The other question is: ‘what do you need to become a successful comic artist or author?’ While again the phrasing might change, the answer to this question is almost always the same: you need to truly love making comics.

Robin Thompson is a comic illustrator, writer, and instructor currently living in Vancouver, BC. And he loves making comics.

Thompson teaches comic illustration workshops for kids and teenagers, and works as an instructor at The Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he teaches similar content to an adult demographic.

“Starting next week I’ll be doing a comics course for teenagers,” he says of his summer teaching plans, “It’s part of a program that gets kids ready for art college so they know what to expect.”

In addition, he has been illustrating indie, self-published comics for over a decade. In 1998, he responded to an ad in the local paper from someone looking for an illustrator for a comic they were working on.

“It was for this comic series called Champions of Hell,” he says, “and the writer needed something dark and scary, and so I did a few sample drawings for him and we’ve been great friends ever since. His name is Ira Hunter, and that comic series is still going on.”

The first comic books that Thompson can remember taking a serious interest in were Alpha Flight and The X-Men.

“I always loved John Byrne’s art,” he says, “I used to sneak my brother’s X-Men comics out of his room when I was younger, and I would read those without him knowing. I used my allowance money to buy Alpha Flight issues from the racks at a local corner store.”

His first-ever foray into self-publishing was a title called The Highlanders, which he worked on with a group of friends from school. (Note: No relation to Christopher Lambert’s movies, other than a recurring theme of decapitation)

“It was about a group of Scottish vampire hunters, ” Thompson says, with a laugh, “It was a hand-made, photocopied zine style book, and we’d bring it to school and try and sell it to people.”

Outside of Champions of Hell, Thompson says he has quite a few projects on the go. His ongoing goal in comics is to challenge himself to continually produce work that’s both innovative and different from his previous projects.

For example:

“I’m a big fan of sharks and there’s no shark comics out there,” says Thompson,  “so I thought, I’m gonna do one! Right now I’m sitting on a shark story that I’ve completed and will at some point in the future be a new book.

I’ve also recently wanted to do a bit more writing and less drawing, so I needed a project for that. I watch a lot of really crappy, crappy movies, and out of that I did a book called the ‘Fifty Worst Comic Book Movies Ever Made’. It consists of my reviews of these horrible comic book movies, and of course I have illustrations throughout the book.

I made that and then a new one that I want to do is nerds of film. Kind of a review book about nerd films.”

Thompson maintains a firmly positive belief in the Do-It-Yourself approach to print publishing, which is reflected in the wealth of projects he currently has on the go. In an era when digital comics have taken a front seat for new comic creators and mass distribution is all but impossible for the indie self-publisher, his optimism is refreshing.

“There’s always a decent market for self-published stuff,” Thompson maintains, “Especially if you’re dedicated enough to getting your stuff out there. That’s what I love about the DIY approach, because you have that opportunity. Not only does it reward hard work, but you can inspire others into adopting their own DIY approach as well.

The more people that get involved, the stronger the DIY market becomes. Of course, we’ll always be the underdogs to the major distributor stuff. ”

When asked about his beliefs as to why this is, his answer comes as a familiar, two word response. If you guessed ‘reverse synergy’, you probably haven’t read many articles here on the Fabler Blog before.

“Diamond Comics,” says Thompson, “If you’re just starting out and trying to get your stuff out there, Diamond Comics will ruin you. By telling a self-publisher that if they don’t sell X amount, Diamond won’t carry their product, they’re basically telling the new generation ‘if you’re not part of the big boys, then don’t even bother.’”

Oddly enough, Diamond Comics’ position in the market actually had a direct hand in Thompson’s decision to start teaching comic art.

“Thanks to changing distribution patterns,” he explains, “It’s not like when I was younger and I could take my allowance down to the corner shop to buy a comic. Now you have to go to a comic shop, and most kids don’t live near comic shops, and their parents don’t often take them there. They might borrow something like Bone from the library or pick up an Archie comic, but that’s about it.

It’s really nice to be in a position to introduce kids to something new that they might never have known they’d like. Sure enough, over the course of teaching kids about comic art and what’s out there, you really see them develop personal tastes of their own in terms of art style and characters that they like.”

Thompson says that another motivation for getting into teaching was that it would provide a venue where he could share his love for the art:

“I decided to put a proposal out there to a community centre for a  drawing class, and they accepted, and I started a drawing class for kids. Word just got around that this is what I do, and I got offers from other community centres to do illustration/cartooning classes with kids heavily focused on comics.

From there, it went from teaching kids to teaching teenagers, and now of course teaching adults at Emily Carr.”

Thompson says the focus of his courses is generally on narrative storytelling, drawing techniques, and inking techniques.

“I don’t want to assume that everyone has the same interest as I do in comics,” he says, “so I try to keep it broad and more general.  Sometimes on the first day I have a slide show with a little bit on the history of comics.

There’s a lot of stuff that a lot of people don’t know. For example, Santa Claus was originally designed from a political cartoonist. They think that Coca-Cola created that image, but it was actually Thomas Nast.”

In his experience teaching, Thompson says he finds that most newcomers to the field don’t realize how much work actually goes into making a comic.

“I tell them to look at all of the names that are credited on their favorite comic book. Oftentimes, they don’t realize that someone’s doing the penciling, someone’s doing the lettering, someone’s doing the inking, and so forth.  When it’s all done by one person, it can be a really daunting task.

Sometimes people can be put off when they realize how much work goes into it. But then, those who put the time in can find it extremely rewarding.”

Thompson’s most important advice for aspiring comic artists?

“Draw every day, and don’t let comics be your only influence. Most comic artists are influenced by something outside of the comics field. For example, I would go sometimes to the art gallery and use the sculptures as models – which I would then draw, and use those sketches in my comic art.”

For more from Robin, you can visit his personal webpage or visit the Champions of Hell website.

-Written by Kevin de Vlaming

And to all you fans out there! Thanks for supporting our site and featured creators with insight to their work! Your feedback on the upcoming The Sundry Seven, was very encouraging and we hope that you enjoy the story as much as I love writing, and Jay loves drawing it! Our official launch announcement will be this Monday, May 10th! so be sure to check out and discover more juicy details of the story and The Sundry Seven crew!

I’ll give a few plugs to our creative friends this year since they were kind enough to save a few copies of art books and new issues of other cool creative work!

So check out Wild Gunmen, a local zine aimed at Geek Culture (yeah admit it. Your a geek too!) They’ve been online for a while now and just launched their premiere print issue! Thanks to Ed Osborne for giving us a copy!

Another shout out to Sean L. Lefebvre, a former Games Cafe resident, and published game developer, now working on a very interesting video game project with Bella Mechina Studios called, Empires of the Mist.

Also Thanks to Mike Boldt, of Boldtman Studios, an accomplished illustrator. He stopped by and handed us a pristine copy of his sketchbook, which cover valued at $0.25, we’re very proud to have this priceless piece in our collection! Thanks Mike!

Another one goes out to our friends at Blacksheep Studios! Hilary, Tyler Jenkins, & the Vehicle Magazine team is launching their 3rd issue! All locally drawn comics, stories, and advertisements related to comics and comic culture. They’ve also released a video on their youtube showing a very cool animated graphic novel! Thanks for providing The Fabler with quartly issues of such great independent work!

And one last one out to my friend J. Korim, artist on The Sundry Seven, who was so gracious to buy me a copy of, “The Tick, The Complete Edlund.” 400 pages and 12 original issues of pure unadulterated greatness! If you have not read this yet I won’t spoil it for you but after spending two evenings blasting through it, I assure you, that you will not be disappointed! Oh and if you check out Jay’s site be sure to look top left of the page for the best rock riffs, this side of the galaxy!

Andrew Johnson’s art, like his subject matter, is pretty dark and compelling stuff. Johnson has a knack for utilizing high contrast, shadow-filled imagery and tense, often anxious dialogue to create a tone that epitomizes ‘ominous’.

The resident of Auckland, New Zealand, has made a home for himself on the Fabler with his ongoing web-based comic, Kingdom.

Kingdom presents a corporate-controlled future dystopia, with a decidedly gritty, almost noir feel to it. Crooked cops, shady drug dealers, and an always present air of corporate oppression form the staples that define the landscape of Kingdom.

“Kingdom focuses on a non specific city, 12 or so years forward from today,” says Johnson, “where Corporations, with their resources and focus have pushed into the last untapped market, governance of the populace  – producing modern versions of feudal lords, though this is not readily apparent or of interest to most people going about their daily business.”

Johnson says that, while Kingdom may share elements in common with the noir genre, he tends not to see it as such.

“There’s an oppressive atmosphere present within the story,” he explains, “but rather than focusing on some hidden truth that is revealed by tenacity of hero, we’ll be hanging out more with the characters being introduced in the initial 8 and how they’re effected by the actions of Richard Marks – who provides the catalyst for the main incidents that occur.”

An admitted long-time fan of sequential art, Johnson’s first leap into comics took him directly to the web.  In addition to Kingdom on the Fabler, he has a collection of his other work (including Golem) available for perusal over on his website, The Black Gates.

“I love the idea of world building with a couple of pages and a marker. I’m a pretty stock pop-culture geek having grown up on a diet of Magnum PI and the A Team… Throw in that I’ve been working in the interactive/web spaces for a few years now and it was almost a no-brainer I’d get involved with webcomics at some point.”

Interestingly, Johnson does not credit any specific comic or movement in comics as the reason he decided to start making sequential art himself. Instead, he says that the biggest motivator which led him into the industry was simply the state of current technology.

“With the web the cost to distribute content and put it in front of eyeballs is insanely minimal,” says Johnson, “From a printed goods perspective, being this far down the world, shipping goods to and from here costs a fair bit.  With the potential to send files up to the northern hemisphere to get printed and shipped on demand, it felt like a good time to get involved.”

This isn’t to say that Johnson is without his comic book influences altogether. He lists Frank Miller as an artist whose ‘can-do’ attitude has given him inspiration in his work, and, from a narrative perspective, Warren Ellis has left a strong mark on Johnson’s style.

“With Ellis,” he says, “It’s an inspiration gained from seeing his work constantly push against the superhero comics mainstream, more towards the mass market, and his online community experimentation, as well as stories such as Desolation Jones and Global Frequency.  Some of my other influences would be the structure and dialogue of Brian Azzarello’s work, through to density and depth found in the television show The Wire. As a fringe creator, these guys are proof of what’s possible.”

Johnson considers himself a ‘newbie’ illustrator, and at this point in his comics career, he’s having fun experimenting to see what works, and what falls flat.

“Part of the looseness is from the crunch of the deadlines,” he says,  “but in general I love the energy that comes from looser work and with these webcomics. I like that they feel quick, dirty and disposable.”

The interesting thing about catching Andrew Johnson at this point in his artistic career is that you can watch while his art evolves. This is especially apparent with Golem, which is about an inadvertently reactivated killing machine who embarks on a brief (but bloody) murderous rampage through an isolated small town.

As you read from the older panels through to those more recently uploaded, you can trace a steady progression from a more general, traditional style of comic illustration to the distinctively unique, sketch-like renderings seen in Kingdom.

“Regarding Kingdom,” says Johnson, “I think the direction I’m going with the art there provides a grittiness which indicates to us ‘these characters will not be having a good time’.”

After checking out a few panels from Kingdom, one certainly gets the impression that tone- be it gritty or otherwise – is an important element to Johnson’s storytelling.

Kingdom also contains a narrative that weaves in and out of stream of consciousness prose, adjusting accordingly as the story veers from ambiguous labs to deserted towns and darkly-lit high-rises.

“We’re in scene setting mode in terms of characters and the world,” he says, “so it seems appropriate to use such an approach to provide tone. Although when it comes time to crack on with plot, the focus will change. One of the benefits of using a fractured snapshot approach is the ability to change direction tonally with the next update if it’s called for.”

To keep up with the latest story arcs of Kingdom, check out Andrew’s creator comics over on The Fabler. For more from Andrew, you can pop into his main website, The Black Gates.

‘Janitorial espionage’ may initially strike you as an odd niche to write a comic about.

I mean, who wants to read about lowly cleaners, when everyone knows that full-fledged spies are the proverbial meat and potatoes of the covert action world?

This is, sadly, a misconception that many individuals share. Individuals not familiar with the Intelligence Cleaner Agency (I.C.A.), and everything that it stands for. Individuals who have yet to read about the adventures of one Eben07.

This week, The Fabler Blog is profiling one of its own – Eben Burgoon, writer of the webcomic Eben07, which you can find a preview of posted up on the Fabler itself.

This is the first in a series of profiles we’ll be doing on comic creators affiliated with the growing Fabler comic community. Mr. Burgoon, you sir are a lucky man indeed!

Now, let’s look at exactly what the role of an Assigned Cleaner Agent (A.C.A.) such as Eben07 actually entails.

The I.C.A. was founded to keep super-secret government missions from being exposed to the general public. Every time a Secret Agent is assigned to a new operation, an A.C.A. is also assigned to clean up whatever mess might be left behind and prevent any possible future complications.

Eben Burgoon’s comic Eben07 focuses primarily on chronicling the adventures of the titular I.C.A. Agent and his stealthy cohort, Ninja Dan. The comic was originally created by Eben himself, who writes the scripts for the episodic I.C.A. operations, alongside artist and long-time collaborator Dan Bethel.

“We created the characters a long time ago,” says Burgoon, “back when we were in high school. For sentimental reasons we kept them with the names that we originally gave them. It kind of gets confusing, because my name’s Eben and the main character’s name is Eben, but we’re really nothing alike. People often wonder if there’s really an Eben Burgoon or if it’s just Dan doing both roles.”

Eben, who is based in Sacramento, California, doesn’t seem to mind the confusion surrounding the comic – actually, you’d swear he enjoys it. After all, Eben and Dan did decide to build the entire Eben07 website ‘in character’, complete with dossiers about the not-so-secret government organization and a blog with postings by Eben07 himself.

“We thought it would be a lot more fun for readers to do it this way,” says Burgoon, “In terms of interviews and media stuff, we’ve decided to break our fourth wall, but in terms of fans – well, fans can email Eben07, and actually get a reply from that character. They can read his tweets.”

The story of how Burgoon and Bethel came to be producing comics about Eben07 and Ninja Dan is an interesting one itself. According to Eben, they met in a high school chemistry class when boredom with the content of the class drove them to talking and finding common ground in their interests.

“Dan drew my likeness for the first time for a band that I was in called Water Closet,” Eben says, “That was ages ago. We’re both out of college now and Dan’s working on his Master’s degree and I’m basically writing this comic and kind of getting health insurance through doing a grocery store gig.”

Eben himself has a Bachelor’s in International Relations, where he took classes on intelligence work and terrorism to explore is own interests in espionage.

“Spy stuff has always appealed to me,” says Eben, ” My Dad fed me a lot of James Bond when I was younger, so I was really into the Connery Bond films growing up.  Actually, to this day, I haven’t seen Titanic because it came out the same week as Golden Eye and I boycotted it, and I stuck to that.” (he laughs)

When asked about his favorite Bond movie, Eben is hesitant to single just one out.

“You could ask me any day, and I’d probably change my mind… But usually it’s either Goldfinger or From Russia with Love. I really do like Casino Royale a lot, that was really well done. ”

Outside of spy films and the original Ian Fleming Bond novels, Eben credits Tin Tin books as being a significant influence on his work:

“…because though they aren’t really about spies, they still have that unique ‘adventure’ quality about them.”

And as for Dan’s influences?

“Dan’s background is in animation,” says Burgoon, “He was really inspired by people like Bruce Timm and I know that he really got his fingers wet drawing Jim Lee and his nineties X-Men when he was younger. He’s really found his own style over the years, but his background is definitely in that sort of stuff. That’s kind of what we try to do with Eben07, is try to make it look animated.”

It’s relevant to note that while Eben07 is, indisputably, the central protagonist in Burgoon and Bethel’s ongoing series of comics, every now and then a story pops up featuring the character of Abel – founder of the I.C.A. and Eben07’s great (insert nine more ‘great’s) grandfather.  The latest Eben07 collected release, Operation: Mongoose, is one such story.

“Abel was first featured in this series we did called ‘Clean the Cleaners‘,” says Burgoon, “which takes place after Metal Gear: Solid, and as they’re running around in this jungle and losing track of everything it becomes apparent that Abel is a very over-arching character in the story we’re trying to tell.”

Operation: Mongoose, which follows Abel as he attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and (in the process of doing so) uncovers a shadow conspiracy, was inspired by a scene in one of the previous Eben07 comics.

“There’s a point in For the Love of Russia where he’s confronted by this anorexic vampire queen Vamprexia, who says ‘I haven’t seen you this rattled since Cuba’. As the writer, I always wanted to tell this story about Abel trying to assassinate Castro, and as the world’s most elite janitor, he’s just miserable at actually killing someone. Also, during the 1960’s, there was an actual Operation: Mongoose, and they did try to kill Castro in all of these really absurd ways. Some of the pictures that are in the book are based on actual C.I.A. attempts.”

Operation: Mongoose is geared to be able to bring in readers unfamiliar with Eben07, since not only does it have a neat hook, it doesn’t require a lot of knowledge about the character of Abel to jump right in. In addition, it serves to prep readers for the most recent Eben07 adventure currently being posted on eben07.com, Operation: Three Ring Bound.

That being said, Eben does admit that there is a bit of a learning curve to the Eben07 titles, and for a reader looking to get the most out of them, they would be best off reading through some of the older missions before starting on the newer ones.

Operation: Mongoose also features some new approaches to the regular art of the series, including a decision to do most of the strips in black and white to represent the nature of the story as a flashback.

“I think it turned out really great,” says Eben, “the part where Abel’s at the Abraham Lincoln assassination that Dan did all in pencil I think is also really cool. It was mostly Dan wanting to experiment with his art and wanting to really hone his inking without focusing on coloring. I think it really helped set the mood of a 1960’s covert ops mission.”

The latest Eben07 adventure, Operation: Three Ring Bound, returns the focus to Ninja Dan and Eben07 himself.

“We had talked a lot about how to present Eben07 and Ninja Dan’s backstory,” Burgoon says, “and one thing we’ve always talked about and maintained is that they went through janitor school together and there was a rivalry there. There’s that, and there’s just a lot of other stories there that we wanted to tell, and we thought, ‘what better place to set it than have these older guys go back to try and pose as high school students in a sort of 21 Jump Street homage’.”

Steadfast fans of Eben07 will notice another different element to this operation; a real focus on a villain character.

“We kind of have this bible, where we say we only write scenes where Eben07 or another main I.C.A. character is in the scene. So completely writing the villain without having them around is fun, and though it violates that rule, we’re enjoying it too much to stop yet.”

It’s unlikely that you’ve seen anything like the eclectically fantastic art of Jesse Jacobs.

The twenty eight year old cartoonist is known in Halifax for One Million Mouths, a comic strip that has been published regularly in local newspaper The Coast for several years.

If you haven’t read One Million Mouths but Jesse’s name still rings a bell, there could be a few reasons for this. It’s possible you’ve seen one of his self-published minicomics on the shelves of your local comic shop, such as Small Victories, or Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow. If you picked up Sequential’s special edition zine at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this past summer,  you could’ve read a featured interview that Jesse did with Bryan Munn about the varying influences that inspire his work.

Still haven’t hit on it? Then you probably know him as the winner of the first-ever Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishers, an award introduced this year at September’s Joe Shuster Awards. Jesse considers winning the award an honor, though, as he confides to the Fabler in an interview, it did come as quite a surprise.

“Making comics is an isolated past time,” Jesse says, “I spend so much time by myself and by the time I finish a book and put it out I’m onto something else. It was nice to be recognized for my efforts and to know for certain that people liked the book.”

The book he’s referring to is Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow. Blue Winter presents a snowy odyssey through surreal, nature-oriented landscapes largely told from the perspectives of the local wildlife.

“It’s a mini-comic about a love triangle between a shape-shifting blue jay, a human girl, and a normal blue jay,” Jesse says, “Jason, the protagonist, transforms into a boy and brings food back to the forest for all his animal friends. It’s about the desperation of the forest in the wintertime, and true love.”

That he can go from One Million Mouths to producing something like Blue Winter is a good example of the sort of sheer eclecticism that defines Jacobs’ work.

A One Million Mouths comic could literally be anything – from casually dressed bald men courting existentialism in an alien galaxy of swiss cheese planets to a snake finding true love in the warmth of a sleeping monkey’s brain. Variety is the constant, as well as Jacobs’ distinct style of surreal, busy illustration. Each strip explodes with exaggerated detail, squirming word balloons, and flowing patterns -not unlike a stray doodle that took on a life all of its own.

In contrast, Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow is a unified work. Jacobs’ art is still unmistakably his; filled with a sense of flowing stream of consciousness, and characterized by uniquely distorted impressions of people and animals rather than realistic representations. However, with Blue Winter, many panels are devoid of the noise that saturates One Million Mouths – often the art presents a sort of honest simplicity, reflective of the book’s nature-themed narrative.

“I have a lot of interests, and I draw ideas from everywhere,” says Jacobs, “Above all I enjoy drawing. When I see something interesting, whether it be while out on a walk in the woods, or while watching old movies, I usually try to draw it. In a lot of my smaller comic strips, the words don’t necessarily match the imagery, or do so very loosely.  I have fun working that way, taking rough ideas I’ve written in my sketchbook and marrying them with a weird doodle.”

When working on longer narratives, Jesse often finds himself confronted by a familiar dilemma:

“Inevitably I come to a panel that must be drawn in order to progress the story, and it can be boring to draw. I’m getting a lot better at dealing with that though, and the new book I’m working on has been really enjoyable to draw. It’s important to me to keep the work really fun, because that’s why I make comics.”

Jesse’s love for comics wasn’t the sort of thing that he picked up overnight.  It goes back to his childhood, when he confesses to harbouring a massive stack of Archie comics as a kid.

“My dad used to bring home big boxes of computer paper, and my brother and I would sit in front of the television and draw,” he says, “I used to take about ten pages of computer paper, fold it in half and staple it and make lots of little comics with my characters and get the kids at school to read them. Mostly the drawings and stories were copied from things like Casper and that little dinky dink Richie Rich.”

Originally from Moncton, New Brunswick, it was while Jacobs was attending the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax that he first got started making comics. He put a few books together with a few college friends, which led to his interest in self-publishing minicomics – something that would continue to have an important role in his life for years to come.

It’s important to note here that Jesse self-publishes his comics in the truest sense of the term – all of the money comes out of his own pocket, and he handles every step of production himself. From pen to paper through to photocopying panels and binding the books, there is no middle man here.

While many contemporary independent comic artists tend to gravitate towards the web as the primary distribution channel for their work, Jacobs represents something of a return to form with his adherence to making minicomics.

He feels that the popularity of webcomics as a medium for indie cartoonists hasn’t negatively impacted the minicomic market at all, and has some interesting thoughts to share along those lines:

“Some of my favourite comics right now are webcomics, ” says Jacobs, ” Jesse Moynihan’s The Forming is dazzling. I read it every Thursday as soon as it’s posted. But I’ll still happily buy the book when it comes out. I think if the material is interesting and well done, people are going to want the book, regardless of its web presence.

I don’t think there ever was a huge market for self published comics/zines anyhow. I’ve been to a lot of zine fairs, and I always sell a few books, but I also offer t-shirts and buttons and that kind of junk. In general, people seem to dig that stuff more than a book. People like things they can wear I guess. I’ve made way more money off of t-shirts than making comics. But I like making comics better. ”

These days, Jesse is making comics from his home in London, Ontario.

Jacobs moved to Ontario last year with his girlfriend for educational reasons, and he confesses that he often misses the East Coast.

” I drew the blue jay book when I was living in New Brunswick,” he says, ” and it was very much inspired by my natural surroundings. When I moved here, I didn’t know anyone, so I stayed home a lot and watched a lot of space channel. The comics I made during this time reflect my love of the aesthetics of sci-fi, especially Star Trek. ”

Currently Jesse’s working on another minicomic, a few preview panels from which can be seen below.

“I’m pretty excited about this book, which is as of yet untitled. Although, the pages will be small, I’ve already drawn about sixty with more to come, so it’s going to be the longest story I’ve done. It’s a loose narrative that explores repeating elements and patterns. It takes place in the arctic north and revolves around an Inuit character, a stowaway, and the unsteady relationship of two arctic monsters. It’s about isolation and loneliness and being cold and hungry.”

In order to focus more on finishing his new book, Jesse stopped regularly submitting One Million Mouths strips for the Coast a few months back.

So, you may ask, what’s he up to outside of pouring time and creative energy into the new minicomic? For Jacobs, working on graphic designs for skateboards and spending quality time with his dog is where it’s at.

“I’ve been working closely with a company called Homegrown, that manufactures skateboards from scratch, using all locally produced materials. They put a huge focus on the skateboard as an art piece. And we screen print a lot of prints as well.

Aside from working on that I’ll keep drawing drawings and walking my dog, Desmond, in the woods.”

(Go ahead. Ask)

Why, it’s all about utilizing the web-based resources you have at your disposal. There ’s some obvious potential for redundancy here with my post about social media, so I’ll clarify:

There are a vast amount of services out there, available to both fans and creators of indie comics. Some of those services can be viewed as social media tools, which aid primarily in networking and building lines of communication with an audience. In fact, many of them, such as illoz and illustrationmundo.com, fall under this category of overlap.

I want to speak more broadly to the resources that are available for comic fans and creators, as a way of bringing together my posts about the online communities out there as well as the aforementioned social media type sites. Wrap all that daintily up with a bow of shameless self-promotion for the Fabler, and we’ll call it a trilogy of posts. Like Lord of the Rings, only instead of questing through Mordor to destroy the One Ring in Mount Doom, we’re stumbling through the internet in hopes of finding some way to understand the landscape of modern comics.

Now come those three magic words that every imaginative person, young or old, delights to hear:

Let’s start cataloging!

(Bear in mind, we aren’t looking to build a comic book bible with one post – the following links are intended to be used as starting points, not a definitive list of all important comic-related websites ever created)

INDUSTRY NEWS

When you need to know what the haps are, where do you go? Urban Dictionary probably, to look up the sorely outdated term ‘haps’.

If, however, you’re looking to hear about new developments in comics that effect YOU, or for the latest updates on your peers, your favorite comic artists, or that guy down the street who snubs his nose at you when you ask for the latest Marvel Comics… look no further.

Comic Book Resources – You’re going to get a lot of mainstream comic coverage with CBR, but the quality of content as well as the sheer number of exclusives make it my personal recommendation for an ‘overall’ news site. Plus, the Robot 6 blog is not only awesome, it provides one of the best non-automatic comic news aggregating services on the net (with Comics A.M.)

Sequential Tart – A webzine published by women which highlights the influence of women in the industry. Consistently excellent coverage of a varied set of areas.

Sequential Spiltink – An excellent source of news pertaining to all things Canadian and Comic-related. Provides Coast-to-Coast coverage of local events, Canadian creator developments, and whatever else your eager little heart might be curious about.

The Joe Shuster Awards Blog – The Official Blog for the Joe Shuster Awards. They update with surprising frequency about coverage of Canadian creators working in the industry. Some overlap with Sequential may occur.

Inkstuds – Podcasts covering the indie/alternative comic book industry! Inkstuds is based out of Vancouver, and is well known for providing entertaining, informative dialogue on the contemporary comix industry.

The Comic Book Bin – An alternate comic news outlet which tends to be a bit more eclectic with what they write about. Indie creators and Canadian creators pop up quite often here.

MAKING FRIENDS

What’d I say about the importance of community? (Answer: It’s important.)

Forums are an ideal way to connect with peers and other like-minded individuals in the field of comic books. Assuming I don’t have to explain how networking can introduce you to contacts that later prove helpful in advancing your career, building connections can also open doors to swell collaborative projects. Everybody likes the dollars to value ratio of a good anthology.

The following websites are a sampling of some of the great comic-related forums populating cyberspace:

Digital Webbing, the  CBR Forums, and Concept Art all provide some excellent opportunities to talk comics with fellow aficionados.

Whitechapel – Warren Ellis’ personal circus of social banter. Filled with comic creators, comic fans, and people you would generally not leave your children alone with.

Canadian Geek – A website I’ve mentioned here before, Canadian Geek was founded by Jay Bardyla of Happy Harbor Comics and largely serves as a discussion board for Western Canadian comic creators.

LEARNING FROM THE PROS

Anything you’re trying to do has likely already been attempted, thought of, planned, or failed at by someone somewhere. Well….that sounds prohibitively cynical, so let’s instead say; whatever you are trying to do with comics, someone else probably has their own experiences with doing something similar.

Comic creators are all over the internets. Their chosen livelihood dictates they attempt to shamelessly pimp their art and ideas out through whatever means at their disposal, so it would actually be really counter-productive for one to maintain no webpresence at all.

Many of these individuals have blogs, sketchblogs, Twitter accounts, or deviantArt pages in which they often share peeks into their creative processes. Such insights can be invaluable to  those of us still struggling with finding our own roads to success.

Scott McCloud – I’ve talked amply about Mr. McCloud’s work, you’ve heard his name dropped time and time again; go check out what the creator of Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Zot! has been up to lately. I guarantee you’ll find it interesting.

Scott, obviously, isn’t the only comic creator who has a blog. A solid resource for blogs/websites maintained by Canadian comic creators can be found here at:

Links to Canadian Creators at the Shuster Awards Blog

Many comic creators can also be found on Twitter – the following two sites provide (incomplete) directories to some of the comic community voices in the Twittoverse.

The Twitter Comic Book Master List

and

List of Alternative Comic Creators and Publishers

EXPOSING YOURSELF

There are a number of ways to go about this. Here, we’re primarily concerned with methods that don’t land you any jail time. Ha! Zing!

Ok, I’m talking about getting yourself out there. Your art, your comics, your portfolio as a whole. There are a number of websites that are geared to the end of helping you get where you need to go.

Some of which are below:

illoz and deviantArt are both websites which allow users to essentially post their art portfolios for the world to see. Of the two, deviantArt has a decidedly more ’social networking’ flavor.

illustrationmundo.com – This site is a bit harder categorize. It’s a community-oriented that allows you to showcase your art, your blog, and your multimedia portfolio, and it’s also chock full of helpful features such as the ‘Ask a Pro’ section and an on-demand slideshow of illustration images from Flickr.

Project Wonderful – In website founder Ryan North’s own words, ‘Project Wonderful is an ad network that doesn’t suck’. PW offers adspace (often on comic-related websites) based on an auction-based system that emphasizes ad display time and location over the pay-per-click ad services you see elsewhere. Many successful webcomics advertise through Project Wonderful.

the Fabler – I warned you there would be a plug in here somewhere. Seriously though, the other section of the Fabler (not the section mostly filled with junk written by yours truly) exists to help comic creators gain exposure for their work. It’s the whole point of the Fabler – to make it easier for you to upload your comics, get them seen, and (hopefully) have some constructive dialogue about them. To find out more about the Fabler itself, I wholeheartedly recommend you check out this post by website founder Bruno Steppuhn.

Communist robots, Lunar terrorists and a modern Cenozoic age. These are just a handful of the thoughts swirling around in West Coast comic creator Simon Roy’s brain.

Still fairly new to the business of comic-making, Roy emerged on the national scene this past summer with the release of Jan’s Atomic Heart. The title, which Roy wrote and illustrated, was distributed by Vancouver’s New Reliable Press (for more from New Reliable, check out the Fabler’s Jason Turner interview!).

While the title might sound like the name of an eighties synth post-punk band, Jan’s Atomic Heart is actually a sci-fi thriller set in Germany in the distant future.

“It’s about a guy who gets caught up in a terrorist plot in the future,” says Roy, “I’ve had a variety of ways to sum it up, but that’s the most concise, I think.”

The individual Simon is referring to is the titular Jan, who is temporarily inhabiting a robot frame while his real body heals from a particularly nasty automobile accident.

The book follows Jan as he attempts to discover the mysterious significance his robot body has to a serious of terrorist attacks perpetuated on the UN by Lunar separatists.

So all of the elements of an insanely action-packed science fiction adventure are there, right? Cue explosions and exaggerated robot laser battles?

Roy could easily have taken this route with the title, but where Jan’s Atomic Heart shines is actually in its understated, realistic dialogue and soft-lined, poignantly simple artwork. The sincere, straightforward language exchanged by the characters of Jan’s Atomic Heart give it a depth not always present in sci-fi genre work.

Clearly something about the title has resonated with more than a few other comic fans – Jan’s Atomic Heart has been featured favourably on Comic Book Resources, Are You a Serious Comic Book Reader?, and a miscellany of other comic book blogs (such as this one, this one, and this one).

Not bad for a newcomer to comics. Roy credits the positive attitude of peers in the industry as being hugely encouraging in getting the comic out there.

“Everybody’s nice, everybody’s helpful, and everybody’s got something good to say,” says Roy, “It’s been really cool. I’m really impressed just by how friendly everybody is.

Roy, who is originally from Victoria, BC., had little to no experience with Canadian comic communities to speak of prior to his involvement with New Reliable Press. This is a fact he attributes in part to a lack of cohesive comic scene in Victoria (something Gareth Gaudin of Legends Comics has mentioned before on the Fabler Blog)

“I’ve always bought comics and read comics,” he says, “but you know I was never really motivated to even go as far as Vancouver (before doing Jan’s Atomic Heart). It’s been neat meeting all the different cartoonists across the country, and I’m starting to feel a little bit more like part of the community, which is nice.”

For Roy, making the leap from illustrating his ideas into fifty-six pages of comic goodness to actually publishing and distributing his work was a relatively painless process.

“I basically just sent it to Ed (Brisson, owner/operator of New Reliable Press), and he was impressed enough with it to take a risk and publish it. So that part of the publishing process  wasn’t too hard but from there on in it got a little more interesting – just designing all of the covers and the inside covers and, you know, going through different cover designs and trying to fit it more toward what would be appealing to have in the Diamond preview catalogue.”

If you thought the premise for Jan’s Atomic Heart was singularly unique, wait till you hear what Roy’s up to next.

Presently he’s working alongside Turkish artist Nemo Ramjet on a serious of collaborative illustrations based around the  idea of an alternate modern age.

“I’m doing watercolour illustrations,” says Roy, “and an artist that I met over the internet who lives in Istanbul (Ramjet) is doing cave painting versions of those. The art that we’re doing is kind of like, cave painting scenes from an alternate modern age where the dinosaurs didn’t die out and in fact grew to be intelligent.”

Roy explains that in 1982, a palaeontologist named Dale Russell made his own depiction of a ‘dinosauroid’, which is a hypothetical, uber-evolved form of dinosaur. Russel  used the Troodon, an actual dinosaur that lived 75 million years ago in Canada, as a base for the model due to its above average brain size.

“He made this hypothetical intelligent dinosaur look kinda like a scaly green dude,” says Roy, “and basically I met this Turkish artist because he had done a redesign of that. Instead of shaping it like a humanoid, he shaped it more like a dinosaur. I was very inspired by that, and started doodling in my spare time. As the doodling picked up steam, I sent some illustrations to him, and then we started collaborating.”

Roy says that the collaborative illustrations have been coming along at a steady pace, though as of yet they’re undecided on what they’d like to do with the finished products.

“Maybe a book, or something like that,” he speculates.

Somehow, Roy is managing to balance the above project with finishing his second year of the Design Program at Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, and he’s still actually finding the time to work on something else – a seven page story that he intends to submit to Heavy Metal upon its completion. He has a preview of the latter project on his Flickr account here.

When asked if he has any ‘dream franchises’ he’d like to work on in the future, he gives an unexpected response:

“This is going to sound strange, since I don’t really like drawing superhero style content, but the thing I’d like to draw the most would have to be a Dr. Doom story.  I think there’s a lot of cool places that could be gone with Dr. Doom that haven’t even been touched yet. Lots of fun post-soviet stuff with communist robots. It could really be a lot of fun.”

Click here for an in-depth, 22 page preview of Jan’s Atomic Heart. For more from Simon Roy, you can check out his blog and deviantArt.

By now, it’s likely you’ve already heard some of the buzz around Indy Comic Book Week. Though it was just announced a little over two weeks ago, the idea has gained rapid momentum in the comic community.

Word about ICBW has spread largely through Twitter, (using the hashtag #indycomicbookweek) and various blog sites which have taken up the torch to promote the idea.

For those of you who haven’t yet heard about Indy Comic Book Week, essentially it’s an event to promote the work of indy comic creators that will take place in the last week of December.

Diamond Comics has said that they won’t be distributing any new titles on Dec. 30th, the last Wednesday of the year.  A few clever fellows in the industry (Kyle Latino, Jake Ekiss, Vinh-Luan Luu, Paul Milligan and Matthew Warlick) saw this as a prime opportunity, and thought, who better to pick up Diamond’s slack than the grass-roots independent comic creators?

So on December 30th, ICBW is about indy creators lining the new release shelves of their local comic shops with original, locally created content. The comic shops gain a chance to make some revenue in an otherwise dry release week, consumers are treated with greater exposure to some of the non-mainstream comic flavour out there, and independent creators get their own week to promote themselves. Win all around.

We at the Fabler thought this week was such a swell idea that we decided to talk to Jake Ekiss, one of the minds behind ICBW, to find out more about it.

To start, we asked Jake to introduce himself for the benefit of those not familiar with his name or the work of Space-Gun Studios (the organization largely behind ICBW).

“I’m Jake Ekiss, and I’ve been an independent comic creator for about five years now. I started doing a twice weekly webcomic called Space-Gun with Vinh-Luan Luu. Once that was finished we transformed the webcomic into Space-Gun Studios a comic creator studio, added a few more guys to the roster (Evan Bryce, Matthew Warlick) and have been creating various independent comics ever since.”

The origin of ICBW goes back to an article by Kyle Latino that was being passed around which referred to the last week of December as ‘Deadline 09′. According to Jake, Edward Priddy of Hero Foundry passed along a call to arms for the event to Paul Milligan, another member of Space-Gun Studios. The idea struck Jake and the others as an opportunity worth getting behind, and Indy Comic Book Week was born out of a desire to support it.

“We thought it might be helpful to put together a website and blog to help promote the event as well as give creators a place to congregate,” says Ekiss, “Between there and Twitter the idea really started to get some wings. In the last two weeks we’ve officially gone national and have added some participating stores in North Carolina and Michigan.”

The ICBW team is based out of Dallas, TX., where they had originally enlisted the support of a solid slate of local comic shops. For those of you fellow canucks reading this, fear not! It’s just as easy up here to contact your local shop and ask if they’d like to participate.

Since Diamond is also the leading distributor of comics in Canada, the idea of a Comic Book Week designed to promote indie creators who don’t meet Diamond’s benchmark order requirements for shipping is just as relevant up North.

“This year was the perfect storm,” says Ekiss about the appeal of having such a week, “It came from Diamond’s benchmarks raising and some new distributers edging onto the scene in response, then culminated with some wonky UPS holidays that meant Diamond would skip a week of shipping in December.”

Jake makes it clear that ICBW is not meant as a jab at Diamond at all. While he acknowledges that Diamond does present barriers to independent comic creators looking at distributing outside of their local area, he notes that same barrier can become an asset after a comic has found some popularity on its own.

“We don’t want to thumb our noses at Diamond,” he says, “because they do provide a great service. By the same token that service tends to overshadow a lot of other great work that’s out there. This year is special in that we get to have that work, for however brief a time, take a front seat.”

In addition to the promotional support they’ve been receiving through peer networks like Twitter, ICBW has been rolling out press releases to as many news sites as possible. Ekiss says that word has been spreading in fits and starts, as they would have predicted from such a grass roots operation, but overall they’ve been quite pleased with the response they’ve seen.

“Strangely enough the response has been almost universally positive,” says Ekiss, “I was expecting the most resistance from retailers who know that they could be selling more copies of Spider-man than of some indy book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that across the board retailers are supporting the indy and local comic communities. Not one of the retailers we’ve directly contacted has said no. In fact when we’ve approached most shops we barely get through the explanation of what we’re doing before we hear a ‘yeah, we’re in’. It’s been really heart warming.”

Jeff will, of course, be contributing a little something himself to Indy Comic Book Week – an issue from his pulp space opera miniseries, Solomon Azua. The series follows ‘lucky’ galactic adventurer Solomon as he attempts to prove to the universe that he’s more than just a favoured son of lady fortune.

According to Ekiss; “There’s lots of nutty aliens, huge starships and fisticuffs while Sol himself is cut from from the classic vagabond scoundrel cloth. He’s one part Indiana Jones, one part Robin Hood, and one part Danny Ocean.”

For more about Jake Ekiss, you can check out his blog and deviantART page.

To learn more about Indy Comic Book Week, visit the website! If you’d like to help out, you can ask your local comic shops if they’d like to participate, and/or come up with a book of your own to feature on Dec 30th. For shops interested in being added to the contributors list, you can email indycomicbookweek [at] gmail.com. If you’d like to promote your submission for Indy Comic Book Week, you can apply to join their blog and post about it there.

Purveyor of quirky, imaginative comics; professional animator and illustrator; add ‘recently new resident of Montreal’ to this list of titles, and you would be describing the wonderfully talented artist Jordyn Bochon.

In addition to her own self-assembled and self-distributed works, Jordyn has had her comics published in several anthologies. It’s possible you could have seen her work in the You Aint No Dancer anthologies (vol.2 or 3) put out by New Reliable Press, or her comics (such as Dead Bird and The Day After V-Day) on the shelves of indie-friendly comic stores around the nation.

Her site, 8et8.net, is a great place to check out samples of her work and to get a solid all-around idea as to what Jordyn Bochon is all about. Or, reading the rest of this article would also probably give you a pretty good idea. You should probably do both, for best value.

Originally hailing from ‘exciting’ Edmonton, Alberta, Bochon relocated to Vancouver to pursue a Bachelor of Media Arts degree (majoring in Animation) from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. During this time, she became well acquainted with the indie comic scene out in Vancouver, which helped to fuel her interest in producing independent comic books.

After receiving her BA in 2007, Bochon took a year to help her partner Tim Carpenter finish his graduation film. The two relocated to Montreal just this past July.

The decision to move was made out of a desire for a new perspective and a fresh start in a different city. Plus, as Jordyn explains, it’s nice to be able to afford a studio space – something she couldn’t do in Vancouver.

Jordyn chatted with the Fabler about her motivations, aspirations, and the new age progressive rock band she’s hoping to get off the ground with Freddie Mercury.

The interview is below:

KD: Why are you an artist?

JB: I can’t really imagine my life any other way. It’s simply the way I think and communicate with the world around me. I don’t believe I ever woke up one morning with the ambition to be an artist (in terms of an identity), but I do wake up in the morning thinking about ideas I want to get down on paper, or exactly what I want to draw before I have to sleep again, or the guilt trip I lay on myself when I’m not productive enough. It’s my first reaction to the things I observe and feel; art really is a way of life.

KD: Can you remember when it was that you decided animation & illustration was what you wanted to do?

JB: Well, I’ve been drawing for a long time. I think I can’t actually say I’ve settled on specific career just yet. Once I finished my degree, and throughout the many long, sleepless, nights while finishing my grad film, I questioned whether animation, illustration, or comics were what I really want to do. I realized I was more interested in learning how to become a storyteller than any of those things. For me the medium is completely secondary to the idea, and I feel I have a lot of learning to do before I could be satisfied with where I am in that respect. But, as I said before, it’s always been the way I communicate. Particularly, drawing. Comics have become more important to me recently, perhaps I’m starting to gain confidence (comics are HARD).

KD: Where do you draw inspiration from for the character ‘regulars’ you employ in multiple comics? (ie., Lere, Finnegan – both recurring characters in Bochon’s comic and illustration work)

JB: Lere has been around for a very long time, 8 years. He’s grown up with me and has evolved into something completely different than what I started with. Finnegan is almost just as old, but I think he really started to take shape in my second year of post secondary. Both have aspects of myself, and I often twist weird things that happen in my life into working for their worlds.

It’s a mix of my own extremes, fears, and obsessions jammed together with the observations I make about what’s going on around me. I often think that Finnegan is all of the terrible things that have ever happened to me in my life, and Lere is what I would like to be if I were a super hero or some kind of historical figure. Oh, what charisma!

KD: Who do you credit as having inspired your artistic style?

JB: It depends on what I’m working on. At the moment, I’m really into Slavic Folk art, like Ivan Biliban or Viktor Vasnetsov. In terms of comics I’m drawn towards a lot of the people who are currently working in the field like Farel Dalrymple, Kazimir Strzepek, Brandon Graham, Joann Sfar, and Gipi, to name a few. Also, I watch Miyazaki films a lot. A LOT.  I tend to have a movie in when I’m working. I watch of a lot of period drama (I have no idea why).

KD: What are some things you’re working on right now?

JB: Lere and Finnegan are from two large stories that I’ve been developing for some time. The ambition is to get these into graphic novel format, though, I’ve been pretty critical about getting the main plot points solid enough before taking the plunge and drawing these monster stories. I think with both I’m at the point where I just need that last push to get going. Up until now most of my comics have been one-shots, which isn’t actually true to what I want to do. It all comes in small steps, I suppose.

Also, Tim Carpenter and I are currently developing a new film project. This is in the very early stages, so there’s not much to say about it. I hope it’s as ridiculously beautiful as we want it to be.

KD: What’s been the extent of your experience self-publishing comics?

JB: I got my start with small time comics when I was in high school. I joined up with a group or people who mostly knew each other through the internet. It’s amazing, because the first three books I was part of were actual, perfect-bound, books. NOW, I’m doing the photocopy and staple technique. So far the experience has been very rewarding. Every new print run gets a little smoother, the designs and work get incrementally sharper, and I learn more about getting it out there for people to read.

I’ve also been lucky to be part of a few anthologies which print the work for you (it’s a little less stressful when you only have to worry about getting your comic done). In the end, it’s all for the love of comics in print; so everything is a reward. Recently, I found out that one of my books from 2008, “The Day After V-day”, was nominated for the Gene Day Award along with fellow Vancouver nominee, Miriam Libicki of Jobnik. That was extremely humbling.

You meet a lot of amazing, dedicated, beautiful people in this community. We’re all here doing what we love because we have things to contribute and, hopefully, are looking for things to learn from each other. Oh, it’s sweat, blood and tears and it’s a good day if you break even; but, we all know this.

KD: What do you think is the most challenging part about ‘getting your work out there’ when you’re self-publishing comic books in Canada? Do you have any advice about how to approach that challenge?

JB: It’s a growing community, but it’s also still a small one. I think it is important to be part of the effort locally. Go to you’re own city’s cons and bookstores. Find a way to organize events that get these independent publishers and artists together. It’s cool if you can afford to go to all of the big deal cons, but I think as long as you work on improving your craft, people will find you. It’s a slow process, and it’s true that not all comic book stores are open to bringing independent work into their racks, but I think if you’re serious about it, and stick it out, things slowly come around.

Also, shop around for printing! When I did my very first zine with fellow artist Colleen MacIsaac, we went to a name brand printer (you know which one I’m talking about… it starts with a K) and spent a fortune on photocopying. In the end, the place across the street, though not quite as fancy in terms of staff uniforms, charged way less and didn’t add fees when you used their equipment. Chances are, there is an artist co-op in your city that will offer you information and workshops about self-publishing, your community, and even have tools for you to use! That’s the best way to get started. Since I just moved to a new city, that’s what I’m doing all over again. It’s an adventure.

KD: If you could meet any three people, living or dead, who would they be and why?

JB: HMMM. THIS IS A HARD QUESTION. First, I would want to meet my Great, Great, Aunt, who apparently ran naked with the wolves during every full moon (in the old country) because I’ve heard this tale since I was very little and think I would probably get along with her. After that I would want to meet Merlin the wizard, because-come on- if we’re talking about raising the dead I’m sure we can get some fictional dead in here. We would probably make some neat comics together and I think it’s unfair I was born without supernatural wizard powers. Merlin would hook me up. Lastly, my Naked-Wolf-Aunty, Merlin, and I would pick up Freddie Mercury, my spirit guide, and we’d start a new-age progressive rock band. That would be absolutely grand!

Truth be told, I think all of the people I would like to meet are not the type to hang out with some random artist from 2009, so rather than taint the image I have of them in my mind, because it would totally end in a knife fight, I would rather not meet them at all.

Well answered, Jordyn. Well answered. For more from Jordyn Bochon, you can check out her website, Twitter feed, and sketch journal.

Kate Beaton is in the business of making history funny.

Well – history, MS Paint, mermaids, her younger self, and a handful of beloved fictional characters. (Among other things.)

Kate is the creator/writer/illustrator of Hark! A Vagrant, a webcomic series that caters to those with a more… shall we say… refined taste in cartooning.

If you haven’t heard of Hark! A Vagrant, not only are you missing out on something ridiculously awesome, but you’re fast becoming part of a dwindling minority. Hark! A Vagrant has been making waves in webcomics since its debut back in 2007, earning much-deserved praise from news sources as diverse as Maclean’s, Wired, Comic Book Resources, and (most recently) Halifax weekly newspaper The Coast.

As the above comic would suggest, Beaton’s trademark style of humour largely involves pitting well-known characters from history and fiction into unlikely and almost always snicker-worthy situations.

Armed with a history degree herself (earned at New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University) as well as a sharp, sardonic wit and a knack for finding the silliness in pretty well anything, Beaton draws comics that anyone could find entertaining.

Her comics are also rich with Canadian content;  many of the historical figures who cameo in Hark! A Vagrant are borrowed from the annals of the Great White North – a fact that, surprisingly, doesn’t adversely affect her American readership at all.

Beaton’s familiarity with Canadian identity goes significantly beyond what she’s learned from history books. The self-identified Maritimer has lived in five provinces across the nation – she grew up in Nova Scotia, went to school in New Brunswick, worked in both Alberta and BC, and drew her webcomic full time in Ontario.

She recently moved back from Ontario to Halifax, where she’s presently working an administrative job in a museum  in addition to keeping her comic regularly updated.

Kate caught up with The Fabler Blog from her home in Halifax to chat about her early inspirations, how success has changed her life, and what she did to make her grade 6 teacher cry.

The interview is below:

KD: Hi Kate! So, you’re back in Halifax, working at a museum again – what can you tell me about the new job?

KB: Well,  I wanted to take something on because I’d been doing just cartooning for over a year and there comes a point where you miss the routine of having a regular job where somebody sets your hours and you have something to set your watch by. And also a workplace where you can talk to other people – to feel like you’re part of the real world, I suppose.

KD: As I understand it, you’ve been doing comics for a long time now – since substantially farther back than when you first started publishing Hark! A Vagrant online back in 2007.

What was the earliest comic you can remember drawing?

KB: When we were in grade 6, a friend and I drew comics about our teacher and made her cry. They were pretty mean. Well, they were made by someone in grade six, so they were idiotic for one thing, but also probably unnecessarily cruel. When you don’t know how to tell a joke yet you just call someone stupid and belittle them in a way that’s really base because that’s all you know.

We would draw her like, farting, or things like that. Solid gold elementary school.

KD: What kind of comics did you read, growing up?

KB: We only had newspaper comics, so Calvin and Hobbes, Foxtrot, that sort of thing. The library had older Peanuts and Garfield collections, which were actually pretty funny.

KD: Addressing Hark! A Vagrant more directly, I’d guess one of the reasons behind how popular it’s gotten is just how creative and original the content is.

Take, for example, your historical comics – a lot of people wouldn’t have seen a comic that puts that kind of spin on history before.

What do you think it is that appeals to people about a webcomic that mixes history and humour?

KB: Well, I’m certainly not the first to mix history and humour. Things like Black Adder and Larry Gonick’s A Cartoon History of the Universe have been around for a really long time.

I think that people who like history definitely get something extra out of reading the history comics. It’s almost like an in-joke, how it can be rewarding when there’s something that speaks to you and what you’re especially interested in.

Then there’s a lot of people who tell me, “I don’t get all of the references, but I like (the comics) anyway”. Sometimes you get people who look it up when they’re not familiar with the subject, and wind up appreciating it more. There are also people who don’t like doing that, and they sometimes don’t like the comic.

I really like doing them, and I think it shows when you enjoy something – I think it comes through to the reader, even if it is a little esoteric.

KD: If you could have your readers take one thing away from your webcomic, what would that one thing be? I guess I could also ask this question as, ‘what is the Kate Beaton agenda?’

KB: (laughs) Well that’s funny, because I never started making comics with a large audience in mind. I started making them for myself and my friends, just because they were something I wanted to do. I just hoped other people would also like them, and that’s all it ever was. I don’t really have an agenda.

KD: What are the biggest ways that you feel your life has changed since finding success with Hark! A Vagrant?

KB: Oh, it’s changed in a lot of ways. I’m not really sure what I would be doing now if I didn’t have the comics thing going on. I planned on going farther with the museum work in the long run, but now I probably won’t because the job opportunities aren’t dazzling. Comics have given me a new trajectory.

Also, I’ve met a lot of amazing people, and like-minded people that are really great pleasures to be around.

I used to draw all the time, and basically quit when I finished University. I started doing it again for fun a few years later, and now that I’m doing it all the time, it really feels comfortable.

KD: Everyone has a vice that they distract themselves with when there’s something they know they should be working on. For some people it’s Twitter, or Wikipedia, while others might turn to gaming as a tool to procrastinate.

Do you have a time-wasting vice of your own?

KB: Oh yeah, sure – the internet. Definitely Wikipedia, but I’m also one of those people who’ll compulsively read through snippets of books on Google Books. Though they don’t let you read more than just the stupid snippets, and it’s really annoying when you just get to the good part and it tells you ‘pages 38-50 are not available in this book preview’.

If I find something interesting in a Google book, I’ll go and look for other resources on the subject. Once you get on a tangent, it’s awful – unless you’re very focused, the internet can be a terrible place for that.

KD: What webcomics by other artists have you been reading lately?

KB: Oh some regulars for sure. Octopus Pie, Anders Loves Maria, A Softer World, Dinosaur Comics, Pictures for Sad Children… I could go on and on – there’s lots. Scott Campbell’s work on Double Fine Action Comics. Oh, and Loyalty and Liberty – a webcomic about the American Revolution starring cats! I think it’s great, because it’s insane. Whoever’s drawing it knows everything about the outfits and puts the right hats on the right people in insane detail, but they’re all cats. Look it up.

For more from Kate Beaton, check out Hark! A Vagrant and Kate’s Livejournal. She also has a book published collecting some of her best comics from 2007 to early 2009 that you can buy from TopatoCo.