Egregious interview (full)
Q&A
With Blair Kitchen
. . . comic book artist, writer, publisher
JUST THE FACTS:
Born (year and city): 1976, Hamilton Ontario, Canada
Currently living in (city): Carlisle, Ontario
Job held before becoming a professional illustrator: Animator, but before that, I worked on farms, was a lift operator at a ski hill, refereed hockey and soccer, and delivered papers.
Favourite Comic book creator: Sergio Aragones and Dave Sim (OK, that’s two)
Grew up reading (don’t just say comics): Spider-man, Batman, Groo, Cerebus and whatever other comics I could get my hands on.
If you could be any one mainstream comic book character who would it be: Spider-man
If you hadn’t answered your calling as illustrator, what do you think you’d be doing right now?: Christian missionary.
If you could work on any mainstream comic, which would it be and why? Honestly….. I wouldn’t want to work on a mainstream comic.
JUST THE ANSWERS:
Describe your career as a comic book writer for us in 5 words: Perseverance, infancy, outlet, rewarding, floccinaucinihilipilification.
What made you decide to break out on your own with The Possum? After being in the animation industry for a while, I really needed an outlet to do something that I had complete creative control over, and something that I owned. I’m grateful for the “work for hire” stuff that I’ve been doing the last 10 years or so, but at the end of the day, you are left with nothing but a portfolio, or an animation demo reel, that can get you more work for hire. It dawned on me one day that when I’m 50 or 60, I will most likely still need to make money, and cranking out artwork for other people just to put food on the table and a roof over my head is not what I want to be doing in my old age. If I am going to spend my latter years working, I would want to be doing something that I love, and if that is going to happen, I need to start laying the ground work now.
How has the self-publishing thing been going? I keep telling myself that nothing worth doing comes easy, and self publishing is no exception. I’m still at an early stage in the game, but the response so far has been very positive, and very humbling. I am still working in the animation business, doing storyboards and “classical animation” on paper like they did back before I was born, to put food on the table, so I haven’t been able to quit my day job yet, but when you have a family to feed, they come first. In the mean time, I’m just having a lot of fun doing what I love to do, and trying to make the best comics I can make….. We’ll see what happens.
Where did the idea for the Possum come from? When I was in the tenth grade, a friend and I were doodling when we probably should have been paying attention to the teacher. We were attempting to come up with the lamest super hero that we could. This super hero had no super strength, or special abilities, other than the fact that he had no vital signs. He would get beaten up and play dead, and then when the bad guys checked him for any signs of life, they would right him off as dead. When their backs were turned, he would make his attack and the beatings would happen all over again. I drew a picture of this hero in a sketchbook of mine and put it away. Ten years later, I discovered my old sketchbook, and when I saw the picture, it made me laugh, so I redrew The Possum as he now looks.
How long does it take you to complete an issue of The Possum? My goal is to get them out as quickly as possible, but life sometimes has a way of throwing monkey wrenches into my plans. The first three issues, I was able to publish six months between each one, which was a busy, but comfortable pace as long as there were no distractions other than my full time job and normal family things. With that said, issue number four is taking a little longer, because it’s been a really busy year between moving, having another child, buying a new car to fit all of my kids (we’ve got 3 now), and trying to pay for all of this and many other unexpected expenses, and unfortunately with self publishing, you have to pay for printing which isn’t cheap. This usually involves taking on extra animation work which actually pays, and eats into my comic drawing time. With all of the set backs, I’m hoping to have issue 4 finished in the early new year, which would make it a few months over a year. Things are slowly getting back into a steady routine, and I’m hoping to be able to stay on top of things and start getting more comics out within a shorter and shorter amount of time. I’ve got so many ideas in my head for future comics that I’ve got to get them out somehow.
What’s the hardest part of your comic book writing process (figuring out the story, drawing the book, getting it published)? Why? The hardest part, like I mentioned above, is finding time to draw comics. As for the actually process of creating comics, I find that fitting everything into the confines of the page, and working with a set length of pages to tell the story sucks away most of my brain power. The drawing is fun, and the inking I find labour intensive but the most rewarding because you finally get to see the drawings look the way they will look in the printed comic, minus the grey tones.
Clark Kent is a mild-mannered reporter. Peter Parker is a dorky photographer. How would you describe the Possum’s alter-ego, Stuart Spankly? Stuart Spankly is who me and most of my friends were when we were in high school. He is a dorky teenager, living at home with his parents, dealing with the everyday stresses of being unemployed and having no living expenses. Stuart is also an aspiring self publisher, who happens to be publishing a comic called “The Possum”, and spends a good deal of his time at the local comic shop, where we often meet his arch nemesis, Steve Tacola.
The first issue of the Possum begins in a comic book convention and Spankly is seen to be filled with angst, hoping that some big shot from the comic industry might recognize his genius. Is the start of the book drawn from your life? No, but maybe my life is slowly turning into Stuart’s. When I drew the first issue, I hadn’t actually been to a comic convention since I was 12 years old or so. Since then, I’ve been to quite a few conventions as an artist, and sadly, I can relate to Stuart much better now. Just walking down artist alley feels like you are walking down the “alley of broken dreams”, as we all watch with anticipation, while thousands of people walk by without even giving our books, that we slaved over and poured all of our sweat and tears into, a glance. If only they knew what they were missing, they would praise us for all of our unending sacrifices we made, just so they could have 15 minutes of cheap entertainment!!! And then just when we think of giving up and calling it quits forever, we realize that we have already put down our deposit for next years show, so we have no other option than to pull up our socks and carry on.
If you could pit The Possum against one major superhero or villain, who would it be and who would win? Hmmmmm… For some reason Dr. Doom keeps coming to mind. When I was little, he always kind of creeped me out, and I could never quite figure out what his powers were. I think The Possum would have to win eventually, but not without getting his butt kicked, and maybe loosing his pants, as that seems to be an ongoing theme in all of my comics so far.
What would you like to see happen to the Possum, both the character and the series? I’d love to be able to just keep making comics. Right now, I have a humble goal of getting enough issues for a trade paperback. After that, I see issue #50 as being a big thing. Then maybe I’ll work on the animated feature film, done in the traditional hand drawn and painted background animation style of course, and maybe a TV show, that holds up to the old Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny shorts, after that. Do you know anyone who owns a TV station and is interested?
What’s the oddest request a fan has ever made of you? I’ve signed body parts, and have drawn sketches of midget Mexican wrestlers pile driving a guys crotch (with his pants on of course), but I’m still just baffled when people want to pay me actual money to buy my comics.
What’s the greatest compliment anyone’s ever given to your work on The Possum? Someone told me that my drawings reminded him of Don Martin in his prime, which to me is a very big compliment, and another person told me that out of all of the comics a particular convention (and it was a really big one), that The Possum was the best. Come to think of it though, I don’t think he ended up buying one….
Who do you write for? I write for myself, then I just hope that other people like it.
Describe your work space in 5 words? Messy, messy, messy, messy, and messy. (Just ask my wife).
I’ve read the first three issues of the Possum, and I can attest that they are extremely funny. What does it take to be funny? I come up with most of my jokes from watching how people act in real life. People are made with such an amazing range of different personalities and quirks, that you couldn’t come up with something better if you tried. And it’s all right in front of you, and open to use. All a cartoonist needs to do is recognize those quirky things that are existing in real life, and charicature them. Pacing is also really important in making jokes read, and I guess I have learned a lot about comedic timing from working as an animator for the last 10 years, and that just transfers from animation into comic form.
How hospitable is the Canadian comic book industry to small press publishers? It’s hard for me to answer that question, because at the moment, I have mainly focused on comic conventions, and I don’t have much to compare it to. My experiences have mainly been positive, and I have gotten a good response from comic shops who are willing to carry my comic, but apart from that, I haven’t got a whole lot to tell you.
Finish this sentence: ‘The Possum walks into Stan Lee’s office and . . .” asks Stan what his inspiration was when he created Batman…… then his pants fall down.
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