or archaic .doc/text file sitting somewhere full of
your early attempts at fiction or humor or commentary somewhere in your parents’ house or
your house? Or do you move on from those early works entirely? There seem to really be two
schools of thought when it comes to early works when you’re a creator; either it’s something
to grow or something you move on from.
I know there are old boxes of stuff I wrote at my parents’ house, all yellowed notebook paper
and so forth, but a lot of stuff I’ve written over the years in Word documents and on websites is
gone forever because of lapsed domains or hard drive crashes or whatever. It doesn’t really
bother me. I tend not to revisit older pieces of work, unless I really, really like them. One of my
older bits, “Heart Disease Follies,” is one of my favorite things because it’s so weird, so I
managed to slide it into the book.
In terms of your book, satire/comedy’s sometimes a totally different beast from regular
fiction, comics or prose. Did you go into that project specifically wanting to be as serious in
your fiction as possible? Or has comedy and almost “Onion” or Vonnegut-esque levels of
satire (something I love, personally) always been the goal?
I don’t really think of it as fiction. When I write fiction, I do often end up being more serious
than I even expect to be. For instance, “Copernicus Jones” was meant to be a lot funnier than it
turned out to be. It really came out as a serious noir story. “The Supervillain Handbook” was
satire from the get-go. It was sort of born out of my website, The International Society of
Supervillains, which was a comedy site. So King Oblivion’s voice stayed kind of ridiculous. I
mean, supervillains are sort of a ridiculous concept, aren’t they? Megalomaniacs who always
lose. It’d be hard to write a book about them that wasn’t funny.
Something I’ve been really interested in is finding out how much of a “job” writers/artists like
to treat the craft. Do you sit down every day and write, to research or work on something no
matter what? Or do you like to try to give yourself time to gather thoughts and, God I hate
this phrase, “get inspired?”
I do think anybody who wants to write, even semi-professionally, should try to do it every day.
Flex the muscle. But that’s different from inspiration. Every day job I’ve ever had has forced me
to write somehow—I went to journalism school and I do that so I can eat—but it’s never been
an overly creative thing. The creative stuff, I do kind of have to wait for something good to
really dawn on me, and then I just get it out in a burst of activity.
Alright, dumb question time; Writing influences? Not necessarily an author per se, but
something you can look to as an artistic “guideline,” like a personal writer’s Bible?
For comedic writing, one book is responsible for a ton of what I do and don’t do: “Pure Drivel”
by Steve Martin. It’s all his humor essays from the New Yorker. I think I’ve bought it like four
times. It’s brilliant. It’s tougher for other types of writing. I think “Y: The Last Man” was amazing
when it came to ending issues, and “Copernicus Jones” is full of cliffhangers, so maybe there’s a
connection there.
-
April 18, 2012
Steve Bryant
Steve Bryant is a stone-cold liar, because I was led to believe he was a muscular bare-knuckle
boxer with handlebar moustaches like an old-timey strongman. However, he is a fellow dog
lover and a Master Of Pulp Insanity. I have a secret suspicion he REALLY is the Rocketeer. During
a break from fighting Nazis (or “Natsi’s,” as Sean Connery in “Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade”
pronounces it), he took some time to talk to me, which was really awesome.
Introduce yourself, and try to keep the intense jealousy you feel for me to a minimum. Also,
you didn’t have to bring your Rocketeer rocket pack with you. Frankly, I’m concerned it’s a
fire hazard.
My jealousy is in check. My envy…that’s another story. I’d feel a lot more secure if you hadn’t
made me stow my jetpack in the stairwell.
Are you really an ex-boxer/zeppelin racer/lion tamer? Or is that one more lie that the
Internet has told me?
Those parts of my Twitter bio are completely fictional. Surprisingly, I have a few “bare knuckle
boxing” enthusiasts who follow me—they’re obviously not in on the joke. I’m sure they’re
disappointed by my every tweet. The rest of my bio’s on the level, though—I really have been
nominated for an Eisner Award (2005, Best Digital Comic) and the Russ Manning Most
Promising Newcomer Award (2007).
What’s your primary work format? Traditional brushes and pens on paper? Do you use a
tablet? Or some sort of combination?
My tools are about as basic as you can get: 2H wooden pencil, a non-photo blue Col-Erase
pencil, #2 Winsor/Newton Series 7 brush, and the occasional Zebra brush pen on 2-ply Bristol
board.
That said, I’d love to have a ModBook or a Cintiq. However, I’m just not in a position,
financially, to be able to make a jump like that right now.
Do you have a particular favorite part of the entire cartooning process that you enjoy more
than the others?
Inking! Penciling is all about problem solving—both from a structural and a storytelling
perspective. But inking is largely a technical experience for me. Once I’ve solved everything and
am looking at a page of tight pencils, inking becomes an adventure in technique.
Something I wonder about often when it comes to the funnybooks is the learning curve. Do
you feel like your comics career has been a public learning display, in terms of style, skill, and
what tools you prefer?
Absolutely! It’s like being a former child actor—not that I’ve developed a drug habit, robbed a
video store, or beaten up a transsexual hooker, mind you. But I can relate to child actors and
how they grew up in front of a camera, where every awkward haircut and acne outbreak got
documented for posterity.
And it’s not just the learning curve aspect of it…the 24 book I did for IDW, “Cold Warriors,” is a
reflection of where I was in life at the time. My dad had a stroke when I was a couple pages into
work on the book and the majority of the book was drawn in the hospital, or around the time
he died. It was a hard job to complete and seeing the pages (which aren’t my best work) are a
reminder of that time.
OK, time for the cheesy question; what was the inspiration for “Athena Voltaire?” Because I
gotta be honest, I love pulp-inspired action/adventure-type work, and I love that it’s making
a bit of a comeback these days.
I had done a painting of a retro space babe with the intention of using it as a business card. I
opted to hang the piece in an instructor’s show at a local art center I was teaching at, but
needed a title for the piece. “Athena Voltaire: Space Ranger” popped in my head and made me
laugh, so I went with it.
I didn’t have an interest in drawing space opera at the time, but the name stayed with me. I was
working on the “Indiana Jones” roleplaying game for West End Games at the time and had an
ah-ha moment, realizing that “Athena Voltaire” had that kind of pulpy adventurer’s name to it.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a pulp action comic would cater to all the
stuff I love to draw: jungles, ancient temples, exotic locales, etc…so the idea grew from there.
Were you initially just going for a general nod to the overall “feel” of adventure pulp strips
and stories, or was there a particular one or set of inspirations that “AV” is referencing? Do
you try to throw those references in as a joke or wink-and-a-nod in panels?
So many things have influenced AV. Obviously, Indiana Jones is one of them, but the Rocketeer
is in there, too. As are the work of Milton Canniff, Al Williamson, Mark Schultz, Wally Wood,
Frank Frazetta, and more. I hear the dialogue in rapid-fire beats like William Powell and Myrna
Loy in The Thin Man.
Yes, there were some pretty overt Easter Eggs in the original run of AV, and I’m planning on
more in the upcoming relaunch. I’ll be staying away from the “casting” of particular actors,
though. I did it in the past, but now it just takes me out of the story too much. Earlier, you
asked about “public learning.” Using famous people as characters certainly qualifies…and I plan
on being more subtle with my wink-and-nod panels in the future!
You’re part of the now-legendary Comic Twart crew, arguably one of the best-known comic
art blogs on the Web right now. How’d you get involved with them? Did it involve some sort
of demented game of comic-book Russian Roulette?
Nah, a few artists I knew were talking about doing a sketch-a-week thing. I emailed Chris
Samnee and asked if I could play along.
I feel bad that I don’t participate more in Twarting, but it’s a reality of where I am in life right
now. I’m a divorced single parent with shared custody of my son, so between that and keeping
my bills paid, ComicTwart has come up on the short side of my schedule. I hope to change that
in the near future.
OK, I know you have a dog, so I gotta ask; how do you get any work done with the dog
wandering around? Because most of the time, my dog insists on bugging the shit out of me
when I try to get work done at home.
My dog’s awesome! Most of the time, he naps on the futon in my studio. My studio door opens
up to a fenced back yard, so if he wants out, it’s a pretty simple matter. Now if only I could get
him to start inking my backgrounds!
-
April 11, 2012
Dustin Harbin
Dustin Harbin is a super-nice guy and I pity his poor handsome fingers for drawing his hilarious
and heartfelt comics so small. Seriously, they’re microscopic. He was nice enough to take time
out of his day to answer some questions for me about tools, the process, genres, teaching and
learning, and honestly I’m stoked he thought this dopey project was worth his time. I can now
take down the surveillance cameras that are in his bathroom…I mean, nevermind.
Alongside cartooning, you’re also a comic letterer and illustrator. Do you find that the
mindset for various jobs is a dramatic shift? Or is it just as simple as “Today, I do my own
comics. Tomorrow, I letter a page of CASANOVA and then some freelance stuff.”
This is actually a HUGE challenge for me. Every week I feel like I’m trying to come up with a new
solution to this sort of thing. I’m not just a terrible multi-tasker—multi-tasking is almost
impossible for me. My brain works best focused on a single thing, so unless I sit down and get
into a serious groove, it’s really hard for me to do good work that I feel satisfied with. I feel like
a bumblebee buzzing around confused from flower to flower, but never getting his feet sticky.
Maybe I should try a “today, just these things” approach. I get distracted after awhile, so I’ve
always thought that switching from thing to thing after a couple of hours was best. But I never
ever feel like I’m working at a kind of optimum efficiency.
Your recent blogs posts about tools and techniques have been incredibly inspiring. Personally,
I always enjoy instructional stuff from artists/writers I like, as well as general looks into the
workspaces. What in particular brought the posts on?
I think I pointed it out early on; most of what I know about cartooning I’ve learned by
overhearing the right thing at the right time. Or really, any time. When I hang out with
cartoonists at shows and people start talking shop, I am 100% all ears. Cartooning is like one of
those old artisanal trades; it’s very hard to teach in a broad way because so much of it is
solitary. Of course, that’s mainly because very few people try to really intelligently teach
comics; and almost none when I was younger. I’m so jealous of the people that go to CCS
(Center for Cartoon Studies), because I want very much to get that kind of codified, disciplined
training. I think that ship has probably sailed now though; I’ll be an autodidact forever, looks
like.
What’s the overall reaction to them been?
Pretty positive. I guess I need to start those again, it’s been half a year since I did one. I still get
those popping up in Google alerts, especially the one about scanning, which for my money is
the most useful one. So much about scanning seems utterly mysterious when you first start
using one. “I guess I’ll stick my paper in this big flat camera and watch the magic happen!”
Eventually I’ll work my way through printing minicomics and then get to shipping and setting up
at shows, which is probably the thing I know the most about. I know more about working
conventions than I ever will about cartooning! *sadface*
One of the things that you bring up is that despite what it looks like to some, it really doesn’t
matter what tools you use. As a cartoonist myself that’s something I try to embrace as well.
Was that something that you struggled with at all?
I personally don’t struggle much with that, because I’m really fussy naturally, so a certain
amount of fuss is pleasant to me. But there’s a difference between being fussy and just wasting
time. I tried for years to perfect using a brush, because I thought wielding a perfect brushstroke
was the apogee of technical achievement in cartooning. When I finally figured out that I work
best drawing small, with a nib, it was like a beautiful, audible click in my mind.
It’s definitely true that the only REALLY important thing is the end result in comics. Most of the
time, all the extra stuff is just padding, and often it’s distracting padding—for instance,
obsessive mark-making, overly detailed panels, etc. But I think COMFORT is important, too; I
should have mentioned that originally maybe. Finding tools that make the lines or shapes or
textures you want, whether they’re fancy or disposable or digital or whatever, is important. But
finding tools that you’re comfortable using is almost as important. Comics is so timeconsuming, that wasting more of it trying to fit yourself into the wrong Cinderella-shoe can just
rob you of all the joy that should come (occasionally) with making art.
Do you feel like, with the aforementioned blog posts for example, there are a lot more
resources out there for newer cartoonists to learn about the craft and the culture? There’s a
rise in academia and culture writing in general about comics these days, which is amazing.
However, in terms of raw learning tools, it’s still sort of a patchwork of resources.
Well, it’s the information age, right? There is SO MUCH more info available online about
cartooning than there was even five years ago. And part of living in such an age is figuring out
how to sift all that data to find what’s useful to you.
Have you ever tried out specific subgenres of comics (horror, editorial cartooning, traditional
strips, etc) just for the sake of trying them? Or have you always been consistently working in
your own style?
I’m not very interested in genre per se, in terms of my own stuff. I have a few stories in my
head, not a whole lot, and they’re either autobio or genre-inspecific. I like trying different visual
styles, and am pretty comfortable doing so, but in terms of storytelling, that’s not a muscle I
naturally flex. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever; but for right now, I’m still trying to get my first
few stories out.
How long did it take you to find that comic voice? Do you think it’s something a lot of
cartoonists sometimes struggle with?
Sure. To be honest, I don’t think I have a really distinct voice yet. It’s coming, but it hasn’t gelled
all the way yet. I think that’s part of the reason I’m not very interested in genres—the best
genre work transcends genre; the storytelling is of a quality and confidence that it can exist
within and without that framework at the same time. So for now maybe THAT’s what I’m
working toward: just a strong, unique voice.
You’re known for online memoir and diary comics, both of which are considered somewhat
“niche” aspects of comics. Is that something you agree with? Or do you think that both
webcomic strips as well as personal diary-style comics can have a wider overall appeal?
I guess so. I have to admit, I’m not super big on autobio in general. Some of my favorite comics
are autobiographical—especially those of masters like Chester Brown or Gabrielle Bell—but in
general I think it’s a lazy way to pick a story. I’ve certainly been guilty of that. Having said that, I
have a long memoir project coming that I feel like has some nuts to it. We’ll see!
But sure, anything can be anything. Diary comics or webcomics (which are not necessarily two
different things, of course) or print comics or crime comics or whatever. Anything can be good
or terrible or both or neither.
-
April 5, 2012
Gary Cohen
Hi Gary. I’m so glad you could make it to my floating fortress/pleasure palace.
Thanks, Constantine. I’m glad to be here.
I’m going to ask you all of the questions from my standard email interview.
Weird. Do you think people might think I just filled that out? They might not believe we
actually met?
Nonsense. Why don’t you describe me in one word?
Supple?
Excellent. So there you have it.
Good enough.
OK. Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Gary Cohen, New Jersey, sexy berserker. And can I plug my webcomic?
Of course.
I write a webcomic called Mallville Rules! It’s about a high school where everyone has super
powers after a freak masturbation accident involving someone not unlike Superman gets the
entire school pregnant. It’s filled with comedy like that. If you think the premise is funny you’ll
enjoy the book.
What was your first ever attempt at making comics?
Hmm. Well I always loved drawing super heroes. Funny I just realized I wrote a comic called
Colorman vs. Super Scuz when I was probably in 3rd grade. Colorman looked like the Flash but
he was orange and he had a full duck on his head, not just little wings. And he shot color at
people. I was 8.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
I wrote a mermaid comic called “Crozonia the War Beneath the Waves for Beach Studios. It
was pretty straightforward undersea adventure and that’s not where I see myself. Normally I’m
all about the funny superhero.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools, and then
stick with it?
Let’s move on.
The best move you ever made in your attempt to learn how to make comics and get them out
there to readers?
I’ll say what everyone says. You learn best by doing. The more you do it the better you get.
And then you network through conventions and classes. The more you can show someone, the
more seriously they will take you.
Just how important is coffee to your daily regiment?
Coffee is like my heroin. If you don’t count my heroin.
Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?
Twisted Sister. But only the first 3 albums. Then they got silly.
-
March 27, 2012
Ken Eppstein
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
I'm Ken Eppstein from Columbus Ohio, and dogged persistence is my number one weapon.
What was your first ever attempt at making comics?
I had been conducting these silly "Five Quick and Dirty Questions" interviews via email for my
record business's newsletter. They were admittedly horrible. Somewhere along the line I
thought it'd be funny to make them into cartoons like Punk Magazine used to do.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Never thought I'd be doing any of it until a year or so ago. I just got to the point in my life that I
wanted to make comics... So I did it!
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools, and then
stick with it?
I need to do more of that. Mostly I end up trying new techniques when I write myself into a
corner.
The best move you ever made in your attempt to learn how to make comics and get them out
there to readers?
Ignoring what has become the conventional "Sell your comic books in comic book stores"
wisdom. I love me the local comic shops. Shame they're a dying beast.
Just how important is coffee to your daily regiment?
I'm a full on addict. No coffee by 9:00am means that the day is lost.
Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?
Priest.
-
March 26, 2012
Kennon and John of MOHAGEN
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Kennon: Name - Kennon James. BOO: Hutto, Texas, home of the Fighting Hippos. WOC: Golden
Retriever.
John: Hi. I'm John Kipling. I'm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my weapon of choice is
my iPad, the Inter-Webs and my lucky thesaurus.
What was your first ever attempt at making comics?
Kennon: I drew and wrote a one-page sequential story called "Chess" when I was 9. It was a fan
favorite yet widely panned by critics.
John: I made a Star Wars comic when I was in the fourth grade called Frog Wars. It starred
Luke Flyhopper and was simply a collection of short Star Wars related gags with frogs in them.
Yeah, I was a pretty lonely kid growing up.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Kennon: Giving a shit about politics.
John: You mean which of my failed dreams did I actually think was going to work? Wow.
That's an exhaustive list. I guess, every time I write a book, I'm positive that the new opus that
will grant me the fame and fortune that I so rightly deserve. Naturally, three weeks later, I'm
scratching my head, rereading my work and wondering what I was so excited about.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools, and then
stick with it?
Kennon: I am experimental and continue to learn yet I constantly go back to my favorites.
John: My old man was a scientist so I'm always analyzing which jokes and which scripts on
Mohagen get us the most attention. When I started working with Kennon, I wanted to make
sure that we weren't a strip that was too dependent on current events to be funny. Comics like
Doonesbury are funny one day but ten years later nobody gets them. I wanted Mohagen to
have a timeless feel, but I found that those comics weren't as well received as the ones that
focused on popular culture and current events. I've tried to balance it out but I still find myself
cheating for laughs.
The best move you ever made in your attempt to learn how to make comics and get them out
there to readers?
Kennon: Network, ask questions, be nice.
John: I've always been a huge student of comics. When I was a kid, my father had these large
books collecting Popeye, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, and such. I used my allowance to buy
paperback collections of Johnny Hart's The Wizard of ID and B.C. And I read Mad Magazine
from cover to cover, thinking about what worked and what didn't work and why. But it wasn't
until I was working on Mohagen with Kennon that I learned what a powerful effect just a simple
comic can have on a person's day. I've been amazingly lucky to have the opportunity to work
with Kennon on Mohagen. So it's definitely been the best attempt to date.
Just how important is coffee to your daily regiment?
Kennon: About as important as air.
John: I don't drink coffee. I'm that weird kid that gags on coffee ice cream. *shrugs* I'm like
the girlfriend who watches Blade Runner and then says "Meh". Coffee. It's okay.
Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?
Kennon: Yes, please.
John: Yeah, I guess that would be Judas Priest for me. Although I would say I probably spent
more time with the Stooges than both combined.
-
March 23, 2012
Byron Wilkins
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice?
W. Byron Wilkins. I live in Montgomery, Illinois which is famous for nothing except cornfields
and a Caterpillar plant. My weapon of choice is my bass guitar. Actually, I use Manga Studio
EX, a WACOM tablet and Photoshop to create my drawings. I'm totally digital and will never go
back to traditional methods. I mean, why?
What was your first ever attempt at making comics?
This may take you back, but my first comic strip was in 1971. I was 14 and drew strips about a
crew aboard a tiny spaceship called TR-1. It dealt with the crew's personal lives rather than
static warp bubbles ala Star Trek. I had taken art lessons in basic drawing and had a book by
Charles Schulz that showed how me drew his comics. Had the messy India ink and quill pens
just like him. I drew comics throughout High School and College, but gave it up for a career in
TV News production and eventually ran my own video production company. At age 50, in 2007,
I decided to change my career and come back to drawing comics.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
When I started in comics, the Internet was not even a dream of Al Gore, so for me to be here
today drawing my comic for thousands of readers and have it published on the wonderful world
wide web is mind boggling. But the thing that I thought I'd never do was host a podcast with
the Webcomic Alliance for beginning webcomic artists. That blows my mind totally.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools, and then
stick with it?
A craftsman learns his tools, learns them well, then sticks to his specialty. I am a digital artist,
so there's lots of ways to expand what I do, but the basics I do not mess with. I am constantly
learning new methods of shading and coloring. But the down and dirty drawing I have down
and stick to my guns. I'm not getting any younger, so to speak. :)
The best move you ever made in your attempt to learn how to make comics and get them out
there to readers?
Being self-published on the web. You the boss. No syndicate or editors cutting or hacking your
content. This way my readers get what *I* wanted them to see, not some watered down
corporate policy standard story. As far as learning, picking up Manga Studio EX right off the bat
was a God-send. Took me about a while to learn it, but was worth every moment of trial and
error.
Just how important is coffee to your daily regiment?
No, no. No coffee in my life... ever. Mountain Dew is my caffeine fix. It's also cheaper than Star
Bucks. :)
Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?
PRIEST! No question.
-
February 9, 2012
Benjamin Dewey
From the strange Pacific fogs that only exist west of the Appalachian mountains, I approached
the edge of the fog and laid out an offering of honeyed Graham crackers and artificial crab
meat. The envoys took my offerings, and eventually, deigned allow me to talk with “Tragedy
Series” cartoonist Ben Dewey about inspiration, paint washes, and Tumblr.
OK, so let’s get straight to the meat and potatoes of the conversation; do you think that the
success of the comic on new formats for people to read comics like Tumblr is just an
evolution of people’s general like for boiled-down single-panel/illustration gags? Going back
to the long history of single-panel cartoons and illustrations, stuff like “The Far Side” thrived
in newspapers because of the way a single panel could contain, in hindsight, a fairly complex
joke. Is “Tragedy Series” on the web continuing that?
I think that some formats, like Tumblr, brevity and allow people to create a self portrait patchwork out of things they like; I try to keep those things in the back of my mind when I'm drawing
a comic. It is important to consider what the context will be when you put work out in the
world. I wanted to use Tumblr because it seemed like an ideal venue for the sort of ideas I had.
I'm happy that my hunch turned out to be right; I feel really lucky. I'm amazed that Gary Larson
could keep up such a high level of invention, cleverness and genuinely funny concepts rolling
for 15 years! I was just thinking about how hard that must have been earlier today. I think he
was popular because he was consistently good for years and, even though the images are
simple, there was a ton of thought behind many of those choices. I don't feel like I can compare
my stuff to “The Far Side.” It's been hard for me to try not to repeat myself in the last 6
months! I do appreciate the implied parity!
Process-wise, how do you work? Are you all-digital? Or is there any sort of analog in your
work?
I draw on 5.5 by 8.5 300 series bristol board with a #8 micron pen, a Sakura pocket brush, a
white pentel gel pen and a Pentel waterbrush filled with a wash solution of water and
ultradraw ink.
Once that is done I scan the image into Photoshop and tint it with a specific color and
saturation, add a multiply layer with the same tint, put it in a little template (that my
studiomate Erika Moen helped me set up) and post it to Tumblr! So the drawing is all analog
but the image processing and clean up is digital.
One of the things I always wonder is how some cartoonists’ process evolves over time. How
has that process changed since you first started?
When I started I felt like I had to be more cartoony. I tried super hard to simplify like crazy but
that approach wasn't always sufficient to get across what I wanted to say or carry the point of a
joke. I found that my preference for a certain amount of realism has reached an equilibrium
with the proportion of cartooning which allows for all my needs. It has been a super helpful
project for getting better and trying on a more relaxed style.
Do you still try to experiment with new stuff like tools or tricks/processes, or have you pretty
much settled into your routine by now?
Getting the right mixture of ink in the ink wash can be tricky. I'm always trying out different
supplies and methods but for this project I wanted a uniformity. I think it is helpful for
establishing the world for readers if it all has a similar quality. I have imposed some rules on
myself to help focus the production and that has been a great 'tool' of sorts for making sure I
get it done each day!
There was a bit of fiddling with the labeling, but that sorted itself out pretty quickly.
My next project will involve a lot more flexibility in materials and formats. I'm excited about it
because it will be a love letter to science.
During that learning curve, was there anyone that you looked to for, if not necessarily
“inspiration,” then as a guide?
I try to keep a few people in my head as I work. Steve Lieber is there, for sure, making certain
that I leave space for things to breathe. Sometimes I get a bit lost in the woods but I look back
at early strips and not to get excessive, if for no other reason than consistency; it looks better
too. (“Hellboy” creator) Mike Mingola is an artist I've looked up to for a long time and it
occurred to me the other day how much I've subconsciously injected my appreciation for his
approach into the series. My friend Brian Oaster is also in my head reading out the captions in
his great fake British accent (we worked together at a daycare and he would do great vices for
the kids.)
Other than that I try not to think to hard about it because I don't want to get overly entangled
in my affection for other people's work or their perspective.
So much of cartooning is a solitary world, chained to the drawing table. You’re a part of
Periscope Studios, though. Do you find that working surrounded by other cartoon artists and
writers works to your benefit, influencing you better and having a pool of peers you can just
yell over to ask for help? Or is it more of a social thing overall, just being able to know other
people exist?
Periscope is an amazing place. It is hard for me to remember a time before I was there, in a way
that seems like it really happened, because it has been so transformative and wonderful. I still
have bad days or hours where I'd rather be alone but they are few and far between. I'm glad I
have such an embarrassment of riches in potential mentors and helpful colleagues. It definitely
makes us all stronger because we don't let each other just skate by. There is an atmosphere of
friendly competition, omnipresent but subtle pressure to improve and a joy for work amongst
the group that is contagious. It is helpful to willingly invite the collective criticism of the room; it
isn't always easy to hear but it will make you better if you listen. I cannot imagine getting tired
of it.
It is socially valuable because we support one another emotionally, get inspired, provide a
degree of normalcy that other professionals enjoy in a pseudo co-worker capacity and help
filter out what sort of behavior is okay in the protective enclave of the studio vs. the wider
world.
Professionally, we can pool our abilities on big jobs or hand off assignments to a capable inhouse substitute when we are swamped, share knowledge, learn new techniques, buy
equipment as a collective that might not be practical for an individual, benefit from each
person's networking and promote the others in circumstances where it makes sense.
Periscope is great. "Tragedy Series" would never have happened if it hadn't been for my
experiences in the studio with all my wonderful friends.
-
January 29, 2012
Mike Holmes
Mike Holmes is a cool guy with a giant cat and a beard. He was nice enough to take some time
out of making comics and being a Tumblr cartooning sensation to talk to me, a pestering
weirdo.
Welcome, fellow bearded persons.
We thank you.
OK first off, I have to say that in about 99% of your “Mikeness” self-portraits in the various
styles of other artists, your eyes are a freakish blue and it scares me a little.
They are normally devil-red with little flames flickering in the pupils, but I focus-grouped that
and it was wildly unpopular.
How did your different takes on the self-portrait get started initially? Was it a conscious
project? A random idea?
Random idea. I just wanted to draw myself as though I was a character from "Bob's Burgers", an
animated show I like quite a bit. I hadn't posted on Tumblr for a while, so I chucked it on there.
The next day I did a "Home Movies" one, then a "Clone High" one, and people really started to
respond to it, and I like attention.
It just sort of became a project after a week. I'm terrible with titles (my comic about stories that
are true is called "True Story") so I crowdsourced a name, and this Tumblr/Twitter user named
"Crashsuit" came up with "Mikenesses". I am grateful.
As you’ve done these different takes on yourself and your impossibly obese cat, do you feel
it’s made your own personal style stronger at all?
I'd like to think it has - I'm getting more confident with each one I draw, and I'm starting to see
it reflected in my regular work. I think the main purpose it serves it that it lets me burn off a
drawing every day that's just for me - most cartoonists I know have a warm-up ritual, and this
one is mine. For now, anyways.
Also, her official weight classification is "tubsy dumps".
When you work, how much of the process do you try to get done on paper before having to
transition to digital? And what do you use?
The only thing done digitally is the colors - I'm analog all the way otherwise. I'd like to start
drawing digitally, but that requires a trip to an electronics store. I'm pretty comfortable with
the utensils I've got - mechanical pencils with non-photo blue lead, cheap technical & brush
pens (Prismacolor), a no.1 sable brush (series 7 or whatever's handy), waterproof black ink and
smooth 2-ply bristol.
What was the original beginning of your comic “True Story?” It’s interesting to see you
essentially draw for a different “writer” every single time. Despite the fact that your own
visual and artistic style is consistent, it’s different every time. It reminds me a bit of the
newspaper comic strip “Pluggers.”
It came out of a story that a friend told me while I was visiting her in Toronto - something about
living next to a celebrity and being able to hear his phone conversations through the UHF dial
on their shitty old TV (I explain it more in the intro to the "True Story" book collection - PLUG). I
thought it would make a great comic, and that was it - I've been doing it for almost five years
now.
One of the things I love about doing it is that the tone changes from week to week, sometimes
drastically. One week the comic will be about someone's baby inexplicably smearing poop on
the ceiling, and the next will be an almost wordless story of an elderly convenience store clerk
who thought it was okay to get grabby with a 12-year-old girl. There's no continuity to worry
about between stories, so I'm free to tell any story the way I want.
I’m sure there are tons of stories that come in that you can’t use, but have any stood out as
not really fit for print? And not just in a negative way, like maybe a story that was awesome
but too long or complicated to portray in a strip, or maybe just too heart-wrenching to be
able to do without triggering mass crying?
I would never not draw a story because it was TOO emotionally affecting - that's the kind of shit
I look for. Length was an issue at the beginning, but that was my failing. I've gotten much better
at editing and letting images or simple dialogue stand in for huge chunks of text.
There are ones I get that just can't work as a comic strip. Every week I have to justify not only
drawing the thing for five hours, but I also owe it to any readers to make a comic strip worth
flipping through the paper for. I get a lot of you-had-to-be-there or you-had-to-be-ME stories,
where context is everything. Those are fewer, but I do get them. I'm always glad when
someone takes the time to write, and I'm always sad when I can't use it.
THE CAT, IT WON’T STOP STARING AT ME…seriously, get a dog. Cats are evil, man.
I like dogs fine, but I clearly adore my cat, so no dice. You seem to have a problem with eyes in
general. I'm sensing a fear of intimacy.
-
January 23, 2012
Rachel Deering
Rachel Deering is a writer, letterer, one of the brains behind the upcoming comics anthology
“Womanthology,” and said she’d find a way to pin $6,000.00 worth of parking tickets onto me if
I didn’t interview her for this project. Another fellow Ohioan embracing the cartooning spirit of
the state, she was nice enough to take some time out of her day to answer my annoying
questions.
You’re a letterer, from what I understand. Do you work by hand at all? All digitally? Or does it
depend on the project?
I'm primarily a writer, actually, which means I'm perpetually broke. It was this fact that lead me
to take up lettering in the first place. I figured I'd better learn how to do it myself, lest I find
myself having to pay (or beg) someone else to do it.
I letter everything digitally, but if I'm designing a font or a logo, I will start on paper with the
concept, then import everything into the computer.
What do you use to letter? How do you get started?
I use Adobe Illustrator CS5. I bring the art into Illustrator and paste it up into a template that
shows me the safe area, bleed, etc. I have a custom set of different sized and shaped balloons
and tails that I've assembled, to help speed things along. I copy the text from the script, paste it
into the panel where it goes, break the lines up so that they fit nicely into one of my balloons,
and then form a balloon around it. Last, I add a tail and make sure the tip of it is pointing to the
appropriate speaker's mouth, and bada-bing, you've got yourself some talking heads. That's the
basics of it, anyway. I have a full length article about my lettering process, along with photos
and pro-tips coming out in the “Womanthology” book.
Do you make your own fonts as well?
Yeah, I mostly make horror title fonts. Things like you'd see in the old “Creepy” and “Eerie”
magazines from the 60’s and 70’s. All of the dialogue fonts I use come from my pal Nate Piekos
over at www.blambot.com.
A phrase I hear again and again when it comes to lettering in comics is that if the lettering is
perfect, you never notice it, because it’s just part of the comic as a whole. It only stands out
supposedly when it’s bad. Is this something you’ve heard before? Do you agree?
Yeah, that's something that veteran letterers will pound into your brain from day one, and I
absolutely agree with it. It really kills me when someone on the creative team asks me to do a
funky/crazy word balloon or insane looking fonts. If a character is supposed to be doing
something wild and crazy, make sure that the artist can pull it off in their illustration of the
character. Don't rely on the lettering to bring your story to life.
As cheesy a question as it is, do you have a “favorite”/inspirational example of some great
lettering in comics? I’ll totally get the ball rolling…Todd Klein’s one of my favorites.
I love Nate Piekos because of his insane attention to detail. Every panel lettered by Nate is
guaranteed to be picture perfect, without fail. I'm also a huge fan of Clem Robins because of his
hand drawn font set. I guess he's worked many years on creating enough auto-ligatures so that
everything looks and feels like it's totally natural, and not font based at all.
Do you think the design and layout of where words go on a page in comics can influence the
mood and pacing of action?
Absolutely. The layout of the balloons is what directs the reader's eyes over the page. A good
letterer will flow from one panel to the next without the eyes having to bounce around and
search for which balloon or caption comes next. This sort of direction, coupled with the
emotion and intensity in the writing, will be what controls the pacing of the story. If you're
reading a full throttle action sequence, but you have to search for the next chunk of dialogue,
it's going to totally take you out of that story, and kill the momentum.
Indulge me for a minute here. As comics get easier and easier to make with the rise of digital
tools, this makes it a lot easier for people to create and publish. At the same time though,
arguably it makes the entire process something that a creator does entirely on their own,
from penciling to inking to lettering. Do you think that the specialization of roles like a letter
or a colorist (what some might call an assembly-style process) will always exist?
I don't feel like there are many creators who are really good at every aspect of comics creation.
If someone wants to churn out a mediocre product, sure they can handle everything on their
own. If, however, they want to make the best book possible, they're probably going to always
want to go with someone who has a specialization. Even Jeff Smith hired a colorist in the end,
and he's a total badass at everything he does.
Outside of lettering, you also write comics and are an editor of the upcoming
“Womanthology” anthology collection. Do you want to work in those aspects of comics
more? Or balance it out equally?
Like I mentioned earlier, I am primarily a writer, so that's what I plan to spend most of my time
doing. I take on lettering jobs for the sole purpose of paying the artists who are working on my
scripts, haha. As for editing, well, that's not something I'll go out of my way to volunteer for. I'm
currently editing a horror anthology that I put together on a whim, but my editing role on that
is out of sheer necessity. I asked for other people to edit it, and only one other person stepped
up, so I pick up the slack.
It's not that I dislike editing, it just feels really presumptuous on my part to look at someone's
script and say “I know you created this story, and you probably know the inner workings of
every detail better than anyone, but I think it could be more effective if you consolidated these
panels, changed the dialogue here, accelerated the pacing in this section, and just trash this
whole fucking page.” Makes me feel like a twat.
What did you start out in first when it came to making comics?
As a kid, I set out to master the full production. I was writing, drawing, coloring, lettering, etc.
Those comics were fucking horrible, as you can imagine. I did that all the way up through high
school, and they never got any better. When I finally decided that I wanted to get into comics
full time as a career, I knew that I had to focus on just one thing. I was always a much better
writer than anything, so that's where I started, and it's remained my primary focus in creating.
Having multiple hats like that and balancing multiple projects, do you feel as if working on
one can improve your work on another? A recent blog post I found by Sean Murphy mentions
his firm belief that independents in comics should always have multiple projects going on,
because it helps to increase your level of visibility as well as increase your chances of being
seen for consideration in future work.
Well, it's good to be able to step away from a project that might be giving you troubles, and just
go work on something else for a little while. In doing that, you let your mind drift away from
whatever you were stuck on. Usually, after a while, the frustration has died down and you can
jump back into the other project with a clear mind. Sometimes, the ideas will just percolate in
the back of your brain, and you'll be stricken with that wonderful “AH-HA!” moment. So yeah, it
helps to have more than one thing going on at a time.
Do you have any upcoming projects you want to mention?
“Womanthology” hits the shelves in March, which I wrote a story for, edited several sections,
and lettered more than half of the stories. The first issue of my horror series, “Anathema,” will
be released sometime around April. My first graphic novel, “The Other Side,” will see the light
of day sometime within the first half of the year, depending on publisher involvement, etc. I
have an 8 page story coming out in volume three of “FUBAR” (look it up on Google or Amazon.)
And, finally, I will have a 12 page story in the previously mentioned horror anthology, which I
assembled, and will also be lettering a good chunk of. That's it for now, but I'm sure other
projects will pop up in the mean time. Keep an eye on my Twitter or Facebook for further
updates on these projects, and any others to come.
-
January 20, 2012
Joe Hunter
Joe Hunter makes comics, like the semi-autobio Ghost Bucket and the detective story
webcomic Changeling. He’s also a total creep. He misunderstood what I initially said when I
first started talking to him about doing this interview, and proceeded to sneak into my house in
the middle of the night with “Night Of The Witch In My Pants” painted on his naked chest. After
I calmed down a little bit and made sure that I’d pulled the taser prongs out of him, we talked
comics for a bit.
OK, so who are you, and how did you get into my house? Please, don’t hurt me.
I would be Joe Hunter and you might want to make sure you do a better job of making sure all
your windows are closed in the future.
What was your first attempt at storytelling in general? What about comics?
My first attempt at storytelling was, in fact, a comic! ….sorta. When we were 5 or 6, my cousin
and I did this really terrible comic/storybook abomination called “Fifi” that was about the
adventures of this unfortunate being called Fifi. Fifi started out it's cursed life as a poodle but
kept becoming a different animal each page because we had no idea what the hell we were
doing. And all of this was lovingly rendered in ballpoint pen and glitter paint on powder blue
copier paper our grandmother had laying around. We were avant garde as fuck.
I’m curious about your toolset. Being a webcartoonist, do you work analog at all? Or is it all
done via tablet?
I flip-flop a lot on analog and digital. I draw comics digitally, but all of my sketching and
planning-type stuff is done in pencil in a bunch of small sketchbooks. Those trees all probably
had it coming anyway. Jerks.
I know you’re also doing colors for Kevin Church and Ben Birdie’s “The Rack,” right? Not to
knock Birdie’s artwork, which I really like, but man, your colors are pretty awesome in that
comic. Is doing something specialized like that in cartooning something you ever thought
you’d do?
Haha no, it wasn't. I've always thought I was terrible at coloring (and most other things artrelated) but people apparently like it? Chris Haley of “Let's Be Friends Again” asked me to color
in a strip one day because they had C2E2 to get ready for and I guess it was not-terrible enough
that I'm basically their fill-in ghost colorist now and then things kinda went from there? I dunno.
It's weird.
Speaking of colorists and other specializations and seeing as how you’re doing a traditional
sub-step of cartooning in the modern aspect of comics (webcomics), do you think that that
sort of multi-step process of making comics will maintain a place in the industry in the future?
I… uh… I don't know. I just make stuff, man. Maybe?
You’re a fellow Ohioan doing comics. As cheesy as it might sound, do you think that the
artistic legacy of the state and all the awesome cartoonists is inspirational at all? From Milton
Caniff to Harvey Pekar, it’s like Comics Itself lives in this state. I’m pretty sure Jeff Smith lives
in my neighborhood.
I know Jeff Smith lives in your neighborhood. I met him while out for a walk one day. Nice dude.
But yeah, Ohio doesn't quite get the credit it deserves for its art and cartooning scene, as small
as it may be. Especially Columbus, which is basically Portland but in Ohio and without the nifty
food trucks.
So now that you’ve got that “leather” jacket…what’s it like being Batman?
It's great aside from Catwoman trying to mount me at inconvenient times.
Alright, I have to ask…the Kaiju obsession?
It's like professional wrestling but more realistic. I was basically raised by my grandmother
because my parents had weird work schedules, and she loved watching Godzilla movies.
-
January 4, 2012
Tom Racine
Tom Racine is the voice and brains behind Tall Tale Radio, one of my favorite podcasts related
to cartooning and comics going these days. A true fan as well as an amazing listen, Tom took
time away from stalking Berke Breathed and smuggling rum from Cuba with Stephen Pastis to
talk to me for a bit about being a rockstar podcaster.
How’d you get involved into comics-related podcasting?
In about 2004, I started becoming aware of the whole world of webcomics. I have been a
cartoonist/illustrator and graphic artist all my life, and back in the 80s and 90s, had done about
3 or 4 comic strip submissions to the syndicates; all roundly (and quite correctly) rejected. I
hadn’t thought much about getting syndicated for a number of years, but poking around a little,
I discovered Comics Sherpa. For $6.95 a month, I could upload my comics, they’d keep the
archive, people could see my stuff, and best of all…there was always the chance of being seen
by one of Universal’s editors. I had an idea for a single panel comic called “BookSmarts” which
was basically “The Far Side” aimed at literature and fairy tales. (Hey, I had to do SOMEthing
with that English degree.)
“BookSmarts” was a lot of fun and lasted about 2 ½ years before I realized it just wasn’t going
anywhere, and we had our first daughter in October 2005, so time was not my ally. I had to
choose where to spend my precious time and focus, and it was obvious over time that while I
think I’m a pretty decent writer, my art skills weren’t what they needed to be if I was going to
crack that top 1% and get syndicated. But, I will always credit Comics Sherpa as doing several
important things:
1- It really taught me that while I enjoy cartooning, I don’t LOVE it like you need to love it to be
successful. You have to be one of those “I take a break from drawing by doodling in my sketchbook”
types to really get to that next level.
2- It introduced me to a lot of very cool artists and fellow wacko cartoonists. I am the youngest
of six boys in a family devoid of artistic talent, and none of my friends were artists, so I never
had a place where I “fit in” on that level. The cartoonists I met on Sherpa were incredibly
supportive, fun, interesting, and became good friends, many of whom I am still either in contact
with or working with. It gave me a place to call home.
3- It introduced me to Justin Thompson, and via him, Brian Dunaway. Around 2005, I was also
hearing about podcasting. I had done radio in college and really enjoyed it. I fiddled with some
voice over work in my years, but was never really serious about doing it or radio full time. But,
the whole idea of recording in your house and uploading it to the web was really intriguing.
Justin and I became good friends, and I suggested to him that maybe he and I should think
about doing a podcast about comics. He’s an actor and also had radio experience, so I figured
between the two of us we could put a decent show together. However, though both of us are
very good with computers, we weren’t (and aren’t still) web guys. We had no idea where to
start. Coincidentally however, Justin had been contracted by Brian Dunaway, who did a bunch
of podcasting with Scott Thompson on his original show “Extra Life.” Brian was sort of the
second banana guy there, and wanted to do his own show specifically on comic strips. So, the
three of us got together, and Brian, being the webguru type that he is, whipped us out a
website quite literally as we sat on the phone talking about what we should do. Thus was
Comics Coast to Coast born.
I did 70-something episodes with them. Mike Witmer of “Pinkerton” fame was putting
together a comics collective called Tall Tale Features in 2007, and asked me if I would be
interested in doing my own podcast through them. I loved working with Justin and Brian, but
felt the need to branch out on my own and take some of the reins. CC2C was more of a loose,
fun chat with guys who liked comics…and I was interested in doing more serious interviews
one-on-one, so it worked out. I did both ‘casts for a time, but doing your own podcast where
you have to do some serious research on your subjects takes a lot of time, and I just couldn’t
keep up with both, so I bowed out of CC2C and focused on TTR.
As a podcaster, do you consider yourself a comics critic? Do you consider what you do as
comics-related journalism in the vein of work like The Comics Journal?
Early on, no, not at all. In fact, not long after we started CC2C, some organization doing a
comics contest actually wrote us to ask if we’d be interested in being judges, and we all sort of
just felt weird about that. We enjoyed talking about comics, but not really sitting in judgment
of them. I do appreciate a good critic, but I’m a very “live and let live” sort of guy. Just because
I don’t like something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit, and a lot of those sorts of critical
essays have a bit of the “I’m the arbiter of taste and you will listen to what I say” about
them. Well…it’s not THAT bad, but still, not really my thing.
Over time, I feel more confident in talking about comics from a more critical sense, but mostly
in a way I hope is productive. I’ve had several writers and artists bounce ideas and things off of
me, acting as a sort of ghost editor. And if I’m asked by a newbie to review their strip and I
don’t like it, I try to find good ways to say that and give them encouragement and things to
work on.
I read the Comics Journal and many other sites, and I think a well-written and well thought out
review/critique is a good thing…it’s just not MY thing.
Overall, what’s the reaction from the community been to Tall Tale? Not just from cartoonists,
but other critics/bloggers/podcasters? Was it what you expected at all?
From cartoonists, GREAT. Early on, I couldn’t believe some of the bigger names would talk to us
so easily. I think that’s because artists really do like to talk about their work and their art, and
cartoonists in general are a gregarious bunch. I’ve yet to come across one that was even a
remote jerk. Also, in this day and age of shrinking newspapers and such, any focus on the art
form is welcomed by anyone and everyone. Also, I think over time, I proved that I’m not some
fanboy schmoe with a microphone. I pride myself on being prepared, asking intelligent
questions, and producing a professional sounding show…so as time has gone by, they trust me
more and more. It’s still weird to me when someone who I’ve looked up to or really enjoyed
their work says something like “Oh, I love your show…I listen to it when I’m working.” Just
blows me away.
As for other podcasters, I’ve found a lot of support and camaraderie from a number of sources.
I’m of the “we’re all in this together, and ain’t none of us getting rich on it” attitude. I’m a big
fan of my old stomping grounds of “Comics Coast to Coast,” and Kurt and the fine folks of TGT
Webcomics and the Webcomics Alliance do great work. We all tweet one another’s stuff, and I
feel there’s a good rapport. I haven’t met many others…I know there are a bunch of big comic
book ‘casts, but again, there’s that damn “time” issue, of which I have none. (As a fan of
scotch, I enjoy the Scotchcast, too!)
Do you think that the availability of the Internet and technologies, not to mention the ease of
creating a publishing presence, has made comics reporting and criticism like podcasting or
blogging “easy?”
Well, yes, in the sense that it’s brought it all to the general public. Not much more than 5 or 7
years ago, what I’m doing wasn’t really possible. As a kid in college in the late 80s, getting “mic
time” was a very hard thing to come by. You quite literally had your crappy little cassette
recorder with a 25-cent microphone. Now you can have a professional level set up in your
backpack.
And obviously, the good and bad of anything with the internet…whether it be podcasting,
comics, music, films…the masses having access to things is great, but it also means a ton of crap
is out there. The cream rises, we all hope, and I love that people can have “The Knitting
Podcast” because that’s just cool.
The big negative to me about this sort of thing is the tendency for commentary to fall very
quickly to the lowest common denominator. I mean, have you read the comments under your
average YouTube video? I weep for mankind when I go through them. There’s a lot of great
community building out there, but sometimes it seems the trolls have the upper hand. I think
the simple fact is that we have a ton more choices for our entertainment out there, and that’s a
good and bad thing. But, the best will shine forth…people who write thoughtful reviews and
strong criticism will be read more than idiots spouting nonsense. Unless they get their own
reality show, then all bets are off.
Do you have a “journalism” or “podcasting” Bible? I started seriously writing critically and
doing what I’d guess is considered journalism, I looked to books like “Fear and Loathing on
the Campaign Trail ’72,” “Fat Man In The Middle Seat,” and the punk music/culture ‘zine
“Punk Planet” as models for what good writing looked like.
I really should have more of that stuff! I have a degree in English, so I try to keep my standards
high based on the idea that I am providing some level of journalism. I took some classes in
college about it, but never seriously pursued it. When I started the podcast, it was mostly a lark
to get back on the “air” and to talk comics, but as time has gone by, I realize that I AM providing
a good resource for people who love the art form, and I’m being taken more and more
seriously.
As we all know from Spider-Man, with great podcasting comes great responsibility, so I do take
it seriously. Getting to know Michael Cavna of the Washington Post and talking back and forth
to him about his work has really rubbed off on me, and has made me raise my game. And
Anne Hambrock (wife of John Hambrock of “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” and his colorist)
has invited me out to the 2nd Kenosha Festival of Cartooning to be a panel moderator and do
some podcasting, and that’s an incredible honor. Really feels like the “next level” is being
reached, and I take that very seriously.
I do look at it like the folks at “The Daily Show.” Sure, there’s a serious news side to what
they’re doing, but their first concern is always being entertaining. That’s what I strive for
most…engage my interview subjects, have a lively discussion about their work, and hopefully
give people something to listen to for an hour of their lives.
I remember getting those emails back from people agreeing to be interviewed or to
contribute to a project, and just getting that sense of legitimacy in those emails was pretty
exhilarating. What’s been your high point? Not necessarily in a “favorite subject to interview”
sort of way, but a highlight as a result of the work?
My first such thing about that was landing Stephan Pastis early on in the days of CC2C. Granted,
we had the huge advantage of the fact that back then he was still working at the Schulz
Company with Justin Thompson, so we had a serious “in.” But, still, he doesn’t just talk to
anyone, so when he agreed it was like we went from “hey this is fun” to “holy crap, people are
going to be listening!” Also, Amy Lago of the Washington Post Writers group honored us by
talking, and that felt really “big time” to me.
For myself on TTR, one of my first “gets” was Tony Cochran of “Agnes.” That strip has been a
favorite of mine from way back, and I was thrilled he’d heard of me and agreed to come on the
show. Mark Tatulli has always been so supportive and a great guy. Getting to talk to Jeff Keane
is sort of like talking to cartoon royalty. Tom Richmond of MAD Magazine fame, as well…have
always loved his work. And Richard Thompson…what a great artist and better man. And many
of the bigger webcomic folks like Kris Straub and Howard Tayler have always been great to talk
to.
Not long ago, Brendan Burford, editor at King Features, contacted me to see if I’d be interested
in having him and Norm Feuti on to talk about Norm’s new comic, “Gil.” They wanted to
announce it on my show. That was very flattering and felt like a “scoop.” And the previously
mentioned Kenosha Festival panel moderation is going to be an amazing thrill next September.
To add some balance to this question, I really honestly do love talking to artists of all levels. I’ve
talked to brand new webcomic artists and Pulitzer prize winners, and the conversations are all
fun and interesting. Any time someone takes an hour or so out of their time to talk to some
goofball with a podcast is an honor!
And whenever anyone answers my email with “I listen to your show all the time,” it’s always a
little thrill. I hope never to lose that, even if I do this for 20 years.
So did Berke Breathed ever call back, desperate to get interviewed now only for you to now
go “Pshaw, no thanks player, I’m too big for you now!”
Ha! Not sure I could even joke about that because I’d be on the floor passed out. I’ll bore you
with my Berke Breathed story…when first starting CC2C, I fired off an email to him letting him
know we were all big fans and were starting a comic strip related podcast and would love have
him on the show. I did it as a lark…used the email address that was printed on the “Opus”
comic, one I totally assumed was manned by people at his syndicate and that I had a snowball’s
chance in hell that he’d actually see it.
Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather the next morning when I opened my email
to find a note from “berke breathed.” I believe it was one of the only times in my life I did an
actual double-take. He wrote saying he was flattered, wouldn’t do an interview, but would be
happy do to an email interview. So that was very cool…and led to some great emails back and
forth with him over the years. He’s always been very supportive and nice to me, and meeting
him in person at the San Diego Comic Con in 2010 and having him know who I was, was a
serious high point for me. He keeps threatening to come on the show, so ya never know.
-
November 5, 2011
Matt Bors
Matt Bors is an editorial cartoonist and probably one of my favorite cartoonists to randomly
stumble across on the Internet in a long time. Smart, smarmy, and definitely in the know, he's
dedicated to not just only getting his own message across, but also spreading the word about
other cartoonists. Despite being a globe-trotting man-about-town, he was cool enough to
answer a few questions for me about the state of editorial cartooning in 2011.
Have you always been interested in editorial cartooning? Or do you have some sort of deep
dark secrets in the early days of your cartooning career, with lots of “X-Men” and “Green
Lantern” fanart?
I used to do a ton of X-Men fan art when I was a kid. I grew up on Marvel and Image comics of
the early 90s, which was a particularly bad time for mainstream comics, both for drawing and
substance. Also, MAD Magazine was huge and I eventually got into a lot of indie stuff and
"mature" mainstream work that was big in the late 90s.
So I've been all over the map with my interests, but I hadn't followed or shown much interest in
drawing political cartoons until I actually started drawing them in 2003. Then, when the first
one was done, it was very clear I had to keep going and eight years later I've drawn over 800 of
them. But I still have a big interest in doing long form comics, which is something I'm making a
big attempt to get to now.
What’s your day like? Having to largely depend on current events for your writing material
must be dramatically different from a regular cartoonist. Do you have to dedicate a nice
chunk of the day to absorbing the news through various media? Or do you just tend to have
an idea for the joke based on broader awareness of what’s going on, and then making the
comic work to fit the idea?
Since I began editing at Cartoon Movement earlier this year, a lot of my time is spent on the
computer, so I'm always paying attention to the news and taking notes for strips. I pretty much
immerse myself in news all day. I don't have a television and never watch it. I mostly work and
if I'm at the drawing table, I'm most likely listening to the radio, and now, checking my
goddamn smart phone when I'm out. I'm always thinking of ideas for the next comic.
Lately, I've been finding Twitter helpful in writing jokes. Seeing things happen in real time and
making little quips about them is a great way to generate ideas and test what works and what
should remain a throwaway tweet.
As an editorial cartoonist, what’s your opinion on the “Doonesbury Issue,” where Trudeau’s
comic is considered by many to be too topical for the funnies page and should be relegated to
where the rest of the editorial comics go? Do you even consider “Doonesbury” an editorial
comic at all? It is one of the most politically-aware and occasionally-incendiary comic strips
going.
I've never understood skittishness about having things that are political mixing with otherwise
nonpolitical content. I guess some people prefer the real world not intrude on their reading of
"Cathy" and "Marmaduke," but I've always been fond of work that addresses what is actually
going on in the world. I'll admit that I don't really follow "Doonesbury" so I don't really have any
opinions on it, other than a sense that creating a strip with characters to comment on current
events would have been a much better career path for myself.
Do you think there’s a divide between non-topical cartoonists/comic book writers/artists and
more currently-aware ones? In my experience, comics is a pretty tight-knit community of
incredibly nice people, but still you have to admit that there’s a fundamental difference
between work like yours or Jeff Stahler’s, and that of say “Blondie” or Adrian Tomine’s NEW
YORKER illustrations.
There's certainly a divide in what those respective creators are doing, but I don't see any
personal divide with in the field. Most cartoonists I run into--that would be in the indie
community--seem like quite a liberal and politically aware bunch, but you don't see it too much
in their work. The one bug difference I see with someone like Tomine's work is that it is for a
mostly comics reading crowd whereas I see my stuff for the general population of politically
aware people who might not be into comics as a thing unto themselves. That's not a
judgement, just an observation. Comics are a populist medium meant to be read and
consumed, and political cartoons are especially good at achieving that.
Are you an all-digital guy when it comes to your comics? Or do you still work at least partially
with pens and brushes on paper?
I still draw on Bristol Board and even hand letter, but I lay the colors down in Photoshop. I have
a font that I've made from my lettering to use when I'm in a pinch, but I still prefer the slight
imperfections of doing it by hand and the whole event of making a comic from scratch. It's a big
hassle though so maybe I'll switch eventually. Digital tablets interest me and everyone I know
that uses them swears by them. Once I got the hang of it I'm sure they would work alright, but
with multiple deadlines a week I don't see any time to make the transition without a big slip in
the competency of the work.
I love brush work as well. Tablets have gotten pretty advanced but I don't know that they'll ever
be able to replicate the kind subtlety I'm used to.
What’s your travel work-kit look like? I know you recently were in Haiti, and last year were in
Afghanistan. The deadlines never cease for someone like you, so do you tote a tablet around
with you, or is travelling a time for sketching and writing?
For my trips to Afghanistan and Haiti I worked ahead and turned in almost a month of
syndicated material in advance in each case. I was hard to come up with that much evergreen
material and I was pressed for time on the Haiti trip so I enlisted colleagues Kevin Moore and
August Pollak to write a few strips to help me out.
I did do a lot of drawing in Afghanistan. Drawing on the go was new for me and I had a few
different kinds of sketch books and pens to work with. In that case, I was drawing almost
immediately after events and sending cartoons to my syndicate or posting sketches online that
very day.
You’re a member of the Cartoon Movement. For those who aren’t aware, what exactly is
that?
So, Cartoon Movement was started by Tjeerd Royaards, a Dutch editorial cartoonist. I met him
at an AAEC convention in Portland and later in Amsterdam on my way back from Afghanistan
and joined him as an editor of the site. We publish international editorial cartoons and comics
journalism, which is the part I'm responsible for. I've run some work I'm really proud of by
cartoonists like Susie Cagle, Dan Archer, and Sarah Glidden who are all part of the growing
roster of people doing journalism in comics form, which I see as one of the least tapped genres
with some of the most potential.
This summer we traveled to Haiti for a month to recruit cartoonists and a team of journalists to
do a long piece that we will start running on January 12, the second anniversary of the
earthquake there. It's work like this that really excites me. I have plans to do some longer
comics journalism pieces in the future, but I really like to be in a position to promote other
artists that are worthy of attention and raise the field's profile as a whole right now.
Do you think that the internet’s made editorial cartooning a little more fearless? It’s arguably
much easier for a cartoonist, especially a political/editorial one, to reach an audience without
the fears of a syndicate or a particular paper dictating what can get printed.
I'd like to say that the Internet has made it more fearless, but I don't see much evidence of it in
editorial cartooning. Most of us still rely on print clients for the bulk of our income and the
content is dictated by what those outlets are willing to print. One exception in probably "Get
Your War On" by David Reese, which was too profane to exist in most publications and became
insanely popular. Ultimately, it was picked up by Rolling Stone, which must have accounted for
most of his income though probably not his readership.
The Internet is great for reaching readers. As I lose papers due to cutbacks or can't get in them
in the first place because I'm not mainstream enough, I find more and more of my readership
online. The constraints and restrictions placed on editorial cartoons and daily comics by
newspapers have kept some of the best cartooning minds of my generation away from these
fields, who are more attracted to the kind of humor and relevancy you can achieve in
webcomics. There aren't a whole lot of people taking up editorial cartooning these days.
Sometimes it feels like I'm the last person making a go at this, which either means I made a
terrible error in judgment or have an opportunity to prove that the form is still relevant.
-
October 21, 2011
Matt and Pat from Ashcan Press
The guys of Ashcan Press are horrible people, scum of the Earth with awful taste in music. And
after several threatening back-and-forth emails from both them and me, I sat down with them
to talk about being comic book fans, being creators, and being dedicated to making comics their
own way.
Pen and brush or keyboard; weapons of choice?
PAT- Keyboard. It’s the stabbing instrument of creation. No chopsticks here.
MATT- Well, I’m a writer so I use a keyboard. I wish I wrote with a brush though.
For those not “in the know,” what exactly is an ashcan?
PAT- Essentially a preview edition of a book used for pitch purposes or promotion. Originally
they were mock-ups of the book meant to get it into print immediately to secure copyright.
Which everyone should still do. Sometimes they’ll be fully realized issues, other times just a few
pages. The term is broad so matters like size are typically left to personal preference, but often
they’re smaller than American comics.
MATT- Ashcans are mini comics. Often rough or incomplete, they are used to show the
creator’s intent with a book. I believe in the 40’s and 50’s they were used to secure copyrights
& show proof of an idea. Over time, that evolved into being how creators pitched books to
editors and publishers. That is really all we were trying to do at first, make books for editors to
look at.
I also like the name because the Ashcan school of painting was a group of turn of the century
painters who specialized in realistic and often brutal portrayals of life in New York City. Their
stuff is really amazing even today. So sometimes, when I feel extra full of hubris, I imagine
making comics that are as brutal and eye opening as their work was.
Anyway, as the brains of Ashcan Press, what was the impetus for not only trying to do comics
on your own terms, but to do it under your own imprint name? Even without being a “hired
gun” for say, Marvel Comics, there are still a lot of outlets for indie comics like Image Comics,
or exclusive web publishing. You guys seem to be trying something different.
PAT- We’re happy to work with publishers. For a lot of our projects a publishing partner would
be ideal. But we’re not content to wait on a business that moves very slow, nor are we sold on
the idea that a publisher is the validation we should be seeking. You see that sort of behavior in
music all the time. Band tries desperately to get on a label because it’s a sign of success in their
eyes, only to realize success is a nebulous idea.
MATT- First of all, Marvel, DC, or Image, if you are reading this we are available, we always hit
deadlines, and you are our favorite publisher. In all seriousness we didn’t really mean to be our
own publisher. If I had thought that that would happen I probably never would have started
this. We mainly just wanted a brand name so publishers would recognize our submissions. It
sort of worked but didn’t really get us anything. I think we are still really early on in this and
what Ashcan Press is or becomes is something we are still trying to figure out. But both Patrick
and I come from independent music backgrounds. Doing things ourselves isn’t just not
intimidating, it’s sort of liberating. I think while we try to find our legs we are down to try any
and every means of getting our comics out there.
Ashcan covers a pretty wide variety of non-superheroic comic stories. Was that a conscious
decision to step away from traditional comic book storytelling and cover as many genres as
possible, or just how your desire to make comics came out?
PAT- Probably a bit of both. We love superhero comics and I look forward to writing Hulk one
day. But there’s plenty of time for that later. Right now we’re enjoying the one thing that
working in indie comics affords you: an audience open to the other stuff.
MATT- We definitely did make a conscious decision to try as many genres and ideas as possible
when we started. Storytelling is storytelling but Patrick and I challenged each other to work in
(or out of) a lot of different styles for a reason. We wanted to learn the specifics and tropes of
different genres, even if just to avoid them in the future. I actually found that I had the hardest
time with comedy and horror so, of course, that is what I am working the hardest to try and do
next. But I’m not anti-superhero story. Many of my favorite comics are superhero books.
We definitely have played around with some superhero ideas but at the end of the day it is a
tricky path to walk. Most people who want to read superhero books will read them from
Marvel or DC. There are some great non “big 2” superhero books right now- Invincible, Astro
City, Irredeemable- but it’s an uphill battle to find readers. The superhero genre tends to
produce a lot of readers who aren’t fans of the creators but rather fans of the characters, so
those readers aren’t available to us. Couple that with certain stigmas that some readers place
on the idea of superhero books and it just didn’t seem like a great idea. But at the end of the
day who doesn’t like reading about people punching people? I am sure we will return to
superheroes at some point.
Has making comics as a process changed at all since your first try? What’s the learning curve
been like?
PAT- Oh hell yeah. That’s the part that I’ve found most fun. The pitfalls happen so early and
often that you’re forced to learn quickly. My mother learned to swim when my grandfather
threw her out of a boat. That’s the first year of doing comics. So much panic swimming. But
once you’re able to do a fairly competent breaststroke, you can look back on that feeling of
drowning and be proud you don’t feel it (as acutely) now.
MATT- My first try was a story I wrote and drew about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
fighting the X-Men and the Ghostbusters that I wrote when I was 6. Not much has changed.
Since we started Ashcan Press though I think it has been a pretty insane learning curve. Some of
that is just in terms of printing, marketing, and sales, but I also learn something new about
creating comics almost every day. We both know more of “the rules” of comics now, which is
helpful for knowing which ones to ignore. But really we both want to learn as much as we can.
Patrick just spent a few weeks beginning to learn how to letter and I am looking into learning
how to color or flat, just so we understand those processes better. The thing I like about doing
this is that everything we learn that seems “outside” what we want to be doing is actually
making us better at what we want to be doing. Understanding any element of comics, whether
it be coloring, lettering, marketing, retail, editing, or web publishing, makes you better at every
element of comics. I am a better writer for studying how coloring and lettering works, no
question.
We’re in the same generational bracket, age- and comics-wise. Do you think that for us,
making comics has been easier than ever? The web, comic-creating schools and tutorials,
interconnectivity with established pros that are actually interested in giving advice, all of that
seems miles ahead of what was available to previous generations of cartoonists.
PAT- Certainly. I learned to letter from a Scott McCloud tutorial I found on YouTube and
scouring the sites of letterers I respect. That would have been a trial-and-error task consuming
months of time if I hadn’t had those resources available to me. With all things, when there’s no
money left in them, they tend to go egalitarian.
MATT- I think it is certainly easier to make your comics and get them out to people. But with
that comes the problem of trying to get noticed in a crowded field. I think it is the same as
almost any other medium. Does digital distribution or cheap recording equipment really change
what people consume? In rare instances yes, but mostly people still listen to the music that is
marketed to them, watch the movies that are marketed to them, and they still read the comics
that get pushed on them.
With that said, I think the accessibility of professionals is really a game changer. You used to be
able to go to a con and get a little face time with a professional if you were lucky, but really it
was not something people could do easily or often. Now you really have no excuse for not
reaching out to people and finding out what you need to know. If anyone has any questions for
us I am always happy to answer.
What drew you to making “traditional” comic books versus webcomics, ‘zine-style
minicomics, or even a strip for syndication?
PAT- It came naturally because that’s what we consume the most. But we’re interested and
open to other formats as well. We’ve bounced around ideas for strips, but our tastes seem to
limit our options there. There’s one we’ve worked on that I think could have a life in the
alternative weekly world. It’s not necessarily the way my mind works. Strips require some sort
of punch every few panels. Maybe not a gag, but something to end on. That’s a craft onto itself
and I’m not quite there yet. Webcomics typically don’t interest me, but that has more to do
with the format than the content. In the next few months we’re going to experiment with
different webcomics models and see if we enjoy the experience at all.
MATT- In some ways it’s just a question of where I envisioned myself and who I felt like I
wanted my contemporaries to be. The idea a syndicated strip is really alien to me. I love some
comic strips, but it was never something that I felt called to me in any way. It is just a different
beast. The same with mini-comics, they tend to work in a language and a style that is different
than what comes naturally to us. Also, since neither Patrick nor I can draw we need to hire
artists and that isn’t really conducive to mini-comic work.
Webcomics are different. I am pretty traditional in this I guess. I like comic shops, I like the
smell of printed paper, and I like holding someone’s work in my hands. I recognize the
convenience of a digital book. I recognize it’s the future in a lot of ways. I know it’s easier, I just
don’t know why I need comics to be easier.
-
October 18, 2011
Liz Prince
Liz Prince is, despite popular opinion, not actually a cartoonist. Rather, she’s a pop-punk cat
ninja, a martial artist with the cat food and the pencil…which is basically code for “I can’t think
of a cool introduction.” Liz’s comics are very awesome, and she is also awesome. She took some
time out of her schedule of cartooning and listening to records to talk to me a little bit.
First cartooning attempt ever?
My mom has my first comic framed at her house: it's from when I was maybe 2 years old, and
it's just the same weird potato character wobbling around on the page 20 times. I was a genius
even then. Actually, I probably peaked with that, and everything else has been a downward
spiral.
I was under the impression that everyone draws when they're a child, but apparently that
wasn't a huge part of a lot of people's childhoods, which leads me to believe that there are a lot
of sad, bored kids out there. I drew nonstop since I could hold a crayon. My greatest
masterpieces were a storybook about the Ghostbusters and fantasy drawings of me holding
hands with Luke Skywalker.
What drew you to this aspect of illustration instead of say, flyers, graphic design, or
animation?
Funny story: I actually wanted to be an animator when I was in 3rd grade. I used to make tons
of flip books in which nothing ever really happened, but it took hundreds of drawings to do that
nothing, and so out of laziness I decided that comics were an easier form of animation and I
never looked back. But honestly, comics have always just come really naturally to me, there
was never really a learning curve, I just did it and I guess it turned out alright because people
besides my mom read them now. I do like working on album covers and shirt designs for
bands, too. I would try to get into editorial illustration, but I'm terrified of being art directed.
Sorry, that actually wasn't a funny story at all.
Most of your cartooning output has been what could be defined as “diary comics.” I don’t
know about your experience with them (not counting your own), but to me, something that
diary comics seem to have lacked for the most part is the ability to laugh and find humor in
the real-life situations they portray. Is that something you agree with? Is it why you seem to
always try and infuse your cartooning with some level of humor?
I assume that you're defining "diary comics" as being a sub-genre of autobio comics, like, that
they are shorter, and about a specific event, instead of a longer narrative? I actually really like
autobio comics of all flavors: funny, depressing, furry. I don't know if I would agree that I find
them to be mostly lacking humor, but I also don't actively seek out new comics to read,
especially online, so I probably only look at things that get presented to me as something I
would like, which usually tends to be in the same vein as my sense of humor anyway.
That being said, not all of my comics are expressly supposed to be funny, but as most people
who know me in real life know, I can't take anything too seriously (it's a blessing and a curse),
and so I end up poking fun at myself to hide the fact that I just want to crawl into a hole a die.
As someone who is in the webcomic world, but also had comics published as physical books,
do you make specific strips and pages for each outlet? Or do all comics get done without
knowing whether or not they’ll be in print or on the web?
All of my comics are intended for print, but I post them online for that sense of instant
gratification that can only come from getting comments that say "LOL" on Facebook. My ego is
a sick & twisted place. A good example of this is the “Alone Forever” comic that I sell on my
website: all of those comics are still online, but hopefully the reader will want to own them as a
book and give me a little cash for all the hard labor I do, drawing these comics for everyone to
laugh at how pathetic I am. I also draw comics exclusively for print, because I just believe that,
especially longer narratives, should be read in book format.
I hate reading long comics online; having to push the button to go to the next page takes me
out of it. The series “I Swallowed the Key to My Heart” is exclusively for print, and you should
check it out if you haven't read it: it's a departure from my gag strips, in that I'm trying my hand
at telling a longer autobio story. Less funny haha, more funny like "I told you so". (Translation:
go buy my books so I can feed my cats and self.)
Somewhat related to that, do you think that there should be a distinction like that by
cartoonists? A lot of times you can see creative teams and cartoonists creating comics for the
web, but not “for the web.” I’ve seen it described as basically making a comic book and just
publishing it one page at a time online.
I don't know if a distinction is really valid anymore, since the internet is all-encompassing and
we hardly exist as humans without it. I like the idea that publishers like First:Second are
allowing entire graphic novels to be published online for free, it speaks to the importance of
having an audience for your work, above strictly making money off of it, which is the philosophy
behind posting my comics on the internet. I'd rather have someone read it, and give me money
for it if they like it, than just have them not read it at all.
Do you feel like you’ve found your niche as a cartoonist, style- and project-wise? Or do you
want to do more major projects that are radically different from what you’re doing now, try
new things style-wise?
I would say that I'm pretty locked into being this pop-punk autobio comic artist at this point. Of
course, I have grander projects in mind, and I wouldn't mind trying my hand at illustrating
someone else's script at some point, but my main output will always be comics about my own
experiences.
Music plays a huge part of your comics, I’ve noticed. Is it as big a part of your life as comics,
which is why you have it so prominently in your strips? Or is it a more conscious thing, trying
to work music in almost on purpose? By the way, I’ve totally seen The Ergs too, they were
amazing live. The ceiling was only 3 feet above my head in this basement venue and everyone
was everywhere, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
I've never been one to try to force something into my comics, so yeah, the music thing is a big
part of my life. I would say I spend more time listening to shitty punk bands than I do reading
comics, but the flip side of that coin is that I can listen to music while I draw my own comics: I
can't read and draw at the same time. I would also like to get into doing artwork for said shitty
punk bands, so I feel like drawing comics about music bridges that gap. And HI, IF YOU ARE
BAND THAT WANTS ME TO DO ART FOR YOU, GET IN TOUCH WITH ME, THANKS.
OK, shallowest question ever time…what’s inspiring you recently?
The same stuff that always inspires me: cats, coffee, pop punk, and boys. Shallow question for
a shallow girl!
-
October 7, 2011
Daryl Cagle
If you read editorial cartoons anywhere in the US, and in particular follow MSN, then you might
now Daryl Cagle by name. Even if you don't, his strikingly on-point editorial comics have more
than likely crossed your radar. They should have, anyway. Despite being a very busy guy, he was
super-nice about giving me some time to chat about what it takes to be a comic-er these days.
Did you initially go into comics and cartooning with the intention of being a political and
editorial cartoonist?
No.
So is there a secret drawer in your office somewhere, locked up with those early submissions
for a Flash or Fantastic Four cartoon?
I worked most of my career as a cartoon illustrator, including about 15 years working with the
Muppets. I have lots of drawers stuffed with Muppet art. And I collected comic book when I
was little, including Fantastic Four and the Flash.
Is it a day-by-day writing and drawing process? Or do you go into set times like weeks or
months with specific ideas in mind about topics to cover?
I need to draw about the topics that they are talking about on the cable news channels.
Although I'm free to draw about any topic, editors are putting together Op-Ed pages on the
topics that are hot in the public debate, so if I deviate from the hot topics of the day my
cartoons won't get reprinted much. To be heard, I have to argue about the same things
everyone else is arguing about.
Part of your website is dedicated to highlighting editorial comics from other cartoonists, not
just American cartoonists but also from all over the world. How important is that to you and
your own "cartooning mission," so to speak?
Aside from my own cartoons, that is what my little syndicate does. We distribute the work of
over 50 cartoonists to around 850 subscribing newspapers around the world.

You can see our newspaper site at http://caglecartoons.com and our online store
at http://politicalcartoons.com.

My blog with msnbc.com is at http://cartoonblog.msnbc.com, where you can see
our msnbc.com slideshows when they come up.

We put the slideshows, featuring the cartoonists we represent, into relevant articles
on msnbc.com. The http://cagle.com site includes many more cartoonists than just the
ones we represent.
Yes, aggregating cartoons is what makes it work, these days.
Editorial cartoons are designed to be a graphic point of interest on a gray editorial page full of
text, but on the web, with no gray page of text to interrupt, editorial cartoons perform better
when grouped together by topic.
That's how we designed cagle.com and
the msnbc.com slideshows. We found that by grouping cartoonists together the group
performs better than the individual, both in syndication and on the web.
You're a big proponent of cartoonists expanding their reach through the Internet. Do you feel
that in this day and age being web-savvy and willing to look for those sorts of new outlets is
that critical for a cartoonist these days?
Editorial cartoonists are in the same boat as writers, - newspaper jobs for editorial cartoonists
are cut in just about the same proportion as for other journalists. Writers are becoming
freelancers and bloggers, who have to have various clients and sources of income, and who
need to be self-promoters - all the same with cartoonists.
Do you think that the web tools available are enough? Or are things like art blogs, Twitter,
building and comic apps just the beginning of what we can look forward to in the future for
current and new cartoonists to use to get their stuff out there?
Cartoonists look for ways to distribute their cartoons, thinking of their cartoons as a product to
distribute - really they should be looking at their cartoons as a means to promote themselves,
thinking of themselves as the product. We do lots of different things; we have dozens of phone
apps, for example (http://cagle.com/app). The print, apps, web sites, embedded slideshows on
other sites, blogs, all add up to a presence that raises the profile for my own cartoons and the
work of the other cartoonists we represent - rather than looking at it as different methods of
distribution, we look at it in terms of raising profile.
There's definitely a dark side to those sorts of tools. You've got some experience with dealing
with the ins and outs of being an independent artist trying really hard to get their work out
there, in your case with your iTunes comic app. Do you think that your case, which garnered
quite a bit of attention from the art and comics press, is an example of something other
artists and cartoonists need to watch out for?
I had a business plan for phone apps. We've noticed from our sites that the cartoons that draw
the most audience are cartoons about celebrities suffering; something that should be obvious
with the popularity of celebrity gossip magazines at the checkout counter in supermarkets and
the celebrity obsessions of TV news. We thought we would come out with themed apps, based
on the celebrities in the news and started that off with a Tiger Woods app, which was not
accepted by Apple.
Unfortunately, Apple's policy of not wanting to make fun of celebrities in apps was the death of
our phone app business plan. Other topics don't compare in popularity to cartoon celebrity
schadenfreude. Considering Apple's dominance in phone apps, their policy raises some
interesting issues regarding monopoly power and free speech.
That said, Apple reluctantly approves our general cartoon apps that don't focus on individuals.
Despite being tech-savvy when it comes to promotion and blowing up Twitter feeds, are you
more old-fashioned when it comes to the meat and potatoes of comics? Do you still have
your pens and brushes, or has your workspace been invaded by a Wacom or some other kind
of art tablet?
I guess editorial cartoons are old fashioned as they are still drawn for a print audience, and our
income, as with most cartoonists, comes mostly from print clients. I advise editorial cartoonists
to avoid animation. We've tried selling editorial cartoon animation and can't find clients on the
web who want to pay for it. Fortunately, editorial cartoons perform well on the web in topical
groupings and have a loyal audience of fans, and of casual readers who are interested in
particular topics. Readers continue to like the traditional editorial cartoon format.
Our cartoons perform very well on msnbc.com in terms of the number of minutes readers
spent in an article that includes a cartoon slideshow, which is the metric that
interests msnbc.com right now.
In terms of art tools, I still draw on paper. I like having original art and my drawings don't look
as good when I draw on a tablet. I have a Wacom tablet that I use for coloring, and I find that I
haven't painted in years, which is something I miss.
-
October 7, 2011
Liz Suburbia
Liz Suburbia is not her real name. However, since she’s also a reserve member of the X-Men
AND the Justice League, it’s the only name I’m allowed to use. A devout worshipper of the altar
of punk rock as well as of the art of comics, she’s one of my favorite indie cartoonists. "Sacred
Heart," which you can find at her site, is an amazing longform webcomic. She deigned to allow
me a few minutes of her time to chat hardcore punk, ‘zines, dogs, and particle physics.
Oh man, as I write this I just realized you’re like a character straight out of a “The Big Bang
Theory” clone, someone WORKING in a comic book shop who also MAKES comics! How
wacky and zany is that! Cue the canned laughter!
Is this interview filmed before a live studio audience? It's pretty wacky sometimes, but mostly
it's just better-than-average retail. I have to deal with the occasional shithead but I also get to
read as many comics as I want for free, so it's pretty sweet on the whole.
You’re big on making comic-oriented ‘zines as well as webcomics. Do you feel like there’s
more of a connection between ‘zine culture that sprung out of DIY punk and hardcore, and
the minicomics aspect of indie comics/”comix”?
I definitely think so! To me the idea of making your own culture instead of just buying or
consuming what someone you don't even know made (even though it's important not to get to
insular) is paramount to the whole endeavor. I don't think there should be a separation
between my comics life and my punk life, and more and more the people around me seem to
be feeling the same way.
One of the reasons I love your comics is because I remember you referencing one of my
favorite Samiam songs in your old comic “Hey Suburbia”. Do you ever feel like you might
maybe end up pigeonholing yourself as “the punk rock cartoonist”? Despite the connection
between indie music and indie comics, the two worlds aren’t 100% intertwined. I know I still
get occasional questions about liking “that macho noise shit” when I’ll admit to listening to
hardcore like Paint It Black, Ringworm, or Cancer Bats.
I don't worry at all about being pigeonholed into the punk thing. Like I said above, my comics
principles and my punk principles are the same, so I don't see how one could limit the other.
Anyone who decides to dislike my comics based on the particular bands referenced or whatever
is limiting THEMSELVES, so, you know. I'm just going to worry about my own shit and go from
there.
Speaking of PIB, one of the greatest hardcore bands of all time, favorite record by them?
It's hard to choose, but probably CVA. "Womb Envy" is one of my favorite songs.
Is there something you think others might find weird about your “technique”? For example, I
was really surprised to find out how little actual inking Rick Kirkman does in “Baby Blues,”
with most of the comic being done with hard graphite pencils for his daily strips. That just
strikes me as a bit groundbreaking in terms of bucking how we always think comics are made
(pencils with ink over them).
Ehhh, probably not. There are artists trying all kinds of crazy beautiful collages and mixedmedia stuff, which is awesome, but I've never really been very experimental as far as medium
goes so I just use plain old paper and pens. The quality of those particular material fluctuatessometimes I use bristol board and nibs, sometimes just Sharpies and computer paper- but it's
pretty basic.
Is there any particular art style or technique you originally never thought you’d appreciate,
but have found yourself over time gravitating towards it?\
Not yet… I'm still relatively early in my career though, give me time. Never say never, right?
As a fellow dog parent, what’s your opinion on that whole “don’t play tug of war, it
encourages aggression” stance?
Well, when we play tug-o-war there's lots of "give… OKAY TAKE IT" going on, and I think that's
good for them. I don't think I'm teaching them to be aggressive if I make sure that they're
always ready to drop it and be good when I say so, but I'm not a trainer so take what works for
us with a grain of salt.
How much does your husband get that “glazed over” look on his face when you start going off
on comic nerddom at home?
Not at all, he likes comics too! Not liking comics is a deal-breaker, are you kidding?
And finally, what’s your opinion of “Closing Time” by Semisonic…great song or the greatest
song ever?
…eugh. No comment.
-
September 13, 2011
Jeff Owens
Jeff Owens broke into my house once and took all my food. Then he screamed “DIO!” in my
face for about an hour before he left…OK, that’s a lie. He is a pretty rad dude and cartoonist
though, so he and I managed to hash out our differences on the whole “Old vs New Darren on
‘Bewitched’” debate and talk.
What draws you to doing single-panel comics? Depending on who you talk to, they’re a pretty
different monster from regular comics or even two-to-four panel cartoon strips.
To be honest, simplicity and time are the reasons I do single-panel comics. When you're doing it
every day and you don't really consider yourself to be much of an artist, one panel is more than
enough!
OK, shallow question time; what inspired you to put your comics online? Was there any one
particular comic influence? Did you even read a lot of comics or strip cartoons when you were
a wee lad?
Hey, that's three questions! What inspired me to put my comics online was actually just the fact
that I could! I figured that, since I was doing the thing at all, and since I owned a scanner, I may
as well do it online. If there was one particular daily webcomic that really influenced this
decision, it had to be Married To The Sea (which everyone should check out if they haven't,
because it is incredible).
When I was really, really young, I didn't read too many comics, but when I was 11 or 12, Image
comics came on the scene and, like every other impressionable child at that time, I was sucked
right in. I got out of comics for a while, not really getting back into them until I was in my early
twenties.
You’ve mentioned in your comics that you’re in a couple of bands as well as making comics.
Any thoughts on comics in indie music? It’s an interesting subgenre of the genre as a whole.
I'm not quite sure I get the question here, but I'm going for it! I'm pretty much a homebody, so I
feel pretty out of touch with what the indie kids are into these days. I know a few people that
like comics and a lot of people that like good music. Most of the people I know into comics are
into pretty good music. That was probably a terrible answer.
Compared to when you first started making comics, do you feel like you’ve learned anything
about writing, framing, and art? Did you experiment at all with layout or different tools?
The main thing I've learned since I started is that this is a lot of fucking work! To the guys who
do this stuff for a living, kudos! It's not easy, at all. When I started doing Screw Jeff Owens, I
would write about everything I did that day. When I got to the third year, I made a deal with
myself that I would only do each panel about one event in the day, so that there would be a
little more focus. One thing I've learned about art is that photo references make everything
easier when you are, like me, not a professional. As far as writing, I tend to just go for it where
SJO is concerned.
I do four panels per page in my sketch pads and, when I started, I was using a ruler and very
precise measurements to get all of the panels just right. I don't remember quite when it was
that I got sick of this method, but I eventually took an x-acto to a piece of bristol board and
made a 4-panel template so that I can just trace the outline in pencil every four days. I
frequently will sit down one night and lay out the borders for a whole sketchbook (which is
about three months) just so I don't have to deal with it every four days. It's a pain in the ass!
(I'm really not making this sound like much fun, am I?) As far as what I draw with, I'll use any old
no. 2 pencil I have lying around. I draw all of the borders with a Copic Sketch marker (which I've
learned to buy refill ink for) and I use Copic and Micron pens of varying points to ink everything.
I use the brush point of my Copic Sketch for a lot of things, as well. I use only that (no pencils)
when I'm feeling particularly lazy. I recently got a Bamboo tablet that I use in Photoshop for
various things, but I've only used it on SJO twice and it was to color panels for fun. Once I scan
in my panel, it goes straight to the web from there!
I know that sometimes, you’ll purposely do a comic as a stick figure versus a more abstract or
more detailed comic from the day before, and that sometimes it’s all exposition writing
versus any sort of in-panel word balloon.
Haha. Yeah! Sometimes there's a valid reason for that. Just the other day I did a panel relating
to Kingdom Of Loathing, which is a pretty fun online game and a lot of the drawings they use in
it are stick figures! I also recall doing a "stick figure week", which was a huge break and a ton of
fun. I think I actually managed to do some good pieces in that week, too! It gave me more time
to be concerned with being entertaining instead of drawing well.
Good God, you’re a workhorse. How important is it to you to keep posting a comic every day?
A big part of the debate between webcomics and say, traditional newspaper comic strips is
that you rarely see webcomics that update every single day of the week, whereas someone
like Charles Schulz drew comics every day to appear every single day.
Let me say first that Charles Schulz was a genius! I don't know how that guy did it! As far as how
important it is for me to draw a comic every day, I would say very important. I haven't gone a
day without drawing a panel yet, and if/when I do, it will probably be the day I quit doing this
altogether. That being said, I'm not as concerned with actually posting a comic every day. It's a
challenge to draw some nights after I've had a long day. Especially when I'm on the road for one
reason or another, it becomes really difficult to do that extra thing when I'm already drawing
before bed. I've been trying a lot harder to post every day though, lately. When I'm not at home
with my scanner, I'll usually just take a photo of the panel and email it to the site to post it. It's
definitely important to me to post every day, but once in a while, things get a little crazy and
after drawing my panel, I just want to go to bed and not worry about getting it on the internet
right away.
Shallow question #2 time; am I the only one who thinks that From Ashes Rise were a good
band?
I'm sure you're not! They got back together recently, I think? I like Tragedy, and they're fairly
similar, but to be honest (with a hard "h", as pronounced by Zatch Gatzbafanasby) I haven't
spent a lot of time listening to FAR. But I'm quite certain you are not alone!
-
September 12, 2011
Evan Dorkin
Evan Dorkin is the Devil, and his weapons are Milk and Cheese. He’s a little bit like the comic
book Hunter S. Thompson, a brutal critic while at the same time, still retaining his love of the
medium. I’m incredibly stoked that he was able to spare a little bit of time to talk to me and not
hold it against me that I'm from Flushing.
You’re known both as a cartoonist as well as just a writer, having written for a few different
mediums. A lot of cartoonists/writers have ended up transitioning into writing as well, like Ed
Brubaker, Jeff Lemire, and Jerry Scott. Do you find that it’s difficult to transition back and
forth from one to the other, or is it simply a switch you can flip, mentally?
It's not something that usually causes any problems, and there's no real mental switch I need to
throw, basically, the project calls the approach. When one project is done, you just gear up for
the next. Usually you've already geared up for it, because it's been on your mind while working
on other things. The only difficulty I have when I'm starting on something new is actually
starting. Making the initial decisions that set the project on it's path gives me the creeping
sweats.
If it came down to it, which do you prefer? Just writing, or writing and drawing/drawing
others’ stuff?
I generally prefer making my own comics, but that's become more and more difficult for me to
do these days due the changes in the industry over the past decade or so. That being said, I
really do like writing for others, I love what Jill and I have put together with Beasts of Burden
and I had a great time writing an issue of The Goon for Eric Powell. I have a number of projects
sitting in my files because I don't feel my art style is right for them, they're not something I feel I
can successfully draw. I'm hoping I can get some of those ideas off the ground at some point
because I'd like to tell these stories before I'm out of time. As far as drawing other people's
scripts, it can be fun at times but it's not something I pursue. It's also not something I'm really
ever asked to do. If people contact me for a job it's usually to write something or to write and
draw it myself. I'm not the type of artists writers seek to work with, and I'm not in any demand
whatsoever to draw for any of the mainstream superhero companies. Or write for them, for
that matter.
Stephen Pastis, the creator of “Pearls Before Swine,” has said that he’s wary of artists in
general who are aware of their “masterpiece,” and that that’s something for others to decide
on. From what I understand (he was on a podcast talking about Quentin Tarentino) it was
about cartoonists deciding on their favorite strips and what comics of theirs they think are
funny versus fan reaction. Do you think that your own favorites are different from what
others consider your “best” work?
I've never considered anything I do to be any sort of "masterpiece", so I think I'm safe in that
regard. Beyond that, sure, there's always going to be some kind of disconnect between your
own opinions and that of the audiences regarding the work. That's life. Something I might really
be fond of might go over like a lead balloon, something I knocked out for a lark might be
thought of as a signature piece by the readers. You can't let that bother you. It's always
interesting to see what connects and what doesn't.
Are tools something you experiment a lot with, or have you pretty much settled into a groove
when it comes to what works?
I use a pretty basic set of tools, pencils, erasers, Hunt 22 and Hunt 102 pen nibs, ink,
rapidographs, various brush markers, white ink, Pentel correction pens. These days I do a lot of
preliminary drawings in colored pencil, starting with blue, then firming things up in red. That
helps me loosen up and get a more expressive line and series of shapes in my drawing before I
screw it up with the full pencils and the inks. I do some colored pencil drawings here and there,
for my daughter or to screw around with during breaks when I'm stuck on a page. I have a set of
markers for commissions.
That's really the extent of it, I've always been pretty ignorant of the tools available and I never
had any real formal art training, so I've never branched out and explored too many options. I
just learned about Pitt pens and Copic markers in the last few years, it's kind of sad.
I also don't have time to experiment as much as I'd like because usually when I'm drawing it's
for a job. I don't draw much for fun anymore, I haven't for a while, I don't find it relaxing and
I'm usually so disappointed with the results I get disgusted and give up. I always hope to sit
down and practice the basics, anatomy, composition, but work gets in the way. It's a weird
situation, to not be a great draftsman but to be able to get enough work that I'm too busy to
practice getting better.
Fortunately, work is also practice, albeit you're practicing in print, which can be distressing,
even at my age. I also can't use a computer to work on pages, although my wife, Sarah, helps
me out there. She scans all my art and cleans the pages up, fixes things I didn't want to fix by
hand, tweaks the lettering, reverses lettering to make it read white on black (I used to do that
by hand with white ink and it was a nightmare), etc. Sarah also does the color work on our color
jobs, and sometimes does graphic work and adds fonts or whatnot. I can't do any of that stuff. I
only know how to work with the piece of paper in front of me, for the most part. I fill it up and
do everything I can by hand. If the power goes out I can still make my comics. We had a
blackout during Hurricane Irene and I inked Simpsons pages by candle light. I'm a dinosaur in
that regard, I guess.
What did you take your first cues, comic-making wise, from? Was there that “How To Draw
Comics The Marvel Way” book or one script of your favorite comic that you found and used
as a template for writing? Not to mention the rise of education programs and whole schools
dedicated to writing and drawing comics.
I grew up on Peanuts and newspaper strips, Tintin reprints in Children's Digest, Marvel Comics,
Mad Magazine (and the reprints of the 50's comics) and animated cartoons on television. Those
things affected my early drawing style, and Marvel Comics and Mad Magazine would have been
the biggest influences on my early comic-making. Obviously they also influenced my writing,
but I didn't think of myself as any kind of writer until I was older. I always wrote comics so I'd
have something to draw. I never expected to ever write for a living, or for writing to be part of
my hoped-for comics career.
As far as taking classes went, I'm old enough that the only place I had an inkling of that taught
cartooning at the time was the School of the Visual Arts. And I don't know how extensive their
cartooning program would have been in the early 80's, I'm pretty sure they didn't have classes
strictly for making comics like they have now. I went to film school and while there took some
screenwriting classes and took an anatomy class and some animation drawing classes, and
that's all my formal training. I wish I studied more, because my basic chops have always been
about ten years behind where I think I should be, and my work has a lot of weaknesses that I'm
constantly struggling with.
The web’s arguably made comics “culture” if not more widespread, than definitely way more
interconnected. It’s easier not just for people to connect with their favorite creators but also
for other creators to network with each other (Twitter comes to mind). Any one aspect of
that you particularly enjoy?
I enjoy using my Livejournal account as a sort of substitute for the old comics letters page, I like
having a dialog with my readers and a place to talk about comics or show off new art or just
bullshit about things. Twitter is useful for keeping up with friends and getting a gist of what's
going on with other cartoonists, as well as for putting the word out to my readers about a new
comic or signing.
How about the other side of the coin? Anything about current comics culture (as a creator or
among creators) that you don’t particularly like or don’t see going anywhere?
I always try to remember that internet comic book culture is not necessarily representative of
the medium or industry or even fandom at large. If you take the bulk of the crazy internet
chatter as reality, you will blow a gasket. Ditto the incessant PR. The industry has adopted a lot
of business modes of the popular arts and entertainment fields without the actual money or
prestige or respect being there. Everyone acts like comics is a little Hollywood and you can
almost believe it from what you read on various PR-oriented comic websites. Read the comics,
ignore the hype.
Ska; Still sucks, or just plain sucks?
I'll always be a fan of original Jamaican ska, the Two-Tone era and a number of bands from the
so-called third wave. That being said, I don't listen to much ska these days, and I haven't kept
up with whatever came after the third wave and couldn't name a new ska band from the past
ten years, maybe longer, when zines still walked the Earth. Anyway, ska doesn't suck, and I've
found growing up that it's usually a bad bet to condemn an entire genre of music offhandedly
unless you're joking. Except maybe modern country. That shit's pure evil.
-
August 31, 2011
Chris Sparks
Chris Sparks is probably the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met. The brains behind the
fundraising project Team Cul De Sac, he took some time out of his busy schedule proofing,
editing, doing web design, and battling the enemies of freedom.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, like how you were a millionaire playboy industrialist injured
in the Middle East & had to build a suit of armor to escape your captors. Have you always
been a fan of comics & cartooning?
Oh nothing that exciting. I am from Asheville ,NC and I co-own Sparking Design. Since I was five
years old I have loved the art form. My Mom bought me a Carl Barks “Uncle $crooge” comic
and that was it. My earliest memories of newspapers strips are Peanuts, Shoe, B.C., Wizard of
Id, Family Circus, Beetle Bailey and Blondie.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, what exactly is Team Cul De Sac? How did you get
inspired to start it?
My friend, Richard Thompson, announced on July 16th, 2009 that he had Parkinson’s. As I
researched Parkinson’s, I read a book by Michael J. Fox that my wife gave me. About halfway
through the book, my plan started forming. This was a perfect opportunity for many different
artists to work together on a project for a good cause. I wanted newspaper cartoonists,
editorial cartoonists, book illustrators, web cartoonists, comic book artists, and anyone who
wanted to contribute to be part of this.
My idea was to publish a high-quality book of cartoon art about Parkinson's awareness in
Richard's honor with profits from the sales going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation. And the
original art would be auctioned to raise even more for research. I asked Richard for his blessing
and off I went. I set out to find a publisher and I’m thrilled that Andrews McMeel has not only
agreed to publish it, but has been incredibly supportive. I created Team Cul De Sac, a Team Fox
fundraising page and part of Michael J. Fox Foundation. I then put out the call for art from the
cartoonist community with the theme being Richard’s Cul de Sac characters. The response from
the cartooning community is awe-inspiring! Beyond my wildest dreams!
TCDS has built up some amazing momentum and garnered some really great contributors so
far. As the organizer, what has the response been like so far to you and the people putting
the book together?
Well, everyone loves Richard, his amazing art, and any cartoonist will tell you Cul de Sac is the
best strip in the papers. Who wouldn’t want to try their hand at drawing Cul de Sac? We are all
amazed and very happy about the turnout. I think we will have somewhere around 170 pieces
of art. I am delighted. All of the art will be auctioned and a select group will be in the book.
OK, the big question; What was it like when you found out that Bill Watterson was
contributing a piece? I was on a mini-vacation not paying attention to the Internet or emails,
so I didn’t find out until way after the rumors and teasers hit the Web.
Well, I joked with my editor, Caty Neis (who is so wonderful) when we started the book
discussions that the only people we could guarantee a spot in the book would be Bill and
Richard. I could hear her rolling her eyes at me over the phone. Bill had not shown any work to
the public in 16 years, so why would he now?
I knew he was a fan of Richard and loved Cul de Sac, so maybe, just maybe, he would. Months
passed, and one day around lunchtime, I got a call from Caty trying to get the words out. I was
in shock. I was elated: “Oh my gosh, this is going to be HUGE news!” I knew this would make
people take notice and want to know more about Team Cul de Sac. It did. From the bottom of
my heart, thank you Mr. Watterson.
Did you expect the huge level of contributions that you’ve gotten? Checking out the TCDS,
there are new posts every so often with a lot of amazing art from names everyone recognizes
from the papers & the webcomics circuit.
Why of course I did! Who wouldn’t want to draw the gang from Cul de Sac!? I am especially
glad we have such a diverse group of artists. There are so many cool concepts. I love it!
-
August 29, 2011
Stephen Garza
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Stephen Ray Garza. Chicopee, MA. Pencils and pens, but trying to learn digital.
First ever attempt at making comics?
I know I did some what could loosely be called “pages” with Spider-Man in them when I was in
middle school. Page layouts still elude me, but I keep trying anyway.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Naked dudes making out.
Look if you’re in your mid-20s , single and you have cute redheads ask you to make with the
yoai, you don’t always make the “right” decisions. Into my 30s those requests have tapered off.
But it was still fun to draw. Ladies like smut too, who am I to argue?
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
I loved all the military comedies with former Not Ready for Prime Time players. Yes, even
"1941." But "Stripes" was great, Harold Ramis gets so little respect in this and
"Ghostbusters." And being a man of a certain age, anything with P.J. Soles was a must watch.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
I try to learn new stuff, but don’t have much luck staying focused. When I’m around other
artist, I tend to want to learn more. There just isn’t anyone around here locally to jam with.
While most of my “Twitter” friends are artists, I feel awkward bouncing stuff off of them. I don’t
know them well enough and I don’t want to feel like a “bother” if that makes any sense. I’m
trying to learn Manga studio, but can’t get my head around it yet. I have also been looking at
older artbooks to learn some older comic striping techniques.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
Power Rangers. Ninjas with dinosaur robots, man! Only thing you get by being a Beetleborg is
that horrible Elvis rip off. That said if I had my druthers, I’d be an Ultraman type of guy.
-
August 26, 2011
Wes Molebash
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Wes Molebash. Chillicothe, OH. Machete.
First ever attempt at making comics?
When I was a kid I drew a comic called “Spike and Andy”. It was about an over-confident dog
named Spike and his geeky owner, Andy. Subsequently, I’ve used the name “Andy” in several of
my comic strips.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Never thought I’d try to make a graphic novel. When I was a kid I wanted to be an animator,
and in high school I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. There was a short spell in junior high
school when I wanted to draw comic books, but that didn’t last long. A few years ago I played
around with some GN ideas, but I never took them seriously. Now I’m waist-deep in my first
graphic novel project and I’m super excited to get it done!
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
I’ve seen most of Stripes, but I’ve never sat down and watched it from beginning to end. While
Bill Murray is one of my favorite all-time comedic actors, I can’t help but think that Harold
Ramis is probably the most unsung comedic hero of all times. Not only did he give us Stripes,
but he also gave us Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Multiplicity.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
A little of both, I guess. I stick with something I like until I’m convinced that a new method
might work better. When I first started YHT in 2004, I drew it with a graphite pencil and
technical pens. By the time the strip ended I was drawing it with non-repro blue pencils and
inking with a brush. It was a slow transition, but as I got more comfortable with the brush I
found myself using the tech pens less and less.
I recently bought a copy of Manga Studio EX to try my hand at inking digitally. I’ve only had time
to dabble in the program and I’m not confident enough with the tool to use it for my first
graphic novel. However, it is something that I want to learn to use proficiently because I think
it’s only a matter of time before drawing digitally becomes the standard.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
Power Rangers. Always the Power Rangers.
-
August 24, 2011
Kevin Church
Did you know there are comics out there other than Spider-Man or the Green Lantern?
Shocking, I know. Kevin Church writes a bunch of them, and he was nice enough to talk to me
about them.
For those of us who don’t know you, wanna give us a rundown of your nefarious history?
Born in 1974, died in 2658 after my robot lungs finally fell victim to the Europan genophage. In
between, I wrote comics for my own imprint, Agreeable Comics as well as BOOM! studios and
hopefully a few others in the near future.
Have you ever done any cartooning and art , or are you strictly a writer?
I draw like you gave a methed-up crab a pencil and said “Mona Lisa! Now.” So no, I’m strictly a
writer.
I know you’re a comics writer, but are an all-around fan of quality writing whatever the
media type. What is it about comics as a medium that you’re drawn to writing?
With comics, you control everything in a very meticulous way. You can draw out single
moments for pages or cover a millennium in a panel. (This isn’t something I do, really, but it’s
something I love about comics.) I also love the smaller-scale collaboration of working with just a
few people instead of stage or film where there’s a quantum leap in the number of
participants. Also, I get bored writing prose. BORED.
Comics have a history of being a traditionally short-form type of literature. Comic books are
single issues of 19 to 22 pages or so, and comic strips are 3 to 5 panels at the most. Arguably,
long-form storytelling in comics is a relatively newer thing. I bring this up because a lot of
your comic writing seems to skew heavily in favor of long-form storytelling. Do you
specifically prefer writing longer overarching stories in comic form, or has it just
subconsciously sort of happened that way?
If you think it’s happened, then I’ve not really noticed it? Yes, there are longer things I’ve done
(Cover Girl for BOOM! and She Died In Terrebonne) but I tend to fuss over the individual dose
more than think about longer arcs. Of course, as I write that, The Loneliest Astronauts is in its
big final story that’ll go on for at least another 10-15 installments and The Rack is doing a soap
opera thing and I’m beginning to put together a new long-form supercrime thing with an
established artist whose work is just astonishing.
Maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I do obsess over whether or not an individual
installment is compelling on its own. I get weary of seeing people just stick up pages of their
OGN every week without any though about how as an individual piece it’s going to help get
new readers interested.
Even though you write as opposed to draw, do you still feel like comics is a unique challenge
that requires a sense of visual storytelling in order to “just write?”
Oh, yeah. It’s basically writing a screenplay + directing it just a bit and then working with the
artists to get what you want if it’s not there on the first pass. I’m incredibly lucky to have that
not be a problem, either because I work with great artists or they’ve trained me to write with
them in mind. Probably both!
Is there anything at all you find particularly difficult about writing, out of every aspect of it?
Tracking time and setting, character names & backgrounds, stuff like that? I hate to go to the
film comparison, but in filmmaking, you have a whole job more or less dedicated to that
(script supervising). You’re not working with an editor as far as I know when it comes to
scripts, so it’s all on you.
I hate plotting longer form things. With most projects that are finite, I just know how they end
and I try to get to that point by any means necessary, winging it a bit, but I’ve found that I lose a
bit of an edge if I’m not being panicky and trying to connect the dots. I recently came across the
first plot synopsis of She Died In Terrebonne and it’s not nearly as engaging on any kind of
emotional level. This thing I’m working on now with the new artist (who I won’t name until
we’ve actually got something in the can) is more ambitious than anything I’ve done, so I’ve
worked out a lot of character beats and motivations in advance.
How far ahead do you plan when it comes to scripts? Does it vary from project to project?
I have a stickies program on my desktop where story notes get stuck that I can’t use right away,
so it varies wildly. Sometimes I’ll bring something up from a joke box buried in 2004.
An arguably amazing aspect of comics is that a lot of times, you can build them around simple
but appealing ideas. “What if zombies battled vampire sharks!”, “Wouldn’t it be wacky if a
robot worked in a record store?” or “What would happen if super-VILLAINS became superHEROES?” Have you ever had one of those moments? Or do you try to avoid that when
brainstorming comic ideas to focus on more thought-through stuff?
The next big project that I keep talking about sounds like it’s one of those things, but it just
came out of an extrapolation of me thinking “I want to do modern noir, but it’s been done to
death lately” and kind of sliding it away from there into pulpier and slightly more cerebral
areas. I think for me, a comic at its core is about the characters, even if it’s just a goofy sitcom
strip. You want to get people invested in characters and once they care about them, they’ll
follow you pretty much anywhere.
There’s also a romance thing in my future, simply because I want to try my hand at it and
there’s not enough webcomics that tackle it.
And finally, the shallow question. Writing hero? Doesn’t have to be in comics, just in
general.
He’s a fucking asshole, but David Mamet. Not just his dialogue style (which I try to avoid) but
the way he structures his stories and meticulously paces them out. I could never do what he
does, but he inspires me to do what I do.
-
August 22, 2011
Matt Czap
Matt is an animator and cartoonist best known for doing the webcomic "Eat That Toast." He
was very cool to allow me to pester him with a bunch of questions when I'm sure he had all
sorts of real work to do.
Ok so I initially know you as the more erotic half of the Bros Czap, as well as a fellow former
entry into the Washington Post's “Next Great American Cartoonist” contest. Anything else I
need to know?
Just that the Washington Post contest was complete horseshit, but I'm sure you've figured that
out. I've also posted animations on Newgrounds for the last 8 years under the pseudonym
"Mcbean", some people might know me from that.
Speaking of that contest, what’d you think of it? Interesting, I recently heard Rick Kirkman (of
“Baby Blues”) talk about how he doesn’t like contests like this, because art like comics aren’t
really a medium to be treated to the judging a contest entails.
Like I said, big pile of horseshit. Honestly, I'm not bitter about not winning (or even being shown
in the 100 example entries), but I was furious that the finalists were so horrendous with
exception to the cartoonist who won. I would mostly agree with Kirkman, judging art is
subjective. But I thought the contest was supposed to be more of a showcase for new talent.
Maybe my expectations were too high?
But they did call the contest the next GREAT cartoonist! I expected to see some GREAT
cartoonists. I'm sure they had great cartoonists enter, whoever did the initial curating did a
terrible job. It's frustrating for anyone who read newspaper comics as a kid and had dreams of
doing them. But thank goodness we have the internet now! The syndicates can continue
embracing mediocrity and dead artists.
Are you now, or have you ever in fact been, a member of the KISS army?
Not really into glam rock, but I guess you have to give Gene Simmons credit for being a good
businessman.
I know you also do some animation, for which digital skills are pretty essential these days.
Are you mostly digital with comics as well? Do you use comics as an analogue break from
digital art work? Or is it 50/50?
I'm all digital with the comics. It's just easier to plan, color, and organize them. I actually just
threw out my scanner because I realized I hadn't used it in years, in addition to it being mostly
incompatible now. All the comics are going online anyways, that's where the people are. I do
use old fashioned pen and paper for sketchbooks though. It feels good to just draw on paper
sometimes and have that solid object.
Do you have a preference for which medium you prefer, comics or animation?
Comics are easier to do. but animating is more rewarding. There's so much more you can
accomplish with animation, but it takes a lot more work to pull off. At times it can also be
incredibly stressful and tedious. For a while it would cause a lot of anxiety and then I would end
up doing nothing. That's why I started doing comics again, as a way of at least getting
SOMETHING done. Animations are also more fun to look at once you're finished with them.
Do you think that artistically and writing-wise, the two are similar?
They're somewhat similar. I try to employ methods I use in one into the other. They end up
being good practice for one another. Although in Flash sometimes it feels more like you're
constructing than drawing. You have to keep in mind all the moving parts and things have to be
able to break apart. Then there's the audio, which adds a whole new layer to the mess. Trying
to figure out the most efficient way to accomplish an animation can be like solving a puzzle, and
that's why it can be more fun.
I know you’ve been making webcomics for quite a bit, starting with a comic called “Paragon
Fishing,” which began in 2002. Have you seen comics online change much since then? Have
your own ideas about publishing webcomics changed at all?
It's changed immensely. Web hosting wasn't as cheap in 2002 so free hosting sites like
Keenspace were popular with people who wanted to do online comics but not worry about the
technical issues. If you ended up being popular enough, you could get hosted on Keenspot,
which was a community and portal for comics. A lot has changed and online communities like
that don't really work anymore.
Hosting is cheap and running your own site is simple. Plus we have RSS feeds and tumblr which
makes reading and sharing comics much easier. More artists now are actually finding this work
profitable, so we're living in a good time to make comics.
What's your opinion on just how delicious pumpkin is?
It's amazing, I love it. Really one of the best seasonal flavors.
-
August 16, 2011
Bearman
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Bearman, Cincinnati Ohio. Beartoons.com for cartoons WackSack.com for tshirts etc. One day
I will brand them together and dump the WackSack name but I am too lazy…er
busy. Everything I draw is done from beginning to end on a $150 Wacom tablet and Photoshop
Express.
First ever attempt at making comics?
Elementary School I can picture the guy my friends and I made up. He had a bowler hat and a
cigar and a mustache but for the life of me I can’t remember the stories about him or what his
name was.
Then about 6 years ago after not drawing much I asked a local political blogger if he would post
a cartoon if I did one. I posted to his site for several years off and on and then in 2008
branched out to my own site.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Spending so much time trying to get people to look at my stuff and then get engaged in the
conversation. I am not one who is driven by the need to make a million dollars from my art
(though I wouldn’t mind it).
Honestly I prefer the give and take in the comments. So sure, I get excited when my stats hit a
new record, but I get more excited when I start seeing new people come back a few times to
comment on my work […] I know I was only supposed to put one but the other thing I never
thought I would end up doing is updating posts 2x a week. I honestly started the project as an
outlet to share the tshirt designs I was making and drive traffic to there. Now I am so into the
cartooning thing that I haven’t designed a new tshirt in a year.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
Of course I have seen "Stripes". However I look at "Stripes" as two movies; Before graduation
and after. Before graduation I can’t get enough of. After….I might start flipping channels.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
For tools, all the time. Yet I still go back to what I know best. I bought Manga studio but never
could get the settings to where I was comfortable so I gave that up. I got an ipad thinking it
would revolutionize the way I drew and add portability. But it hasn’t gone beyond a sketching
tool when I am on the road. I do look at other artists and admire their techniques. Sometimes I
try to add bits of them to my own work. (ex. I started out in B/W, then went color, then added
shading).
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
I am too old for both of them. Can I pick the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? OK, they didn’t
really have any powers except martial arts and eating pizza, but that would be cool.
-
August 15, 2011
Adriana Blake
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
My name is Adriana Blake, I live near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I don't have just one
weapon of choice! Here's a few, though: colerase pencils, paper, ink pens, Tria markers,
desktop computer and Cintiq. :)
First ever attempt at making comics?
So far my current webcomic, “Fall on Me” (also available in Spanish as “Cuenta Conmigo”), is
my first attempt at making comics...so far it's stuck! :) I'm pretty happy about that.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
I'd have to say Womanthology! The whole project just took off incredibly quickly, and I was
among the lucky few who made it into the list of this first book coming up. I'm very excited
about it and the overall future of Womanthology after the first book is launched.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
Of couuuurse I have! Fun movie! :D It's up there in my "Awesome Movies" list.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
Not lately, to my shame. I keep wanting to get better at watercolour, and during a period of
time I made myself practice it a lot, which was cool. Still, I haven't done too much of that lately,
and I must remedy that. One medium I'd really like to try (but haven't been brave enough for
yet) is inking with brushes. Ink's always been a bit scary for me, but I've seen beautiful stuff
done with it. As far as my usual/favourite tools, I love colouring with markers...I'd like to think
I'm decent with them. :)
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
Go go Power Rangers! ;)
-
August 11, 2011
Craig Fischer
Craig has a lot of book-smarts and likes comics. He’s an all-around rad guy, especially for
indulging me in this little interview project. A scholar of note, Chris Schweizer told me about his
'zine project to tie into the fundraising project known as Team Cul De Sac, and lo & behold, here
we are.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m 48 years old, and a professor in the English Department of Appalachian State University in
Boone, North Carolina. My wife Kathy runs a cool non-profit art space/children’s museum here
in Boone; we have two great kids, Nate (14) and Mercer (10). I love comics, and I’ve been
reading them since I was four years old, though my tastes have decisively shifted from
superheroes to alt-comix in the last two decades.
How did your academic interest in comics start?
By accident. My first scholarly specialty is cinema, and to this day most of the classes I teach are
in film history and theory. But back in 2001, the Foreign Languages department at Appalachian
hired Ana Merino, a poet and comics scholar, and we became good friends. It was Ana who first
convinced me to give papers at conferences like ICAF (the International Comic Arts Forum) and
the University of Florida annual meeting. Ana teaches at the University of Iowa now, so I don’t
see her as much as I’d like to, but I owe her a lot for introducing me to the academic study of
comics.
When you first started teaching and publishing, did you envision that you’d be able to apply a
love for comics to that side of yourself?
Not at all—my “career” has been one fortuitous stumble after another. In 1985, about eight
months before I was set to graduate with a BA in English from the University of Buffalo, a
professor took me aside and asked if I’d thought about applying to graduate school. I distinctly
remember saying, “What’s graduate school?” And I was about to quit the PhD program at the
University of Illinois when I took a class on the films of Fellini and Antonioni, and realized that
film studies could be an academic option for me. And then Ana (and other friends, including my
frequent collaborator Charles Hatfield) came along and dragged me into comics scholarship.
I’m insanely lucky. My dad, who quit college to work a job on the docks, once asked me, “You
mean, you sit around all day and talk about movies and comics and get paid for it?” Uh, yeah.
Can’t complain too much about a job like that!
Do you find there to be a level of difficulty in applying academia to cartooning? Despite Scott
McCloud, The Comics Journal, and schools like the Center for Cartoon Studies, comics still
occupy a place in media and literature that’s more “pop” and less “serious canon.”
I’m not sure I agree. It seems like the cultural prestige of comics has increased exponentially in
the last ten years. Comics are now habitually reviewed in The New York Times Book Review,
and thirty years ago I never thought I’d see that.
It probably helps that I come from film studies, where historically there’s been a much less
strict notion of canonicity and the high/low division than in literary scholarship. It you write a
terrific article on “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), you can place it in a top-flight venue like
“Cinema Journal” without worrying about editorial prejudice against exploitation and horror
films. Ditto for work on comics: there’s several academic journals that specialize in comics, and
established lit-crit journals are eager to publish articles and sponsor special issues on comics.
(One example: the 40-year-old “Substance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism,” which
earlier this year published a special issue on “Graphic Narratives and Narrative Theory” that
included an article by Charles Hatfield and me.) Professors are crazy for cartoons!
You’re the brains and Henry Fonda-looks behind “Favorites: Critics, Artists, and Bloggers on
the Comics They Love,” which is a ‘zine tied into the Parkinson’s research fundraising effort
Team Cul De Sac. How did you end up with the idea for it? And what exactly made you think
of a ‘zine as a companion fundraising project for TCDS?
First, let’s correct a misconception: I don’t look like Henry Fonda. Think Buddy Hackett instead
(sigh).
The idea for the “Favorites” zine came directly from Chris Sparks’ work on a benefit book for
Team Cul de Sac. For those who don’t know, Chris is in the midst of assembling an art book that
features various cartoonists’ takes on the “Cul de Sac” characters, most famously an oil painting
of Peter Otterloop done by a briefly-emerged-from-retirement Bill Watterson. All the proceeds
from Chris’ project will go towards Parkinson’s research.
I wanted to participate too, but I had one limitation: I can’t draw. But I can write, and as I
started musing about how my writing ability might help the cause, I came up with the zine idea,
and began to contact the 30+ contributors to “Favorites.”
What was it like putting the “Favorites” together? Were you a big zinester back in the day?
I’ve never been any sort of a “zinester,” now or even back in the golden days of “Factsheet
Five.” In the mid-‘80s, my friend Tim Madigan and I put out two issues of a zine called “Work in
Progress,” and we corralled Harvey Pekar to write an essay (on Russian author Andrey Bely) for
the second issue, but we never promoted and disseminated WiP enough and it died quickly.
Putting “Favorites” together was a blast. One lovely side effect of asking everyone to submit
essays is that I became Internet friends with critics and bloggers whose writing I value but who I
hadn’t known personally. (That includes you, Costa!) I’m going to SPX this year for the first time
in half a decade, and I’m looking forward to shaking hands with my new pals in meatspace.
What’s the response been so far to the ‘zine? It debuted at HeroesCon this year but has since
become available to buy online.
We sold about $100 worth of zines at Heroes, but we’ve sold three times as much through
PayPal. I paid for the first Xeroxing of “Favorite”s—that was my personal contribution to Team
Cul de Sac—and we’ve made back the amount I spent and still have lots more copies to sell. (I’ll
be at SPX, ICAF and other locations this fall, peddling the zine.) Contributors and other online
folk have been generous in their promotion of “Favorites,” for which I’m very grateful.
Do you think there’s any possibility for a “Favorites” issue 2 to keep up with TCDS? Or was it
just a one-time thing?
My goal is to make $1000 for the Team on the first “Favorites” zine. As soon as we hit that
number, I’ll start to assemble “Favorites 2”--or maybe a zine where folks talk about their guilty
pleasures or complain about rotten comics instead. Several people not in “Favorites” (including
Brigid Alverson, Andrei Molotiu and Tim O’Shea) have already volunteered to write for the next
project.
So what are you working on nowadays besides teaching and the ‘zine?
This fall, I’ll be chairing a panel at SPX (“Stories of the Body,” with Robyn Chapman, Jennifer
Hayden, Gabby Schulz and Jen Vaughn), co-presenting a paper on “From Hell” with Charles
Hatfield at ICAF at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and giving a talk about comic books at the
University of Iowa. Charles and I continue to collaborate on a book on Eddie Campbell (hence
the “From Hell” presentation). And then there’s my online writing: frequent posts at my home
blog The Panelists, and a new monthly column at the “Comics Journal” website, titled
“Monsters Eat Critics” to reflect the column’s emphasis on genre comics rather than alt-comix.
-
August 10, 2011
James Alvarez
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
James Alvarez, and my home base is the bicycle shop where Arnold was almost molested. My
weapon of choice is Arnold from said episode.
First ever attempt at making comics?
Me and my other brother Nick were working on a comic awhile ago that was a more traditional
styled comic. It had the same humor but the artist always wanted lizard people to be in it so we
shut down shop. Later my other brother Aaron wanted to do this so we created the Gentlemen!
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Anything that was done by Nick (pre 6 Gentlemen). In the beginning I was more of a prude and
didn’t want to be too vulgar. Later I realized who cares if it’s vulgar as long as it’s fun to do.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
I have owned that movie on VHS and DVD. For some reason when Bill Murray gets punched in
the gut I feel depressed. Then when I see John Candy cheat in poker I feel reborn!
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
When writing I usually stay with the same format. I am inspired to write better and use my
artist’s abilities better from other web comics.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
My question to you is why are you not including the VR Troopers?
-
August 8, 2011
Darryl Ayo
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Darryl Ayo; Brooklyn, New York; Ticonderoga pencils.
First ever attempt at making comics?
I flipped through a comic The New Warriors #35 at a CVS when I was a kid and it just hit me that
I could invent my own superheroes. I had been reading comics for probably over a year at that
point. My mom gave me a pocket notepad and I wrote down ideas for my superhero team and
it got fairly extensive, I think. I didn't put together actual comics until months later, it's hard to
remember the scale of time from so long ago. This was like summer of 1993 when that New
Warriors comic came out. The basic attempts at actually drawing comics came a bit later.
The funny thing is that I still use some of those early concepts in comics that I am writing and
drawing today.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
I never thought I'd do digital-download comics, but that turned out to be my current project,
and probably a growing future concern. I am pretty interested in seeing how the North
American comics industry can adapt to the overall cultural changes in entertainment media and
how people in general are adapting to a more quick-release, digital-based lifestyle.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
I just joined Netflix, perhaps I will watch it soon. Hey did you ever hear the song by Cage (Chris
Palko) "Stripes" somewhat based on that movie? Because his dad's name was "Bill Murray." It's
really a scary/touching song in a lot of ways.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
I switch up tools occasionally. I have a few set ups that I toggle back and forth between
including my digital set up (laptop equipped with Manga Studio and a Wacom Tablet), my
drafting set up (drafting table, G-nib pens and Speedball Super Black ink) and my mobile set up
(any flat surface, Ticonderoga pencils and PITT Pens for inking).
The set up that I choose is entirely based on what I feel comfortable with at the time. Although
due to technical limitations, my projects become the exclusive domain of whichever set up I am
using.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
Go, go, Power Rangers!
-
August 5, 2011
Eric Hews
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Eric Hews. Richmond, Virginia [USA]. Sharpie and Sabre.
First ever attempt at making comics?
I drew my first comic in 3rd grade. It was a caricature of my teacher, Mrs. Brooks, who was a
real stickler for silence in her class. The comic had her riding a mule and whipping it. The poor
thing was braying like a well... mule... but she was saying “Shut Up!” in her speech-bubble.
Proud of myself, I passed the comic to my friend, Johnny Patterson. He laughed, we got caught,
and we were BOTH sent to the principal, where we were paddled soundly for our disrespect
[Oklahoma Public Schools had corporal punishment back then].
I didn’t I draw another comic until I was in my teens.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
I never thought I would do a comics about losing your foreskin, but I did.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
“Stripes” is the best thing ever. Right up there with Nutella, which is a food, not a movie. I still
want to give someone the ‘Aunt Jemima Treatment’, but no one seems to be game for this.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
I’ve tried it all: Brush, quill, chisel… you name it. I always come back to Sharpies. Sharpies are
my friends.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
I have to go with the BeetleBorgs on this one. Everyone knows the Power Rangers aren’t real.
-
August 3, 2011
Jeremy Billadeau
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Currently I'm the only employee of jb studios, located in Whitman, MA USA where I mostly use
Faber Castell PITT pens to ravage the evil forces of plain white paper everywhere.
First ever attempt at making comics?
I couldn't tell you, I'm sure it was before I developed any self awareness at the age of four. I've
always drawn and it was always more than most children drew and at a different intensity level.
I was 'discovered' in second grade by my teacher, who asked me to draw things on the quizzes
she would be giving my fellow classmates. Using carbon copy paper, it was the first time my
work was mass produced. I became a regular celebrity in my elementary school, and the best
part was I was exempted from taking the tests! How cool is that?!
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
I'd have to say all of it, who thinks they'll ever be drawing stuff for a living, or at least trying to.
In hind sight though, I see the inspiration for some of my current comic characters in older stuff
I used to create. It's very interesting to me. In that respect though, none of it surprises me.
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
Yes, of course I've seen "Stripes," with John Candy as well, one of my favorite comedic actors,
when I was younger. I haven't seen it in years and can barely remember the plot, but do
remember loving the irreverent humor in the story, it might be about time to track that movie
down on my DVR, thanks for the reminder!
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
When you're a child, you'll use anything to draw. A stick and some sand will suffice. But when I
got older and learned about art and the different techniques and tools used to accomplish
different effects, it fascinated me. I never had the money for proper equipment so I'd have to
improvise a great deal to accomplish desired effects. And I guess that's some of what compels
me to be very adventurous when it comes to experimenting with anything 'new', new to me
anyways.
It's a little different now that I have years of experience under my belt and know a little better
what works and what doesn't, so experiments become fewer or at least aren't entirely as
profound as they were when I was more naive. However, I love to challenge myself and find
new ways to do something, that it will always be a big component in my creative side.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
I'm not too familiar with the Beetleborgs, but could imagine them to be a bit like the
Transformers? And the Power Rangers remind me a bit of one of my favorite cartoons of all
time, Voltron!! You just can't beat the original, so I'd have to say Voltron, with Robotech a close
second, then Transformers and I even liked the Gobots from the 80s. I'm not sure where the
Power Rangers and Beetleborgs would fit in, but think the PR would be a little higher on the list,
but that's because I'm just more familiar with them. Although the TV show was fairly annoying,
so who knows.
-
July 31, 2011
Kevin Czapiewski
Name, base of operations, and weapon of choice.
Kevin Czap(iewski) [chappy-esky], Cleveland Ohio, love peace and understanding.
First ever attempt at making comics?
I think the first time I did something that could actually be construed as comics was a stickfigure strip I did in high school. It was called “Soooo?” and was pretty violent, usually. It ran in
my older brother's zine for a while.
Out of everything you’ve done, are currently working on, or have in the works, which is the
one you never thought you’d ever end up doing?
Probably the thing I am in the midst of working on now, which is partly a historical comic about
the construction of Washington DC. Typically I write for myself, so I feel like nothing's really
surprised me, but working with writers more recently has taken me into some uncharted
territory (for me).
Have you ever seen the classic 1981 American comedy film “Stripes” starring Bill Murray? If
you did, just how awesome do you think it is? If you haven’t seen it, what are you going to do
to remedy that?
I have seen Stripes. I remember it being pretty awesome, although it's not always one that
comes to mind when I think about how great Bill Murray is.
Do you ever consciously attempt to use new tools and try new techniques to try to expand
your skill set? Or do you more or less work to find your groove and favorite tools and stick
with it?
One of the things I stress about the most is being stuck with the traditional tools and
techniques that I use, so I've been forcing myself to get out of the habits. I've been interested in
collage and physicality in an image, things that more clearly exist in real life. On the other hand,
I'm also trying to get my cartooning to be more flat and graphic, loosen up more, use color
more purposefully, etc etc.
If you had to choose between the powers of the Power Rangers or Beetleborgs, which one
would you choose?
The Beetleborgs were just a ridiculous rip off of the Power Rangers! Is there a difference
between their powers at all? Even though I was older than the typical demographic at the time,
I got into Power Rangers pretty hard for a spell when they first made their big splash in the US.
So yeah, I have a strong bias in this case. Beetleborgs are terrible.
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