Life, the Universe, and Webcomics

Hi, everyone. Today I've got a couple of reflections on comics to share, and an announcement to make. I was reading through Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics the other day, the section where he talks about the universal relatability of a simplified human face rather than a detailed one. And I've been thinking a bit about relatability in comics in general.

Why do we like comics in the first place? I think it's because on some level, they reflect the realities of our own lives. Yes, they often contain robots and wizards and other unreal things too, but I don't think any of us would read about the adventures of Spider-Man or Dr. McNinja if we couldn't relate to how they deal with highly stressful situations through wit and humor. Nevermind that their stressful situations involve bizarre mutated supervillains and conflicts resulting in massive property damage! The humor-as-a-coping-mechanism schtick is something we can grab onto, and we do: because on some level, that's us.

Comics are about life. In comics, no matter the medium, you will find people working hard to make ends meet, people who hate their jobs, people who love their jobs, people messing up their interpersonal relationships, good friends, loves lost and won, conflict, challenges, and hope for the future. In comics, there are characters doing the exact same things you are doing--just doing them in space, or in a sparsely-populated void of absurdity, or with the disembodied heads of historical figures, or maybe just failing at doing them with hilarious results. Comics take real life and look at it through a funhouse mirror--but in doing so, they affirm the value of real life.

Comics have to be about something, you know? Something besides just comics. And on some level, comics are about you and me.

And recently, I've been reminded--in some ways through comics!--that I need to pay less attention to comics, and pay more attention to just living my life.

The holiday season is coming up. I'm gonna be visiting relatives, doing Christmas shopping, and getting a lot of things together. Also, I'll be pretty busy at my job--the business of liftgate and snowplow parts is highly seasonal, and things pick up this time of year. And then there's the webcomics stuff I'm already doing: I've been chosen as a judge for The Webcomic List's TWCL Awards 2009, and there's the work I do at the Multiplex Store. Couple that with the racquetball, running, and role-playing stuff that constitutes me having a life, and yeah, there's a lot going on.

So, TWIW is going on holiday hiatus until the new year. Of course, I'll still be reading comics and talking about comics, and I may even drop a post or two here--because, as you all know, I can't shut up about comics. But this holiday season, I want to pay attention to my whole life, not just the "comics" part.

I'll get back to posting regularly in this blog after New Years--sometime between the 1st of January and the 8th. As I said before, I may even drop a couple of posts between now and then too. If you want to stay up to speed on TWIW, there are a number of ways to keep yourself informed: via Twitter or TWIW's RSS feed. If you want, you can even shoot an email to DeathbyChiasmus -at- gmail -dot- com requesting a notification, and when I make the first post of the new year, I'll email you right back.

Today is my brother's birthday. Today he turns 25. I'm not sure what we're doing to celebrate, but I know it'll be fun.

I'll see you back here in 2010. Keep on reading good comics, and don't forget to live your life.

Interview: Tony Piro (Calamities of Nature), 2/2

Continued from the first half of the interview

JF: How do you view the relationship between art and writing in your comic? Do you think your approach to cartooning favors one or the other? Do you view one or the other as the "backbone" of a strip?

TP: I don't know. I find both to be a constant struggle. When I look back at my old stuff, I absolutely hate it on both levels. But I do see improvement over time. I guess that's what happens if you're in this game long enough. I would be interested in hearing what my readers have to say about this. As far as first impressions go, what attracted them to the strip initially, the art or the writing?

Ideally, I would hope that the art and writing work hand in hand in any given comic. Take either away, and the gag doesn't work the same. This seems like a reasonable goal, otherwise why choose comics as the medium of presentation? Nevertheless, many of my strips probably rely a little heavily of the dialogue to tell the gag. I'll have two characters discussing something as they walk through the forest. In a sense, they could be doing a lot of different things and still get the gag across. I have a visual medium at my disposal, I should sometimes try to "show" instead of "tell." I would say this a shortcoming of my strip right now. It's something I need to work on.

As for the "backbone" of the strip, I'm going go on a limb and say maybe color is the one constant that has been with Calamities since the beginning. When I changed formats I experimented with the idea of going black and white and updating 5 days a week. When I showed a few example strips to my friends they basically told me that my art wouldn't fly without color. I'd need to rethink my whole use of blacks. The use of color actually helps the reader process the information in the strip faster, so that the joke comes across clearer and is (hopefully) more funny.


JF: Your characters' personalities are pretty archetypal. What are the advantages and disadvantages of relying on character tropes? How do you put a fresh spin on them?

TP: If you look at comics in general, these character types show up all the time. Especially when you consider the classic group of three: the nice guy, the funny guy, and the angry guy. You see this everywhere, from Disney (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck) to Bone (Fone, Smiley, and Phoney). There's a reason why this works. If you have a limited cast of characters and you want to get a wide range of interactions, these are sort of the natural character types you want to cover your bases. In that sense, over time I've felt like my characters have morphed into these archetypes, even when I didn't initially intend this to happen. For example, when I first started both Aaron and Harold were kind of the "nice guys." But as I wrote more and more gags, I would often find myself not needing them both (that's why Harold didn't appear in a lot of the early strips). At the same time, I kept finding I needed a character who was a little more angry and cynical to make some jokes work. So Aaron evolved into this role. So in that the sense, these archetypes are around for a very clear reason--it allows a lot of flexibility when telling gags.

The main disadvantage of having these archetypes is that it can feel pretty stale if you don't add enough depth to the characters. This is something I need to work on. Trying to tell a gag and make some sort of point in the space constraints of a comic strip, I sometimes feel I have little room for character development. What would help is if each of my characters had more of a back story, like a job, specific interests, and so on. I did this by making Alp an inventor, but I need to do this for the other characters. One of my goals for 2009 is to try to naturally work some of this into the comic. Hopefully this will make the characters that much more engaging.


JF: I'm curious--is Aaron listening to his headphones pretty much 24/7? Does he wear those things to bed? What's he listening to all the time, anyway?

TP: Hmmm...see this is one of those logical things you don't ever think of when you're working on a strip, but when someone confronts you with the question you ask, "what *was* I thinking?"

The history of the headphones was that the very first strip I drew with Aaron and Ferd was when I was 10 years old. It was at the time of the Bay Bridge World Series, and Aaron and Ferd were fighting over who would win. Ferd was for the Giants (giving him the Giants hat he still has to this day), and Aaron the A's (thus the green shirt). To portray him as a sports nut, I added the headphones, which I kept ever since without too much rhyme or reason other than I liked the way they looked (and the red helped to further distinguish Aaron from the other characters and the background elements). I actually still have this original comic, but I'm saving sharing it with the world until the time is right.

So what does he listen to? NPR? I'm not sure. I suspect a lot of the time, the headphones aren't even on, but Aaron uses them as a device to selectively interact with the world on his own terms (as I suggested in the strip you linked to). I guess you'll just have to ask Aaron yourself.


JF: Heh--I suppose so. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we wrap this interview up--maybe a parting tip for aspiring cartoonists, or a webcomic or two that you'd particularly recommend?

TP: I think the most important message for cartoonists is to remember what a unique opportunity it is to speak directly to an audience with a singular, unedited voice. So many other forms of media require a team of people to create something. It's just not practical for one person to do it all alone. Comics (and webcomics in particular) allow an artist to basically be the writer, director, actors, publicist, and everything else, all at the same time. This is special chance to share real ideas and feelings with other people, and this shouldn't be taken lightly. I've heard complaints from people who have told me that my work is too derivative, that the punch lines too obvious, and so on. But I hope at the end of the day, my readers appreciate that I'm sincerely trying to share real things with them, and I urge other cartoonists to do the same.

Concerning webcomics I'd recommend, that's a tough question because there's quite a few I read regularly. But here are a couple that often just make me want to throw my hands in the air and give up: Bellen!, Circle Versus Square, We the Robots, Savage Chickens, Octopus Pie, Wondermark, and One Swoop Fell. Oops, sorry, I guess that's more than one or two!


JF: Thanks for your time, Tony. It's been a pleasure interviewing you.

TP: Hey, thanks for offering! Keep up the great work on this site.

Interview: Tony Piro (Calamities of Nature), 1/2

Calamities of Nature began its life as a web presence about a year and a half ago, but in a way it's been in the making for much longer than that. Before there was even an internet to put comics on, Tony Piro was drawing the adventures of his central cast of four. The talking-animal characters have grown with him over the years, and in their current incarnation, they alternately have bizarre escapades and deliver thoughtful social criticism--sometimes both at once. The comic is updated Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In a series of emails, Tony Piro and I had an extended conversation about the art and craft of his comic and the experience of sharing his creation on the web. What follows is the first part of that conversation; the second will be posted tomorrow.

JF: First off, you recently switched formats for Calamities of Nature, from long-form pages to shorter strips. How’s the change working out for you?

TP: I'm really enjoying it. Being able to communicate with my readers on a more regular basis has been invigorating. I did get a few complaints via e-mail and there were a couple of discouraging blog posts I've seen. But since the change, both my traffic levels and the interaction with my readers have increased so markedly that it's pretty clear it was the right thing to do.

When I first started the comic I had no idea that there was a webcomic community out there. I had recently found out about print-on-demand and Ka-Blam, and I wanted to do a comic book. This is what prompted the full-page format. In the meantime, I figured I would just post the comics online to see if I could get any feedback. My site was basically a static html page with a list of jpegs. Although Calamities of Nature has been up for well over a year, during the first 6 months I didn't even have my own url--I just posted on my work server. Around January 2008 I realized that I could share my work with more people by cultivating an online audience (than via print), and I started converting my site to be more reader friendly (if you're a history buff, you can see my first attempt at a reader friendly site here: http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/25.html).

Over time, I read more webcomics and I became aware of what I was enjoying (or not) about the various comics and their sites. Things like the importance of not scrolling to read the full comic, or of having a satisfying end to each update (some of the pages from my early story lines didn't even have a gag at the end). At the same time, I was getting increasingly frustrated with the format I had chosen. It was great when I had a longer joke to tell (like the Michael Jackson comic), but for every one of those, I'd have two or three comics that could basically fit as a newspaper strip. It just wasn't an efficient use of time to spend 3-4 nights working on a comic that would be read in 10 second.

By last summer I had reached the tipping point. I was tired of doing these huge pages, and I knew I could update more often with less time with the new format. Plus I had a huge backlog of material written, which I didn't have time to draw. So I made the change in September and haven't looked back. Now that I've worked up a little bit of a buffer, I'm excited to do a few larger Sunday-style comics when I have an appropriate gag.


JF: How have your ventures into webcartooning suprised you? What's been the most surprising thing about the whole experience?

TP: Webcartooning has surprised me on all sorts of different levels. Maybe the first thing that surprised (and intimidated) me was how much good stuff there is. I used to draw at home in my own little insular world, and never realized all the great artists that exist. I guess all these people going to art school must be doing something, huh? Friends and family tell you how great your work is, and you tend to believe them because you haven't been exposed to the broader selection of work out there. Once I started becoming more integrated into the webcomic community I was overwhelmed by the breadth of artistic styles and writing voices. There's also some crappy webcomics (like anything else), but a lot of it just makes me want to give up.

The other thing that has impressed me is the kindness of (most) everyone in the community. When I have a legitimate question about something (like the tools people are using, or ad service providers, or whatever) I've e-mailed all sorts of people, from the biggest to the smallest names. And almost everyone is forthcoming and helpful. What other community can boast that?


JF: Sort of the bedrock of your comic's humor is the juxtaposition of funny animals and social commentary. You've been drawing these characters for awhile...did the social-commentary angle emerge for you, or has it been there pretty much since you came up with these guys?

TP: When I was growing up, three of my favorite comic creators were Bill Watterson, Berkeley Breathed, and Dave Sim. Now those are three guys with very strong personalities and opinions, and they made no apologies when that commentary guided their work. So when I was ten, I was already trying to include these sorts of social themes. It just wasn't as sophisticated as what I do now (things like comparing George Bush's name to shrubbery or making fun of Dan Quayle's foibles--see how far I've come, now I make fun of Sarah Palin instead).

The funny animal thing has always been natural for me as well. You throw in the above creators with Jeff Smith's Bone, and most of the stuff I was reading was funny animals in human worlds. If I'm going to be creating 3 of these comics each week, I need to be excited every time I'm at the drawing table. Having characters that I'm familiar with and enjoy drawing really helps to keep me going.

In addition, I've always felt that Scott McCloud's discussion of how a reader can relate better to a simpler face (see Understanding Comics) had a lot of truth to it. I hope this helps the readers connect better with the characters and their situations. Some people have e-mailed me to say they look forward to reading Calamities because they're curious what the characters will be doing or talking about. So this is working at least a little.


JF: In a Comic Fencing review from a couple months ago, one reviewer remarked on the “anti-Christian sentiment“ in your comic. However, I’m pretty sure you yourself wouldn’t consider strips like the "Mike Huckabee" or "Christian Rock" comics to be malicious or mean-spirited. What's the motive behind the commentary on religion in your comic?

TP: Jeez, you want to open this can of worms, huh? Where to start? The crux of my commentary on religion stems from my frustration with faith. That people make decisions because of belief instead of reasoning. And I realize that to expect people to be completely logical is a fallacy in itself. On the philosophical side, we know logic has its shortcomings (Godel's incompleteness theorem and all that). On a practical side, we don't always have enough information to make a completely informed decision. This is especially true in this day and age where everyone is a specialist in some field. More and more we have to trust the advice of experts, and in a sense this is a form of faith.

But what I find unforgivable is when people continually deny logical facts, even when faced with a mountain of clear evidence. The obvious example is evolution. Evolution is a basic fact about biology. You can argue the details of how it occurs, but it *does* happen. We see that gravity exists. We see that the earth goes around the sun. We see that the earth is round. We see that evolution occurs. Why would someone deny the last point? It's just not logical. People go to the doctor and take the medications that are prescribed to them. Some of those medications are developed expressly using the fact that evolution occurs, and that it is altering the biology of the disease-causing organisms. These medications often fight diseases that are passed genetically, and guess what, evolution affects how those genes are passed down. So to benefit from these advances in medicine, but deny one of the basic tenets that create these benefits, is illogical.

Now I know I'm fighting an uphill battle in some sense. If someone willingly chooses to be illogical, how to do you argue with them? Through logic? Clearly you cannot, because they don't subscribe to this. If someone maintains that the world is 6,000 years old and that any evidence otherwise is just a trick by God to make us think the world is older, how do I argue against this? They've already nullified the axioms of any argument I could make.

But that doesn't mean the fight isn't worth the battle. It's all well and fine if people want to have these illogical beliefs, but if it starts affecting the human condition negatively (and this is where people are going to get angry, because my feeling is that it has done more harm than good over the last 2000 or so years), then you have to push back. And this is my other big criticism of religion, which is the institutionalization of all these ideas. This is when it gets dangerous because you have an institution whose very existence relies on providing the currency of "certainty" to get people mobilized. Such an institution can build a lot of momentum, and it can be hard to steer back on course when its headed in the wrong direction. (And just so you don't think I'm just picking on religion, universities and governments have many of the same problems. People just become a little more fervent with religion.) This was one of the points I was trying to make with the Agnostic comic. Institutionalizing "certainty" is so much more powerful than uncertainty. This is the uphill fight that we're faced with. Scientific history is full of wrong theories, and uncertainty, and changing view points. That's just how scientific progress works. But who's going to want to pray to the altar of "I don't know"?

All that said, those couple comics that your mentioned are actually some of my least favorite ones. Instead of presenting these ideas in a well thought out manner, they make gags that are basically no more subtle than a pie in the face. And what does that really accomplish? Readers who subscribe to these opinions will feel validated. Readers who don't agree will feel marginalized. And in neither case have I actually made someone do any thinking. This is a disservice to both my readers and myself. After all the hours I spend on this comic every week, I'd like to think I'm providing entertainment with a little more value than political talk radio. Hopefully, my writing chops are to the point now where I can accomplish this a little better (like with the recent Agnostic strip).

So the short answer is, no, I wasn't trying to be anti-Christian. But the fact that it was construed as such by the comic fencing guys (and many other people I've gotten feedback from) indicates that I'm clearly not doing my job well enough.

JF: Well, I sympathize with your difficulties. Comics often rely on an economy of language, and it can be incredibly hard to give a balanced treatment of such a complex issue in so few words. I actually think the Agnostic strip was well-crafted in this regard.

I may not agree with you on every last point, but this interview is to learn more about you and your views, not a vehicle for me to express mine! I still do think you make some good points, and I don't think any institution should be exempt from critical analysis from without and within. And I can appreciate that you're critical of yourself as well.

It reminds me of what Chris Hallbeck's parting advice from my interview with him: "If you look back on what you did every 6 months and you hate it then you are going in the right direction." How do you maintain a healthy level of self-criticism and growth without getting too hard on yourself?

TP: That's a tough question. I'm constantly distraught and depressed over my work. When I start with an idea, it seems so fresh and exciting. But by the time I've drawn the strip to completion I almost always hate it. This usually isn't too bad of a thing as long as I finish the comic. Lately though, I'm building up a small archive of finished strips that I can't even get myself to post on the website. At least this will give me some bonus strips to help sell the next book.

Something that's helped keep me from becoming completely paralyzed by this self-loathing is that I read the Charles Schulz biography, "Schulz and Peanuts" by David Michaelis. A key point I took away was how Schulz channeled these insecurities to inspire his work. At least this way you get something constructive out of all this internal turmoil. This may also explain why Harold keeps showing up more and more as a central character.

Another thing that helps is to actively try to keep getting better. I'm always trying new tools and new tricks to keep things from falling into a rut. Sometimes the thing you try doesn't quite work. That's okay, it's just a comic or two. Other times it will allow you to make huge strides quickly, and that's really exiting. For example, for my January 9th comic I'm starting to use a brush to ink. This is completely changing my use of blacks and the backgrounds. For January 12th, I'm trying a more complex panel composition. Anything to keep me on my toes.

(Continue to the second half of the interview)

Here at TWIW, the big news this week is small comics. On Wednesday, I posted a feature spotlighting some lesser-known comics that you may enjoy, so if you'd like to see some hidden talents, they're only a click away.

Today, though, I largely want to talk about Multiplex.

Multiplex focuses on the staff of its titular theater, so one might reasonably offer the critique that too much of its cast comprises the solipsistic-young-adult category. However, recent events at the Multiplex have seen a need for increased security, so the theater has hired a new security guard. His name is James Harris; he's well into his sixties, if not older. He's a retired police officer, and when he was younger, he worked at a theater too.

I find Mr. Harris to be a welcome presence at the theater for two reasons. First, he has wisdom, a trait rather lacking in many of the Multiplex employees. Plenty of them are sharp, but age brings perspective, and I really think that Mr. Harris will provide a grounding presence amidst all the workplace drama. As Jason is showing him around the theater complex, the two of them run across Lizzie Stoner and Whitey lighting up in the back lot. Harris handles the situation very prudently--he's understanding but firm, and he lets them know that while there will be second chances, there won't be a third. I also get the sense that he genuinely cares about the kids.

Secondly, Mr. Harris broadens the strip thematically. Turns out he didn't work at just any theater, either--he worked at the Regal Theater back in the 1950s. Before it was torn down in 1973, the Regal was a major cultural fixture of Chicago's Bronzeville, and in a flashback, cartoonist Gordon McAlpin showcases its ornate architecture through some sepia-toned, hand-drawn artwork. These history-of-theater elements do a lot for the background and substance of Multiplex, and it's all brought in very naturally through the "new" hire. This stuff is a part of who James Harris is and where he's been.

When it comes down to it, Multiplex is a comic about how movies are a part of our lives. A lot of that is strictly on the humor level, sure, and movies are a bigger part of some of our lives than others (coughJasoncough), but there's this other level to it. As humans, we crave stories. And when we go to catch a story on the big screen, we want a good story, one that innovates in the medium, one that doesn't just entertain but says something substantial and resonant to us. And in its own way, with a cast of characters that you really get to know as you keep tuning in, Multiplex embodies those same values that it's looking for in a good movie.

Wait. How did this soapbox get here, and what am I doing standing on it?

Anyway, it's just about time for me to go do productive stuff, but before I do, let's have a...

Quick Rundown of Stuff I Liked This Week

• The Book of Biff presents: Hover Socks!


• Waitaminit, Starslip Crisis! Don't get me wrong, it's a funny strip, but I thought this kinda thing was the province of Dresden Codak!


• New horrific adventures in reptile care courtesy of Nobody Scores!


• Cat and Girl's Bad Decision Dinosaur: last sighted preparing to go on vacation


• Panel three of this Sheldon comic: best description of Flaco ever


• From Boxer Hockey: the intrinsic hazards of good fortune

Good times, good times. See ya next week.