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04 February 2016
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by David Daneman
Denmark’s favourite cartoonist sits down to discuss her current work.
by David Daneman
One man’s pursuit of self has never been so well documented before.
PATREON
by Jack Conte Patronage of artists has been around for a long time, but Jack Conte wants to bring it to the 21st century..
WEBTOON vs. TAPASTIC by Michael Son
Readers are fortunate to have so many choices between comics websites, but which is the best?
TWITTER ADVICE by Christopher Grady
Building and maintaining a large group of Twitter-followers can be crucial to running a success IP. Our experts explain some of the best practices.
LIVESTREAMING by Diogo Dornelles
If you’ve ever wanted to watch your favourite artists work, then you should know about livestreaming.
FEBRUARY 2016 - 3
“The basic politics for my webcomic is that I do whatever the fuck I want to.”
‘Fail by Error’ is a webcomic about the ugly truth. Its creator, Min Christensen, discusses the look and themes of her work.
INTERVIEW By David Daneman
M
in Christensen is pursuing a BA in graphic-storytelling at the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. In 2015, her webcomic ‘Fail by Error’ was nominated for the Pingprisen Award for Best Danish Webcomic. 4 - COMIC BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR DAVID: English is not your first language. I know where you are from, but perhaps you’d like to tell the people at home. Where you are from, Min?
ORIGIN OF THE TITLE DAVID: Let’s talk about comics. Do you mind?
MIN: Let’s talk about comics. MIN: I’m from Denmark and it’s not a city in DAVID: So, do you make comics? Sweden. It’s like a country by itself. It’s just next to Sweden and just above Germany MIN: Well, I go to an art school where the and underneath Norway education is about making comics. And of course, there’s also my webcomic, which is DAVID: You’re in sort of a Germanyprobably the thing we are talking about Norway sandwich? MIN: If Denmark was something you could eat, I don’t think it’d be very tasty. It would taste like...
DAVID: What is your webcomic? MIN: Fail by Error
DAVID: Fish?
DAVID: Fail by Error?
MIN: ..mud and disappointment.
MIN: Yeah, on Tapastic. DAVID: Can I give you a hard time?
Illustration: all rights © Min Christensen 2016
Min Christensen
MIN: Yes. Give me a hard time. DAVID: What’s the title all about? MIN: The title is actually a joke on something I mispronounced. I’m very good at mispronouncing things. At first, I was planning on calling my webcomic “Fail by Trial.” You know, you learn something when you make mistakes which was what my webcomic was going to be about.
mood I wanted to set into the panels, which is what colours usually do. They create an extra mood and make a comic strip extra appealing. Colouring with shading and all can take an hour or two. DAVID: Per panel? MIN: No, just per strip. DAVID: Oh, okay. Per strip!?
MIN: Yeah.
MIN: Yeah, per strip. I don’t know if that’s a long time, but I enjoy just giving myself enough time to colour and do everything so that it turns out as I wanted it to.
DAVID: Ok.
DAVID: You probably know this already,
DAVID: “Fail by Trial?”
MIN: And then when I was trying to say it, I said “Fail by Error” and I was like “Oops, that’s not what I was supposed to say” but I then I was like “That’s such a good title! I’ll take that!” So, it was kinda a mistake.
A FULL-COLOUR ‘FAIL BY ERROR’ COMIC STRIP.
DAVID: You made a mistake, naming it “Trial by Error?” MIN: “Fail by Trial,” I think. DAVID: Okay, originally, the title was going to be ‘Fail by Trial’ but you made a mistake, said ‘Fail by Error’
MIN: I’ve been listening to a lot of your other podcasts, and everyone has been saying their style was simple, so I will probably also call my style simple too. I think a simple style is very suitable to a webcomic since it is something that people want to read fast and then go on to the next episode.
MIN: I think that depends, since sometimes when I am drawing a strip, I don’t really have any plans for what I wanted to do with the colours or what
DAVID: “The Ugly Truth.” MIN: Yeah. DAVID: I was going to say menstruation is a theme. You have at least four or five menstruation strips and that’s “truth.” Some people might say “the ugly truth,” but I’ll leave that to other people to say. There’s a lot of puking, and I think there’s at least one strip where you had diarrhea.
MIN: That was a nasty episode. I had a lot of plums and then my roommate told me that I shouldn’t be eating all of those plums because I will get a bad case of diarrhea and I was like “but these are so tasty! I haven’t had these for so long.” And then I got very bad stomach cramps and I had to go to the toilet and spent the rest of the evening on the toilet just *TBBPTH* all over the place.
DAVID: For a moment, I like to talk about what the comic looks like. Do you have anything you want to say about the look of your comic?
DAVID: Yeah, I love your full colour strips, but I understand that it takes a lot more time. What’s the difference in time between like a black and white strip and a full colour strip?
MIN: One theme is probably “grossness,” but also, maybe truth or sincerity. A lot of the things that happens in the webcomic are things that happen in real life and I don’t really cut anything out to make it look prettier. Maybe sometimes I make it look extra funny than it is in real life, but I never really make it more pretty, so it’s “the gross, real life.”
DAVID: The plums one?
THE LOOK OF THE COMIC
MIN: But I will also say that ‘Fail by Error’ is filled with expression in my style and also full of volume and it’s not too flat and when I want to spend time on it, it’s also very colourful.
DAVID: Now, you do whatever the fuck you want to, but there are certainly themes. I see a couple of different themes. So what would you say are the themes in your comics?
MIN: Yeah, yeah. There was.
MIN: And then I was like “it’s such a good title” and also it says a lot about how I can’t really pronounce anything.
DAVID: Yeah, that’s interesting.
THEMES IN WRITING
DAVID: Did you make that sound? That was incredible. MIN: Thank you. DAVID: If this whole cartooning thing doesn’t work out, you might have a career in sound effects. Φ but you are a fantastic colourist. MIN: Thank you. DAVID: Another thing about your strips I’ve noticed is, they can be one-panel, they can be two... they go all over the place in terms of length. MIN: Yeah, they kinda do. I don’t really have any planned length in general for my webcomic. The basic politics for my webcomic is that I do whatever the fuck I want to. So, the pacing and then length can kinda vary.
Min’s comics can be found on Tapastic and Tumblr. Her personal website is min-christensen.com where examples of her comics, illustrations and character design can be seen. When she’s not making comics, she can probably be found on the wrong bus. FEBRUARY 2016 - 5
INTERVIEW
Selfie By David Daneman
I
n 2006, David Daneman accidentally invented the least marketable comic strip in comic history. “The DaneMen” are made from manipulated photographs, void of dialogue, and have only one character. Despite this, David claims to have had some success.
TALKING TO HIMSELF DAVID: Wow. This is weird. DANE: Tell me about it. DAVID: Well, let’s just try and ignore it. So... what would you like me to call you? DANE: I think you’d better call me ‘Dane’ otherwise the good people may get confused. DAVID: Certainly. So, Dane, tell me about your webcomic. DANE: My comic is called ‘The DaneMen’ and I publish two strips a week for Naver Webtoon. DAVID: Webtoon? What do you think about them? DANE: Webtoon has been a great experience. I’ve gotten to spend the last year of my life making cartoons, and for that, I will always be grateful. DAVID: Sure...but what I guess I mean is, what do you think about the website? COMICS: (above) ‘Old’s Cool’ ©2009 and (page 7) ‘Brush with the Law’ ©2015
DANE: Ah. Well, certainly, it’s not the most beautiful website on the Internet for comics-publishing, but they are the only one that I know that is paying artists the way that they are. DAVID: That’s a bummer. But you said it’s not the most beautiful site, which is in your opinion? DANE: I still have a very soft spot in my heart for Tapastic. DAVID: What is your relationship with Tapastic?
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Illustration: all rights © David Daneman 2016
DANE: Tapastic and I go way back. Back in 2012, when they were just starting to set up, I was contacted in order to provide them some comics. DAVID: And these days? DANE: Well, one of the things about my deal with Webtoon is that I can’t publish anywhere else. So, at the moment, I am not putting any comics up on Tapastic, but I do promote my podcast over there.
TALKING TO OTHER PEOPLE DAVID: Your podcast? DANE: Yeah, I started a podcast about five months ago where I talk to other webcomics artists. It’s called the ‘Podcomics Webcast.’ DAVID: Who have you talked to so far? DANE: I’ve done ten interviews so far, all people who publish on Tapastic, a few from Webtoon. Let’s see... um, Shen, Min from ‘Fail by Error’, Megan McKay of ‘Doodle for Food’ and Jeremy Kaye from ‘Up and Out’ to name a few. It’s already been a really great experience. DAVID: How so? DANE: Well, to be perfectly honest, I get really jealous of other cartoonists, of their success, and one of the best things about the podcast is that after I talk to them, I realize that they are just people too, and that their success is not something that they could control if they wanted to, so... I guess what I mean is that
there’s no reason for me to be jealous.
LOOKING FORWARD DAVID: What are your plans for 2016? DANE: Oh... well, in May, I will graduate from VCC’s graphic design program and I hope to seamlessly transition to some sort of a job in that area. DAVID: How about comics-related plans? DANE: I really want to run a successful kickstarter campaign for a small collection of comics. In August, I am going to Boston Comic Con to meet a lot of the same people that have been on the podcast. DAVID: Thanks so much for talking with me. DANE: No problem. It wasn’t nearly as weird as I thought it might be. Φ
David works full time for Naver Webtoon and studies digital graphic design at Vancouver Community College. He lives with his wife and zero dogs and is slowly losing his hair. The Podcomics Webcast can be found on SoundCloud and iTunes. FEBRUARY 2016 - 7
THERE ARE BEERS
AND THEN THERE ARE
BEERS
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