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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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Gary Cohen is one-half of a webcomics team, but half is enough. He’s now legally barred from coming anywhere near me.

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.

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Ken is a stone-cold Ohioan assassin of the cartooning clan, and for that, he will always be awesome.

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. 

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Kennon and John make a comic about a goldfish with delusions that a piece of rock talks to it…sometimes, I really do worry about their mental health.

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.

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Byron Wilkins has some bizarre obsession with the 70’s. Probably because he’s O-L-D…

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.

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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 patch-work 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!

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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.

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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.

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Rachel Deering is a writer, letterer, 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.

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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.

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 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.

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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.

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