Interview with Dave Mercier

Dave Mercier, author of Mercworks (mercworks.net) and Staple! 2016 special guest, took time to answers a few of my questions about webcomics, conventions, hilarity, and the inevitability of death. Currently, he is updating his webcomic every Monday at Webtoon and can be stalked followed on facebook.com/mercworks.net, or Twitter @MercWorks

MH: Do you find the certainty of death and failure hilarious (like Lucy yanking the football away), or do you find yourself giggling as you stare hopelessly into the dark abyss?

DM: I've learned to embrace the abyss. Death and failure are symptoms of the human condition we all share, so I like to shine a light on that; to take it out of the darkness. It's relatable. Like laughing at a funeral!

MH: What do you think the funniest word is?

DM: Pissdick. It's a compound word. Like the word bumblebee, but funny.

MH: Has anyone ever cosplayed as one of your characters?

DM: No, though I've often been accused of being one of the characters myself. There's a Youtube channel or something called Rhett and Link and they look exactly like Dave and Dana. I don't know who came first but if someone has cosplayed as those guys I could totally co-opt that.

MH: What do you think the greatest strength web comics have over newspaper syndication or other print media?

DM: There's nobody to tell you what to do in webcomics. I can swear. A shitload! I can build the audience that I want, rather than hoping that whoever happens to be reading a newspaper gets my sense of humor. When you're publishing yourself you can build your own business out of it; I'm not answering to anybody but myself. Plus anybody can do it. Pick up an eighty dollar tablet, make a comic, put it on the internet. If people like it they're gonna share it. I guess freedom is the key word there.

MH: How do you mange being your own boss/task master?

DM: I gave myself schizophrenia for this. I have the part of me that is the worker bee, the part of me that's the boss. The worker bee can be a little rebellious sometimes while the boss has a tendency to put him in his place. Then you've got the miserable cafeteria worker, the bland business manager, the shipping operations crew, the janitor who loves shit. The boss can be a little tough on people sometimes so I have to remind him to chill out.

MH: Since the majority of your creative output is available free and on-line, what are your biggest success in marketing and funding your work? And how do you think this alters the way you table at comic conventions compared to artists whose work is mostly not available on-line?

DM: I'm trying to be a better marketer but generally I rely on shares and likes and people appreciating my work enough to show it to their friends. So I tend to think of the free stuff I'm publishing online as my marketing. All the comics are basically just ads for the books and prints and stuff that I sell. So it's the same except my online marketing is simply giving the content away for free and trusting that if people like what I make they'll buy it. 

MH: Are there other exhibitors your looking forward to hanging out with a Staple?

DM: All of them! I love meeting new creators. I'm looking forward to making new friends and, if crossed, new enemies.

Thanks, Dave, for answering my questions! Looking forward to seeing Dave at Staple! in Austin, March 2016. He will have his new successfully Kickstarted book The Cure for the Human Condition and more!

-Matt Hirst

An Interview with Jess Fink, illustrator and creator of CHESTER 5000, WE CAN FIX IT, and just all kinds of online stuff (like KID WITH EXPERIENCE)

By Dave Farabee

Jess Fink wears many hats: illustrator, cartoonist, designer of many a Threadless t-shirt, and more. She's been drawing since she was a kid and earned her degree in Illustration and Cartooning from the School of Visual Arts. Jess has produced female-friendly erotic comics like Chester 5000, a sci-fi autobiography in We Can Fix It, and has many an online offering to be enjoyed from her Tumblr (which we should perhaps mention is NSFW). Alan Moore described her work as "liquid and elegantly stylized." In advance of her STAPLE! appearance, she kindly took time to tell us a little more about herself and her work.

Both erotica and biography are among the less-traveled paths in comicdom, or perhaps just less-discussed in between the Batmans and Walking Deads. What led you to those paths?

I suppose it's because I didn't come from a super hero/marvel/DC comics background. As a kid I was heavily influenced by animation, especially Looney Tunes, I wanted to watch every cartoon. I'd wanted to be an animator since I was 7. The first comic I bought was The Maxx, after seeing it on MTV, and I adored it. I didn't know comics could be like that! After that I dove in and read any indie comic that appealed to me. I also got heavily into manga and anime. In college I read tons of auto bio comics by artists like Julie Duchet, Craig Thompson, Chester Brown, Lynda Barry. It blew my mind to think I could talk about my own life in my comics. As for making erotica, I think it was a thing I always drew and as I got older I just became less ashamed of it. Live action porn had always left me with a bad taste in my mouth and I preferred to make my own. I had a great teacher, Tom Hart, who introduced me to some fantastic erotic comics by Molly Kiely that told stories and were compassionate, funny and sexy. I also found out about Fantagraphics' Eros imprint, and I jumped on submitting things to them right away.

How important is the internet to your livelihood?

Very! It used to be that Erotic comics were kept in the secret, back room of the comic store that no one talked about, not so with web comics. The internet has made it possible for a lot of artists who would otherwise be censored or marginalized to produce their work and find an audience. I love print comics too, but the internet is definitely where I've made my home.

Science fiction tropes from robots to time travel weave through your work. Simply springboards or does science fiction hold any special meaning for you?

I love Science Fiction, I always have. The kind of sci fi I love is usually more focused on talking about what it means to be human, rather than on the awe of new technology though. I guess it's the same with erotica, I want more of this type of sci fi so I try to make it.

How do you strike a balance between humor and drama in your work?

It's super important to me that things be funny. It's always easier for me to believe stories that have humor in them because I think it's just a natural impulse.

The square page format pervades your sequential work, from the formatting of Chester 5000 and We Can Fix It to your autobiographical one-pagers. What led you to that format?

Actually, not all of my work is square! For Chester it felt better to use a square format so I could really fit all the swirling art nouveau panels in and not overwork myself on each page. Recently I've been doing quick auto bio comics in a square just because it's faster and looser. We Can Fix It doesn't have a square format though, and neither do a lot of my older auto bio comics. My comics for the Smut Peddler anthologies have all been standard sizes as well.

An Interview with Writer/Artist Kate Leth, of ADVENTURE TIME, BRAVEST WARRIORS, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, More

by Taryn M. Gray

Kate Leth, of Kate or Die fame, has a lot going for her these days. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the artist/writer/Queen of the Valkyries has her hands full with the New York Times-bestselling Adventure Time: Seeing Red, the ongoing Bravest Warriors comic series, a Fraggle Rock mini and the current Edward Scissorhands mini. We were fortunate enough to grab a few seconds of her time before her big STAPLE! appearance next month.

What has stood out as one of your biggest accomplishments in your career thus far? Your proudest moment since you began working in the comic book industry?

It was very, very exciting to see my first Adventure Time graphic novel make the NYT Bestseller list! Honestly, though, my favorite ongoing experiences are either seeing pictures of kids reading my books or meeting younger fans. I've gotten fan art from kids a few times, and that's one of the best feelings in the world. It's just so great!

How has working in the comic industry changed you? How has it influenced your writing, your art, your attitude or your outlook on life in general?

Well, it's changed pretty much everything. I was a college dropout working in a comic book store before my boss encouraged me to start making my own work! I became a writer when I was offered a writing job. Comics are the first thing I've ever felt like I was good at, and I've become so involved in so many different aspects of it now that I feel like it's my whole life. I read or write or review comics every single day.

In the past year and a half (give or take) you have been spearheading a revolutionary organization - The Valkyries. Can you explain who these women are and what this group means for women and other minority groups who want to become a part of the comic community? [Full disclosure: Both the writer and the editor of this piece are members of the Valkyries. -ed.]

My warrior women! The Valkyries are an amazing group of women who work in, manage, own or otherwise are integral to comic shops all over the world. There are close to 400 members now, and it's growing all the time. It started as a place to chat about the job and swap stories, but it's become so much more than that - there are comic trades, convention meet-ups, files upon files of comics to appeal to every demographic, ongoing discussions about how to host book clubs and ladies' nights; I love every minute of it. I think places like that, safe spaces, are really important. A sense of community goes a long way.

Finally, as the new year begins, what are some of your hopes for the comics community? What advice can you give to make sure we can realize, even achieve, those goals?

Same hopes as always, I suppose! I hope for more diversity and representation in comics. I want to see more women working in and playing interesting roles in all kinds of media. My advice is pretty well tied into that, too: support the kinds of creators and stories you want to see. Keep breathing life into this industry and it'll keep growing and bettering itself all the time.

An Interview with Evan Dahm

Evan Dahm is an incredibly productive dude. He embodies the DYI ethos of Staple!  His epic project, set in the world of Overside, includes three books so far.  Rice Boy,  Order of Tales,  Vattu, and some gorgeous short stories, almost two thousand pages and counting.  He has also completed an illustrated edition of the Wizard of Oz, several art books, and co-founded the Benign Kingdom publishing company. He generously took time from his crazy busy schedule to answers some of my questions.

What do you think are the most important things to keep in mind when crafting and sustaining an epic narratives like yours?

This is a very good question and I've come up with different answers for it myself over and over. The planning issue is key, and I've oscillated between an almost stream-of-consciousness approach, and something super-densely mapped out. My current comic Vattu is pretty densely plotted, but I've given myself room to move and I'm always changing and elaborating on scenes once I get to the point of actually drawing them. Sustaining is another thing altogether... I lose interest sometimes; there's nothing I've ever been consistently invested in drawing or writing. But having it serialized online helps, and treating it as a commitment and working on it even on the days when I don't feel like it is important.   
 
Along with self-publishing on-line, you self distribute physical editions of your books. What have been the design and aesthetic advantages of maintaining that level of creative control?  







It's kind of spoiled me by now! I love having control of every aspect of how the work is presented, and I love designing books that appeal to a classy, book-fetishist kind of aesthetic. The fact that comics are inherently visual seems to implicate the entire design of the book or the website or whatever in the reading experience, so I appreciate being able to work with all of that as well.  I also just published an illustrated edition of the Wizard of Oz, which was fun: bringing that specific kind of approach to somebody else's work.  

Were there any big mistakes or learning moments self-distributing?

I shouldn't have even tried to do print-on-demand books. Technology has probably changed in that area a little since I was getting books printed that way five or so years ago, but it's a really inefficient way to get books made, and the quality is way below what any offset printer can do. There are tons of other mistakes but I'm figuring stuff out more and more I hope.  

Going from Rice Boy to Order of Tales, how has your relationship to color changed?

A big part of the reason I wanted to do Order of Tales in black and white was that I felt I was relying too much on color in Rice Boy, to the detriment of the quality of the drawing. So I learned a lot about texture and value doing Order of Tales, but I love color and I'm glad I can work with it again in Vattu, and other projects here and there. Hopefully I'm smarter in my use of color than I was back then!    Do you have any suggestions about the use of color to aspiring comic book makers?   Be mindful of how color

translates to print, if print is a goal for you... It might be worth working in CMYK from the start, so you're only using print-friendly colors. And more broadly, I still don't feel like I really Understand color, but I definitely think it's good to err on the side of limited palettes!  

Who do you think of as having really good Fantasy work in comics?

I haven't read many comics lately. I just read a bunch of Kory Bing's Skin Deep and I liked it a lot-- modern and grounded fantasy but with a strong folklore/mythology undercurrent: http://skindeepcomic.com/ . Bryan Lee O'Malley's new book is fantasy, right? That's a beautiful book.  

Are there any guests or exhibitors your looking forward to meeting at Staple?

Hmm Sammus rules   

Are you going to be bringing anything new to Staple?

Yes! I have new art books that have some series of landscape illustrations I've made, called Aftermath & Lacunae. It's meditative, black-and-white stuff that's different from a lot of what I've published before.

An Interview with M. Austin Bedell

M. Austin Bedell is treasure of the local cartooning scene. He is a regular member of sketch group, a contributor to Rocksalt  Magazine, an accomplished web cartoonist and longtime staple exhibitor.  He took some time out this summer to do this interview with us. He is most noted for his Skweegie Kolache stories but has a side project called Vidyagame Libary,  as well as GROG with cartoonist Chris Sweet of Effing Decaf. My personal  favorite is a pantomime story he did called Warm Fuzzy.

When did you start cartooning?

Bedell:  I was very young and childlike. Like, a very young child, I was.

Who were your early influences?

Bedell:   I drew a lot of Super Mario, Ninja Turtles, and Simpsons as a kid--not because I was special, but because that's what was popular back then (Weird that all three of those things are still pretty popular today...). Matt Groening's name was the first I really clung to and mispronounced--my dad gave me a copy of Childhood is Hell and it was my favorite book. Then I got into the Far Side, and always had to wear one of those shirts. I was the coolest awkwardly-developing kid in the world in those one-size-too-big Far Side shirts!

Whose work do you admire now and how has it changed?

Bedell:  I went through a Crumb phase right after college and started branching off of that. Basil Wolverton, Jim Woodring. I like cartoonists who seem to put a lot of work and detail into such simple designs. Then I steal their techniques and try to pass them off as my own. I found this book of Drew Friedman's black and white stuff a few years ago with all the Tor Johnson comics. Man, what a stippler!

How long have you been doing Skweegie Kolache?

Bedell:  I started drawing the characters 20 years ago, did a few comic strips in high school 15 years ago, threw together my first book called "Skweegie Island" 5 years ago, and, uh... To answer your question, I don't know.

In addition to Skweegie Island and Vidyagame Libary, how many projects are you juggling right now?

Bedell:  I started drawing a new Skweegie Kolache story recently, but besides that, I'm in the planning stages on a bunch of stuff that may or may not ever happen.  Chris Sweet and I are talking about doing another colab. And there's always my super-epic magnum opus bullcrap I'll never get started on. 

Much more work...

http://www.skweegieisland.com

http://telfurious.tumblr.com/

http://vg-libary.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/telfurious
http://www.skweegieisland.com/?comic=grog

http://fictioncircus.com/rocksalt

https://www.facebook.com/skweegieisland