July 2012
City: Columbus, Ohio
Comics: Drink More Water, Three to Four, Thirty-Four
Websites: www.flyingweevil.com
QRD – How old were you when you first got into comics & did you always stick with them or did you come back to them?
Chris – I’ve always liked comics. Sunday comics & Saturday morning cartoons are what I started with. I’ve always made art of one kind or another & whenever I was drawing I would make comic-like drawings without realizing it. In my late 20s I decided I was going to make comics for the rest of my life & when I looked back I realized had been making comics the whole time.
QRD – What was the first comic book you ever bought?
Chris – The first comics I read thoroughly were little paper back collections of Wizard of Id comic strips. My mom had three or four of them, I read them over & over.
QRD – How old were you when you put out your first comic?
Chris – I put out my first comic, The Test, in 2008 when I was 30 years old.
QRD – Why comics instead of just writing or drawing?
Chris – I like write & to make art of any kind whenever it is necessary, but I prefer comics as the main form because of its ability to communicate ideas so easily.
QRD – How many copies of your comic do you print in your first run?
Chris – I’ve printed as low as ten & as much as 100 of the first run of mini-comics that I make myself. I recently self-published a large collection of journal comics called “Drink More Water” & had 1,000 copies printed.
QRD – Do you think stories should be serialized or delivered as complete works?
Chris – I think that there is an interesting difference between complete stories & stories that are serialized. One of the obvious benefits is that if someone is getting paid for a serialized story they will be motivated to continue it & finish it, maybe more so than somebody who is trying to write a complete story & not knowing whether it’s going to get published or not. Both forms can be amazing & both forms can be terrible.
QRD – What do you do better with your comics now than when you first started?
Chris – I had a drawing instructor suggest at one point in time that instead of drawing with a pencil I just use a pen, so I started doing that & my line work became more & more controlled & precise over the years. A lot of the comics I make I draw with a pen & therefore my control & precision continues to improve, which is my goal, to improve my writing my artwork over time.
QRD – At what point in the artistic process do you work digitally?
Chris – I scan my comics after they are drawn to post as webcomics, sometimes I color things & touch things up in Photoshop.
QRD – What do you think of digital comics & webcomics?
Chris – I prefer hand-drawn comics & hand-written letters; but, as with anything, if the content is exceptional I can over look certain aesthetic qualities.
QRD – Do you prefer working in color or black & white?
Chris – I prefer black & white, but also like color.
QRD – How do you find collaborators?
Chris – They are delivered to me as I am delivered to them, by chance of good fortune & the certainty of the cosmos.
QRD – What comic book person would you be most flattered to be compared to?
Chris – If somebody unknowingly compared me to myself.
QRD – What do your friends & family think of your comics?
Chris – I have a good response from everybody, but my family won’t read some of them due to the content which contains boobs, penises, cussing, drug stuff, weird stuff, stuff that doesn’t really talk about god too much & sex fantasies & self-pleasurization.
QRD – What do you think of superheroes?
Chris – They’re super & they’re heroes & most of them are on the same level as Ronald McDonald commercially & that is annoying to me, but I kind of like some of them anyway.
QRD – Marvel or DC?
Chris – DC, I guess... Batman & Superman.
QRD – What comic characters other than your own would you like to work with?
Chris – The Simpsons comics, I would love to write. & I’m a huge fan of Futurama & would love to write them too, but for some reason I especially would love to write Simpsons comic strips. I’ve actually already written one & in my opinion it is very funny.
QRD – Ideally would you self-publish?
Chris – If I could make a living only self-publishing, yes. Both would be great, it would be an honor to be published by some of the companies that publish my favorite comic authors’ works.
QRD – What conventions do you try to attend & why?
Chris – I’m just now starting to figure that out, I guess as many as possible.
QRD – What do you do to promote your books?
Chris – I’m figuring that out now also, it’s all web-based at this point outside of comic book conventions.
QRD – Do you think your comics are well suited to comic shops or would sell better elsewhere?
Chris – I think they are better suited for a comic shop because they are comic books, but don’t really know otherwise. It’s definitely not suited for a Christian thrift store or an outdoor apparel store.
QRD – What other medium would you like to see some of your comics made into (television, film, games, action figures, etc.)?
Chris – Short films & mini-series.
QRD – Do you consider yourself a comic collector or a comic reader or both?
Chris – I’m a little bit of both.
QRD – What would you like to see more people doing with comics?
Chris – I think that educational-type books in the comic format would be beneficial.
