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How to Write Real Girls
and Take Your Work Seriously

an interview with William G.

Q: I think the best part of watching you attain what relative degree of success you have in recent months, for me personally, is knowing how calm and smart you've been about the webcomics thing from the start. You never made promises you couldn't keep, you never made an embarrassing post suddenly bemoaning the lack of donations to your cause, and you never pouted because Hollywood hadn't contacted you yet. You just posted your webcomics as soon as they satisfied you, and you asked what people thought, and then you got to work on more. Now that you're finally getting some of the attention you deserve, is there a sense of "Ha ha, I KNEW this would happen!" or is it a shock for you? I'm leaning more toward the former, myself.
 

G.: Truth be told, I feel that I still have long climb up the "Mountain Of Webcomic Notables" ahead of me. Getting mad props from highly respectable people like (Name-dropping, begin!) Scott McCloud, Derek Kirk Kim, Amy Ganter, HS Kim, Joe Zabel, and that adorable Mike M... I love it when that happens!

But I try to keep some perspective about it. The last thing the internet needs is another egotistical asshole who thinks his contributions to the internet will go down as classics of western culture. I know that no matter how respected or well known I may or may not become, the things I create will vanish with time. I'm simply a guy who makes comics the best he knows how. And if others like it as well, then I'm satisfied.

Of course, an ass-load of money would be just as, if not more, satisfying.

Q: There's a tasteful but undeniable manga influence in your work. How much of that is out of artists you really enjoy and respect, and how much of that is simply from living in Korea, where I have to imagine you've been surrounded by the stuff.

G.: I'll get the major influences list out of the way right now: Herge, Goscinny and Uderzo, Osamu Tezuka, Akira Toriyama, and Lynn Johnston. I feel that these artists and their influences on my work is pretty obvious when you look at it. However, I feel that art-wise, my work is more European than Japanese, and I feel uncomfortable when I get grouped in with the manga crowd. Not that I think it's all bad, I just don't think that I'm working that way. I have always admired shojou manga artists and their willingness to let the emotions play out in the story at their own pace. I do that as well, and I feel that's where the manga influence you speak of can be found in my work. But being in Asia has opened my eyes to just how many completely shitty pieces of manga there are. I'd have to place it at about 90%, which is funny; because that's also the same percentage I give for shitty American and European comics. Maybe I'm just hard to please.

Q: Your site covers your experiences in Korea pretty well, but for the uninitiated William G. fan-to-be, go ahead and give a general impression of the place.

G.: Y'know, I'm in the process of removing that stuff from my site. I'm just not in that place anymore. Plus, I want to focus on the comics.

But, I was interviewed by a Masters Degree student who was writing her graduate paper about the Korean experience. She interviewed me for about three hours, and after I left, I remembered a million other things to tell her. There's really no simple way to describe it. Teaching English in Korea (and the rest of the world, for that matter) shows you exactly the sort of person you are. It allows some people to be the sort of person they couldn't be back home. Maybe because of their position in society, or because of the economic situation, or whatever. For others, it shows the world just what sort of total asshole they are. Thankfully, the asshole English teachers in Korea are a minority. They're an extreme minority, but a minority none the less.

I realize that my site does come across as a bit negative about it, but those write-ups are about the negative events that occurred to me. I could write some glowy, mushy stuff like, "I picked up Tony and wiped his tears away. I tried to tell him that Karen didn't really hate him, but I lacked the Korean and he lacked the English skills to do so. And how do you get that across to a five year old, anyway?" but the thing is, "And then the kid jammed his fingers into the crack of my ass." is a lot funnier.

Q: I have to think then, since you went back to Korea, you found that being the "person you are" wasn't so bad. Would it be prying to ask you who you thought that person was, and perhaps, why you couldn't be that person at home? I know you're a little private, by internet standards.

G: I did try the open-book thing in regards to my private life when I started on my web career, but some of those previously mentioned ex-pat assholes used the information I provided to cyber-stalk me last year. Now I try to keep the personal information I give out on the web to a minimum. There are too many psychos out there.

As for the guy I discovered I am... I discovered that I am a comic artist first and foremost. Being respectfully employed has never changed that. It's just that now I'm a comic artist with a job in Korea.

Q: Has the internet become an outlet for all the repressed exhibitionism TV has been inspiring and fostering in people for decades, now?

G.: I think it's part of it. Add in the idea that any jackass with a website can have followers, and thus have someone to play to, along with living in a culture of "Personal responsibility is for chumps", and it becomes easy to get out of control.

Q: It's funny, because it used to be that human contact was this precious thing that you'd be an idiot to pass up, and now it's maybe a little too common. You probably want to get away from everybody every now and then, don't you?

G.: Democracy doesn't always work for the best.

Q: Not that I disagree, but I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate on that one...

G.: Well, I'm going to have to qualify that a bit. The internet isn't really a democracy like some claim it to be.

Democracy is a form of government that requires a lot of work and participation from the people to work properly. That less than half of all eligible voters in Canada and USA vote, is a bad thing. It allows immoral people, and groups who have goals that go contrary to the greater good, to take over the government. Not that I'm saying that this has happened recently... *AHEMfloridaHEM*... but even the most casual student of history can tell you that Hitler was elected.

The internet is more like an example of what happens in an anarchistic society. When it started out, people cooperated, and worked together to make it a better place for themselves. As more people got involved with it, the natural monkey desires of us humans took over, and we started bashing and attacking others so we could get ahead.

Unfortunately, because the web is now a big money maker, these bashing sorts will always be catered to. An ISP will never block web access to one of those drooling idiots, because they're paying for the bandwidth.

This is a bad thing. Speaking of idiots, one of them has lost me my access to my blog. It seems that this person decided to make some "comedy" about the recent beheading of a Korean national. In a typical bit of post 9/11 overreaction, the Korean government has blocked all Blogger and Typepad blogs. I can update my blog, but I can't view what I just posted unless I go through a proxy.

See, as guys like this, as well as the hackers, trolls, and spammers, continue to act in the way they are, the general public will be allowing the government to step in and take control of the web more and more. The days of anyone being able to get on the web are numbered because these guys don't have an ounce of self-control.

Q: Do you think your time as an alien to an alien culture has helped you appreciate the subtleties of human interactions more? This is a particularly significant question in light of IAG's focus on exactly that.

G.: It's possible that this happened subconsciously, but I've always been more of an observer of human interaction than a participant. I do find the endless social game that the majority of people engage in to be both fascinating to watch, and tiresome to participate in. Not that I'm saying that I dislike normal social interactions, I enjoy a good night out with good people like everyone, but I am a bit of a lone-wolf by nature. I can't do it every weekend. Of course, getting into my mid-thirties may have something to do with it. When I do wind up at a club, I'm always thinking, "I wonder if they'll play some Run-DMC for me?"

I think it's an artist thing. We observe life, and then through our art, we let the world know how we see it. I'm just doing the same with It's About Girls and the other works on my site, like everyone else.

Q: Tell me about the differences you see between Western and Eastern style comics.

G.: First off, let's be clear on our subject. I'm going to talk about the comics from Japan and America specifically.

Stylistically, American comics are all modified Kirby and all Japanese comics are modified Tezuka. But other than that, I see few differences. Manga junkies like to talk about how manga does everything right, but the simple truth is that the top manga are every bit as derivative as the top comic books back home. It's all about beating someone up while having half-dressed eye-candy hanging around. The only real difference is in editorial policy. There are two important things they do right over here.

First: While manga companies will bleed a trend dry, they are always willing to jump on a new trend when it comes along. A few years ago, they saw that the kids were really into those Pokemon-type "fighting monster" games, and it wasn't long before the kid comic magazines were full of monster fighting comics. As well, if they see that adults are paying close attention to matters of war, adult comic magazines will start producing more war themed comics.

To me, this is just common business sense. And it's something that Marvel, DC and the rest lost grasp of in their rush to whore themselves out to the speculators back in the 80s and 90s. Now they're so desperate to cling on to those few fans they didn't alienate that they will never be willing to take the risks to pursue new trends like the Japanese publishers will.

I touched upon the second thing they do right in Japan, and that's in producing comics for different age groups. Some may argue that Vertigo, and the poorly done Marvel Max are "Adult" comics, but a lot of these comics are not adult because they're written for teenaged boys. When serious adults look at them and see nothing more than blood-soaked/ nude version of what they read as kids, they fail to gain an interest in pursuing comics again. For every "Dykes To Watch Out For" you got a hundred "Lobo"s, and no matter how well written those hundred Lobos may or may not be, no one outside of the typical fan will give a damn.

And really, no one is making kid comics anymore that doesn't involve selling stuff. It's like being a cigarette company, you need to get 'em young so you can secure future readers. Of course, cigarette companies are run by human garbage and I'm not comparing the big publishing to them. That would be unfair. The cigarette companies know what they're doing.

In Japan, they would never allow a potential market to get away from them like they have back home. So they're always making age group and gender oriented comics. I wont lie: They're making brainless crap for those markets, but at least they have those markets. American companies have nothing. If you were to multiply the number of comic fans who go to San Diego every year by ten, you'd still have a miniscule market.

The big American publishers dropped the ball, and they dropped it big time. The problem is that they haven't realized that the game is over and everyone has gone home.

Q: God, have you seen the previews for this new Cat Woman movie?

G.: I will not have any false Catwomen before the puurrfect Julie Newmar!

Q: In the development stages of It's About Girls, I remember you spent some time really thinking about how much nudity and what kind would be acceptable, and effective for the story. It kind of ran together with this flurry of accusations surrounding the launch of Girlamatic...so my question is, do you think there's anything inherently sexist about a man drawing a naked woman? What if it was for porn?

G.: Well, if there was a problem with a man drawing a naked woman, then Picasso was a dirty pervert. The naked body has always been a part of art, and comics are art. And, forgive my bluntness, anyone who thinks otherwise is a jackass. My internal debate about it was about the tone I wanted to set for my comic where the human body was concerned. I finally settled on the idea that under our clothes, we're all naked. It's not that big of a deal.

As for porn comics: Porn is for jerking off. Most men jerk off over naked women, so it seems to me that both go hand in hand. Pardon the pun. Women do the same, so I see no reason for controversy.

Q: Do you think Icon is really all that iconic? He's clearly supposed to be a point of entry for the reader into your story, but you don't portray him in the best light. The result for me is that while I empathize with him, I feel like an idiot for doing so sometimes.

G.: You know, it's been so long since I created Icon, that I have no idea why I chose his name. I do know that I did create him not too long after Understanding Comics came out, so Joe may be entirely right about it in his review. I was thinking of saying that it's short for "Iconoclast" one of these days.

We've all been taught by TV that a character should have no real flaws, and if they do have flaws, they should be cutely portrayed. For example, Archie Bunker was a bigot. But he was written in such a way to suggest that his bigotry was amusing instead of dangerous like it is in the real world. Even how Joe Matt has portrayed himself in his comics is a lot more cutesy than I bet it would be in real life. I never met the guy, so I have no idea, but to me that all rings false. To me, Icon's "warts" are what truly make him iconic. It's same with the rest of the characters on my site, even the Grape. I want to make characters that resemble us as we are, not us as we wish we were. Hollywood is does the second so well, that I don't see a need for me as a comic artist to do the same.

Humans are complex creatures and yet we've been taught that this complexity is bad somehow. That's idiotic. And I'm not saying that I'm a good enough artist to be able to portray this complexity where no one else has been able to, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't give it a shot.

Q: Is that something particularly troublesome about popular culture to you? The inability to recognize the degree of monstrosity (or, just plain old lameness) of which we are all capable?

G.: I think that ignoring our beastly side is a natural desire, but I find that it can lead us down the wrong path if we fail to admit that we have it. I consider the concepts of good and evil to be the most dangerous things humanity has ever invented. The belief in the concepts "They are evil" and "We are good" is what caused the death camps, and it's what caused 9/11. However, the Nazis and the Islamo-fascists don't have a monopoly on idiotic thinking like this.

The current White House and a chunk of the American public is suffering from it as well, and as a result, Nic Berg and Kim Sun-il were murdered before our eyes. If they weren't sent to Iraq with the assurance that right was on their side, they would still be alive. The blood of those murders is on the hands of anyone who thinks like that. We must always question why we do things, because even the Nazis thought they were on the side of right.

Q: Is there a solution to this?

G.: In my more cynical, bitter moments, I think the only way to solve this problem would be to wipe humanity from the face of the earth. But when I'm feeling optimistic, I figure that all we need is a bit more evolution. We're not as far from the chimps as we'd like to believe, and our actions show that. Maybe within the next ten to twenty thousand years, we'll actually become what we think we are as a species, but right now, we have a lot of work ahead of us. right now, we are capable of knocking it the fuck off and acting like civilized human beings, but it requires a huge effort that none of us, or our leaders, seem capable, or willing to try and do.

Q: What's your favorite aspect of pop culture?

G.: How it can sometimes shine a bright light on our culture. You can listen to Chris Rock, and get a good idea of just how messed up everything is, or you can watch Space Ghost Coast To Coast and get a good idea of how silly we are for slavishly following celebrities around the dial.

But before everyone reading this gets to thinking that I'm being holier than thou- I love being able to watch dirty movies and wrestling. I love how there's a whole industry devoted to my particular little batches of ugly.

Q: What inspired Pictou?

G.: The theme for Pictou is a simple one: Redemption.

Pictou has a few origins. The main one being the Japanese comic "Doraemon" I got turned on to "Doraemon" in university by a Japanese exchange student that I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to hook up with. Luckily for me, getting stuck in the Friend Box included a fine assortment of non-sucky manga for me to read.

So I decided that I wanted to make a "guardian angel" type comic, much like Doraemon. I had Pictou's character design lying around for a few years and started serializing in my university paper during my final year. As usual, if you don't draw a comic that's about a horny "dude" in sunglasses, most frat boys won't like it. I got a lot of flack for it. But I feel that it's simply the idiotic mentality that people have that "comics = worthless".

Of course, this version of Pictou will be different from the university one. Why repeat myself when I can tell the story so much better now?

Q: How does an R3 comic start? Desperation? It's desperation, isn't it. Desperation?

G.: It is, in a way.

I made the first twenty last summer as a way to keep fresh material on my site. Last summer I was between computers and I was scrounging PC time here and there from coworkers, PC rooms, or Saturdays at the office. I didn't have the capability to update IAG regularly, so I started taking scans of the doodles I did and seeing what I could do with them.

R3 is sort of like the spiritual kin of Scott McCloud's Morning Improv, or of a 24hour comic. I usually had no idea what the comic is going to be until I got the thing in Photoshop and started applying the text. I always liked Space Ghost Coast To Coast, and one of the things about the show that always gives me the giggles are those weird pauses where Space Ghost stares at Zorak, Zorak stares back, this goes on for a few seconds until they usually just drop it. It's the humor of the uncomfortable. That's the sort of thing that the average R3 is based around. Those zombie cartoons for example.

Occasionally, I do get an idea for a little story that I do make the art specifically for, like the Kurt Cobain strip. But I will say that the best of them, I didn't even draw. "Annie's Book" was done by a one of my kindergarten students last year as a gift to me, and in four short panels, she was able to present a form of visual narrative that a lot of us adults need to spend years figuring out.

She blew us all out of the water, as far as I'm concerned.

Q: How, if at all, would you say webcomics and the webcomics community have changed since you got onto the scene?

G.: It's hard to believe that I've been online for almost two years... But I fell that the only obvious change is an improvement in the hardware my audience uses to read my site. Other than that, Scott McCloud is still sounding the rallying cry, Merlin Goodbrey is still seeing what he can do with the tools of the internet, Apocamon is still awaiting resolution, and Keenspacers are still coming and going like the seasons.

Except for Ghastly. He's the tentacle entwined pillar of the operation.

Q: How much do you sweat over a given panel of your comic? It's got a really relaxed organic look to it, but I remember once you posted on TAC about how to portray sweat in a minor sequence of the story, and there was this whole debate you participated in, which really made me wonder.

G.: Usually, not too much. My thumbnails do a pretty good job of getting the images in my head onto paper for me to work from. There are times where I have to scrap a thumb because it's too crowded, or doesn't flow properly with the rest of the comic, but over all, once I get it laid out, that's what you'll eventually read.

But there are panels in my comic where I'm thinking that maybe I should have given the thumbnail a few more look-overs because, the laws of perspective being universal, there are times where the character should be three feet tall if they're to be in proper relation to the objects near them.

It's one of the downsides of being self-taught.

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