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How to Write Real Girls
and Take Your Work Seriously

an interview with William G.

Continued

Q: Is there any panel in It's About Girls that haunts you at night, begging to be redrawn?

G.: I never make artistic mistakes, Mike. I am perfection wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket of infallibility.

Seriously though, everything from my site's early days I'd like to redraw. I originally presented my comics in a click-through method where each panel was a link to the next one. And each panel had a different size and resolution to them. Also, I was still getting used to how scanned images are reproduced on the computer. When I switched over to the side-scrolling infinite canvas that I use now, all of those early comics look like a bunch of jumbled together, unrelated images to me. I find it to be a bit of an eyesore when I look at them. Now that I think I've figured out how to translate my paper images to the form you see them as now, I look back at all of those early works and cringe.

On the topic of scanning: I figure that I'll never do my comics all within the PC. I'm not slamming those who do, but I honestly feel that your hands transfer the soul of your art to your work in ways that a wacom tablet and Flash never can. People will always be impressed with shiny-looking comics made entirely via microchips, but they lack heart. And for me, that's a complete turn-off and it's something I never wish to do.

Q: I told you infinite canvas would work for IAG, didn't I?! DIDN'T I?!?!!?
 

G.: Was that you? Good call.

Q: I didn't bring up the infinite canvas thing just to say "I told you so", though -- although I totally DID tell you so -- I wanted to ask you what you thought of the differences between infinite canvas, four panel strips, and click-through comics like you used to do. What made you switch over? Could there ever be an advantage to going back?

G.: Infinite canvas is the perfect middle ground for having comics on the web while having them still be recognizable as being comics to that vast audience that we're currently not reaching. It's accepting that the web is a new format for us, while not being so cutting edge as to scare off new readers.

I switched over from click-through comics to infinite canvas comics simply because I got sick of having to create a new page for every panel. All I have to do now is just cut and paste a general filename and then change it a slight bit for each image, ie: iagchpt6-3.png, iagchpt6-4.png, and so on.

I'd never go back, because this is easier to do.

Q: How consciously do you prepare before sitting down to draw a chapter of It's About Girls? Is there a script, a notebook with sketches and notes, or really any kind of plan at all? It seems too subtle to just come out of nowhere fully formed.

G.: This is actually the second version of IAG. I did it originally for my university newspaper, but it wasn't well received by the frat boys because, and I quote: "Comics are about jokes and stuff", which I always considered to a pretty stupid attitude. Only Luc, Icon, and Robyn have made the transition from the university version, everything else got dumped. I guess you could call it a "reimagineering" if you wanted to use retarded marketing speak.

The plot for the story is written out. I currently foresee roughly 30 chapters to it. I say "roughly" because I don't have scripts for any chapter until I sit down to write them. I do it this way because it allows me the freedom to drop or add things without a major rewrite. For example, I had a chapter planned around the day Robyn discovers that her site has earned her a million bucks, but I decided to drop it because it came across like a "Friends" plot.

Q: Tell me about Robyn. What made you want to work with her as a character? What do you think of her?

G.: Robyn... I'm one of those fortunate guys who's been able to establish great friendships with women. I don't know if this is because I see women as more than a place to drop my DNA like a lot of guys, but this has affected my depictions of them. Robyn is an amalgamation of all of the qualities I've admired in the various women I've known in my life. Her deciding to be Icon's guardian when they were kids, that happened to me because I was also the target of bullies. Her being open and comfortable about her body, that was my university roommate. Her unhappy romance with Marc stems from a number of women (and men) I've known who've been unable to make a long-distance relationship work. Her sharp mind was from a friend named Yoko who always had the ability to gently, yet firmly, extract my head from my ass for me. A good example of this was when I told sweepingly told her, "Everything authority tells you is a damned lie!" To which she responded, "I should stop brushing my teeth after I eat?"

That gal was brilliant, I tells yah!

However, Robyn does have that "ugly" in her that I mentioned earlier in regards to women. I just haven't gotten around to presenting it yet. Chapter Eleven will have her meeting Jennifer for the first time since they were kids, and I don't want to give too much story away, but it doesn't go smoothly.

Four words: Naked jello cat fight.

Nah, that's not true... or is it? I guess everyone will have to read it and see. Mwahahahaha!

Q: Something I find especially interesting about Robyn is the way she and her boyfriend interact regarding the subject of how she makes her living -- a really softcore porn site.

G.: The inspiration for it came from a lady who made a bit of a sensation back home a few years ago by making a site in a similar vein. While there was no sex on her site, there was a lot of photos of her for sale, as well as her having a live webcam show where she would basically go about her business in her apartment nude. As far as I knew, she got stinking rich off of it.

What was really funny about her is that whenever she was seen in public, doing mundane stuff like getting groceries, no one would admit to knowing who she is because they'd be admitting they've seen her site.

So there'd be a lot of stories like "I met that website girl at the Superstore yesterday!"

"What did she say?"

"Shit, I didn't talk to her. That'd be weird."

The thing was, her boyfriend had no problems with how she made her money. There are these amazingly secure guys out there who can accept that their girlfriend will be lusted after, and they don't let it bother them. Luc is just one of those guys.

Q: Most of the time, of course, your cast is eminently likable. But then...there's Regina. She leaves me just as conflicted as Icon. Have you known a lot of girls like her?

G.: Regina... I never liked the Whore, Madonna, Devil archetypes for women in literature. Look at the movie, The Color Purple. It was a great film, and it made me cry like a baby at the end, but the three main characters never deviated from those three archetypes, and for me that weakened the film. I feel that most portrayals of the female protagonist in comics never deviates from those three archetypes as well. Which is a shame because, in my experience, all women are as beautiful and as ugly as men are. To ignore that sells women short as human beings, and turns them into the objects a lot of feminists object to.

It also makes me sad to see women short selling themselves by volunteering to be on garbage shows like The Swan, The Bachelor, or American Idol. Or creating those websites where young women beg for money, and get it, because they're women. It's like they're saying, "It's true, I'm only good for having tits."

Q: Have you ever read Gaiman's 'The Sandman'? I'm curious as to what you think of his women. He's created his own archetype in the comic world, really -- one that feels more accurate to me, if also limited in a sort of vaguely sexist way. He says that women aren't like men, and that they are more practical. He's also made much of the comparative abilities of women and men to survive each others' passing...

G.: I loved Sandman. But to me, it was very British in its view on women: Women are quiet pillars of strength while the men go off to bash stuff... Not saying that this is bad, it helped create some great works, but for a character with a teenaged girl's body, Death sure was matronly. Despair, Delirium, and depending upon the needs of the story, Desire, were far more nuanced characters. But they were also basket cases. It's interesting how the mother figure was the only one who had her shit together.

Q: That's the funny thing about artists who are trying to free fictional women from stereotypes, isn't it? More often than not, it seems like they just create a different kind of prison.

G.: Well, I don't think it's malicious or anything. The thing about art is that we're simply filtering the world around us for the consumption of others. If we're from a culture that admires the matronly sort, then it stands to reason that our strongest female characters will be like that.

I come from Nova Scotia. It's a part of Canada that is a bit of an economic backwater. Recently, a politician from a more wealthy part of the nation claimed that we're "a culture of defeat." While it made a lot of my fellow Nova Scotians mad as hell, the guy was absolutely correct. We are defeatists, and we are directionless. And it's not as if we don't have people who try hard, but there's so few opportunities for us to succeed, that we do sort of resign ourselves to being directionless. So if you're wondering where Regina's lack of direction, and Icon's unwillingness to try for happiness comes from, it's that.

Generally speaking though, in North America we have this thing where we like our women strong and independent just as long as they act like our personal whore behind closed doors. That's why, in North American comics, we keep seeing these Jean Grey-type characters. She has the power to destroy the universe, but her only two desires in life is to stay by her man, and to get the good solid dicking that only a Canadian can provide.

I feel confident enough to say that, in my twenty-five odd years of reading comics, the only time I've seen women portrayed as emotionally complex beings is in Love And Rockets. And even then, it took them two decades for Luba, Maggie and the rest to become as complex as they are. Even "bimbo" characters like Penny Century are fairly deep. I respect that.

I'm not saying that I have anywhere the writing skills that the brothers Hernandez have, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to make my characters ugly and beautiful all at the same time. And if I fail, at least I'll know that I've done more with my failures than most comic artists have done with their successes.

Q: What was your first romance like?

G.: It was a typical sort of -boy meets girl, boy doesn't appreciate her the way he should have, girl leaves boy and eventually finds someone who does- romance. I'm not really the sort of person who likes to reopen the old wounds of people I've loved so I'm not going to get into them.

In truth, I still love every woman I've been involved with. It's not the libidinous love that we shared at the time. It's more like the love that you have for a person you've shared a good piece of your life with. And even the relationships that ended on an ugly note, I still cherish the good memories that we had together. Each relationship enriched me as a person, and for that, I'll always love them for it.

See Mike, I hide my sensitive artist's soul behind a facade of off-beat humor and caustic wit. If I didn't I'd be some annoying Emo-type dweeb with a bad haircut and ugly glasses.

Q: If you had it your way, what comics, web or otherwise, would everyone be legally required to read?

G.: List time!

Barefoot Gen. To show people that comic storytelling can be damned powerful.

Astro Boy. To show people how you can appeal to kids while not talking down to them.

The works of Crumb. To show people that too much honesty can be pretty ugly.

Daredevil: Born Again. To show people how perfect pacing is done. As well, how to make non-lame superheroes.

Love And Rockets. To show people how to write believable characters.

Asterix. Other than this having been one of the most solid bit of comicking ever, I just think everyone should read it because I like it a lot.

On the Web, I'd have to say that Derek Kirk Kim, Scott McCloud, Amy Ganter, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, and Ghastly, are the people I tend to admire the most. There are a large number of others, of course. While Derek and Amy are simply producing some damned good comics, the rest are doing what they can to see just how they can make comics fit into the large pants of the web. You know... infinite canvases and all of that. And Ghastly's adult humor just makes me laugh in ways that others in his field simply don't.

And I'd be a lousy pal to leave out Pimp-Ass Mandroid. Shaun Henderson is the Matt Hardy to my Jeff Hardy.

Q: Any wild, far fetched fantasies about what you would do if you could work on comics (or, hell, movies, books, whatever) for a living? Come on, you *know* you wanna adapt Gone With the Wind to comics...

G.: I always wanted to adapt The Oresteia, but then that rotten punk (just joking) Eric Shanower came out with Age Of Bronze. I have no idea how far he plans to follow the mythologies that surround the Trojan War, but I figure he'll have to cover the Oresteia eventually. Other than that, I always wanted to follow the Herge method of producing comics. He sort of had a novelist approach to Tintin after he got stinking famous from it and no longer had to listen to his editors. That's what I dream to do one day. Just put out a nice novel-sized book every year or two. I see no reason why comics should have to stick with the damned format Marvel and DC are still using after 70 years.

Q: If you could pick one artist or writer to work with, who would it be, and what would you do?

G.: That's an interesting question. There are a lot of artists that I've admired over the years, online and in print, but I've never considered working with them because I always felt that art should be a one man show.

Were I just a writer, I would probably want to get people who's styles were appropriate for the story. For example, I'd try and get a golden age artists to illustrate Tales From Science. If I was to hand over the art for Girls to any artist in the world, I'd get Milo Manara to do it. It just seems to fit. And he can draw naked vaginas much better than I can.

Q: Do you have any kind of long term plan for yourself as an artist?

G.: I plan to keep doing what I'm doing, improving my skills as a writer and as an artist, and getting all of that noise in my head out into the world. The idea of getting printed, rich, and famous is a nice one, but I don't foresee it in my future unless the print industry stops sucking as much ass as it does now.

Q: What was the premise of your first comic as a little kid? I'll take the fall with you -- mine was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel.

G.: Hmm... The earliest comic I can remember... You may have to Google this unless you're a Cartoon Network junkie, but there was this cartoon called "The Herculoids" that I loved as a kid. In it were these two giant marshmallow turds with eyes called Gloop and Gleep. I remember making this comic where they would sit on a UFO and go places, and I would narrate the story for whoever came by and looked into my room. I think I was six or something at the time.

I didn't start getting serious about drawing comics until I was about 15 and starting highschool. I had this damned stupid series where I would take myself and all of my friends, and squeeze them into every piece of pop culture that was popular at the time. Transformers, Doctor Who, 80s metal, Secret Wars, etc... Then I would take this mish mash, and make a story out of it starring my idealized self as a dimension-hopping bad ass named Bonzai Bill.

My previously mentioned good buddy Shaun Henderson, claims that he has copies of them hidden away somewhere to remind me of, should I ever get too big for my britches. In a way, I'm hoping to never get famous because I'd hate to see that crap on Ebay.

Q: Final question -- The Examiner's appearance sparked a debate between a lot of people about whether webcomics were 'just a hobby' or 'just a fine art.' I thought you had a really great take on this, and was hoping you'd go on the record with it.

G.: Well, I touched upon it a few times earlier in the interview, but I think it bears repeating.

"Art VS Hobby" is utterly unimportant. You don't have to be a Mozart, or a Picasso to make art. Your intention with your comic- To make a statement about humanity, or simply to see if you can do Dragonball Z better - is not relevant. Any expression of creativity is art.

Like music, comics are an artform that seeks an audience. The problem is that we don't have an audience. Using the best known example: If you compare a hugely popular webcomic like Penny Arcade's audience to the actual number of people using the internet, you'll find that their numbers are laughable.

Why is that? Because comics are not a medium that people outside of the nerdy hardcore are interested in. That core are already reading all of the comics they can, but with a million or two webcomics out there, the only way all of them can find their audience is to try to expand the number of people reading comics. Yet we can't seem to expand our audience beyond the core. That vast potential audience does not care for us, because they do not respect what we do.

And why should they, because we don't respect what we do either. It doesn't help when someone like Hard is spending a lot of time saying "My work is not something worth discussing." What he's doing is giving the potential audience the message that he, one of the top guys in the business, feels that he is producing worthless crap. So by extension, everyone who's not getting the hits he is, is obviously making even more worthless crap. Casual web surfers see this sort of thing and go, "Well, he says it's not worth my time to read this stuff, so I better not bother."

I don't know if Hard's comments come from insecurity about his work, or if it's simply him wanting to maintain his status as the big fish in the very small pond by making sure the pond doesn't get bigger. But his attitude, and the attitudes of like-minded people, damage us all. And they need to start helping the cause of increasing our audience, or they need to start putting a cork in it.

Comics, throughout the history of the medium, have been many things to many people, but the one thing they have not been, is respected. Publications like WCE, and Comixpedia (and to a lesser extent, TCJ and Sequential Tart) know this. So they are treating the medium with respect, by approaching comics as something worth discussing. Hell, we've tried every other approach to gaining a bigger audience, why not start using respect?

And should Maw and Paw Average Web-user come across WCE or Comixpedia and see that respect being given to comics, they may decide that perhaps they should give them a try. You never know, it may work. Comics being nothing more than simple entertainment sure the hell hasn't.

And really, if it doesn't work in gaining us a wider audience, being respected for what you do isn't a bad thing, it's a good thing.

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