Thought you guys might get a kick out of this interview I just did for Matt, a 6th grader doing a project on cartoons for his gifted program. I never realized how difficult it would be to sanitize what we do for younger audiences.

1) What inspired you to become a cartoonist?

Becoming a cartoonist was mostly an accident, believe it or not. I started drawing comic strips about the things I did and talked about with a friend of mine, just for fun. I had always loved comic strips, even when I was a kid, and I loved to draw weird and funny characters on paper during classes and whenever I was bored. I've never really lost the habit, so starting a comic strip was second-nature by then. We started posting the comic strips to our website so our other friends could read them. Those friends told their friends about the strip. And then those friends told other friends. Before we knew it, thousands of people were reading my little comic strip.

2) What kinds of cartoons do you draw?

I draw an online comic strip called "Goats". Goats stars a couple of ordinary guys named Jon and Phillip, their pet goat Toothgnip, and their pet chicken Diablo.

3) Do you have your own character?
4) Who or what is it? (Name, Description...)
5) Is this character based on a person - (friend, relative, yourself? why? how?)

I'm going to answer these three questions all at once, since they're closely related. Goats has a huge cast of characters -- there are talking animals, talking vegetables, aliens, bartenders, lawyers, evil scientists, and probably dozens of other characters.

A good portion of the human characters are loosely based on people I know, such as my friends (and, occasionally, family). One of them, Jon, is even based on myself. But even though the characters were originally based on real people, once you let them loose in a comic strip, they can do whatever they want. They're not constrained by the people they were based on. So a lot of the time, a character will end up developing a very different personality and style than the person they were inspired by.

One of the reasons I based the characters on people I know is that the original reason I drew the strip was to share it with my friends -- I thought it would be fun for them if they were in the strip, too. But one of the things that writers are taught is to "write what you know". When someone is writing a comic strip or a book or a movie script, they want their audience to identify with the story that they're telling them. They want the people who read or watch to be able to enjoy the movie, and people enjoy things that echo experiences that they've had. You may not have the same adventures that those characters have had, but you have experienced similar challenges that made you feel the same way that the story does. By using the people around me for inspiration, I can write about their experiences and characteristics in a way that will make them seem more real to the readers, and make the story more enjoyable for them.

The main characters from Goats are:
- Jon, a regular sort of guy
- Phillip, a computer programmer who likes beer and is a little strange.
- Diablo, Jon's pet chicken. Diablo loves chaos and is the cause of most of the probelms in Jon's life.
- Toothgnip, Phillip's pet goat. Toothgnip used to pull Thor's chariot back in the ancient days, but he's retired now.
- Megan, a project manager from Michigan who is Jon's girlfriend
- Lauren, Phillip's wife.
- Fish, a small goldfish who lives in a beer mug.

6) Did you always enjoy drawing?

Absolutely. I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil and haven't stopped since. If you want to be an artist, it's very important to enjoy drawing, but it's even more important to practice. My wife taught me a little saying for artists: "A line every day." That means that if you want to be an artist, you should try and make sure that you draw every day, even if it's only something small. That way you're always pra...

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I like the descriptions for Diablo and Toothgnip. I guess when you can't really talk about satanism or sex, you get creative.

You make goats sound so wholesome. I'm disgusted.

Well, not really. I think this was a very interesting read. It makes me wonder if I would have kept drawing stick figure gun battles in the margins of my notebooks through college--would I have gone on to be a great stickfigure arteest? (Yes, that's french)

Instead, I guess I will have to settle for game development. *sigh*

I'm surprised you toned it down.

I thought most sixth graders these days were smoking dope and having sex.

At least, if the media is to be believed.

Wait, the characters have diverged?

This fact makes me sad. The world is lessened knowing that Phillip as portrayed doesn't truely exist.

In Response to mcgrue (#14537):

He exists, but only after a dozen beers or so.

In Response to jon (#14549):

He exists, but only after a dozen beers or so.

See, this is one of the worst things about our culture, particularly American mores: this is exactly the sort of thing that would have been very good to tell a ten-year-old; and yet, this is also the same kind of quip that would probably get you in trouble with the ultra-uptight parents of most sixth-graders, despite your (approximate?) honesty.

Yesterday, i read a comment from Ursula LeGuin [ursulakleguin.com] in which she points out to a young writer how Socrates said, "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul." Few things irritate me as much as the perpetuation of the cycle of dishonesty in this society-- the cycle that usually starts with fairy tales like Santa Claus and Jesus, and continues through the repression of education (about drugs, alcohol, sex, money, history, or whatever it is the hegemony wishes to control), until it finally ends up in the Bizzarro World of "don't ask, don't tell [about being queer]" or "you can't make a joke about that because it's not polite". Grrrrr!

I'm not kvetching at you, Jon; i'm criticizing behavior i've seen in many (perhaps most) other people i've known. I'm just saying that this is one of the seeds of hypocrisy, and probably one of the main reasons behind most marketing, religion, and other types of fraudulence and deceit.

Just imagine: a world where people are honest, not just to each other as adults, but also to children... and to themselves. If the lying ceased, then maybe some sanity and progress would begin.

In Response to Teledildonix (#14551):

It was a quip, Kevin.

I think someone needs a nap.

In Response to jon (#14562):

I think everyone needs a nap. If everyone took a nap when they were tired and cranky, maybe all wars would stop and we would all live in peace and harmony.

No, wait, scratch that. George Dubya goes to sleep at 9 pm each night, and he's still a douche bag.

Nevermind.

In Response to jon (#14549):

Oh, I thought you meant you had to tone down Phillip's character, readers were complaining that his behavior seemed so odd and erratic. Talking animals, OK. Real Phillip, wha??.

That would mean the Phillip you protray exists with zero beers. So he doesn't exist at all?

In Response to Teledildonix (#14551):

Santa Claus is so real. I keep him in my basement.

We play checkers.

In Response to themysticalone (#14674):

{* patronizing tone ;-) *) Okaaaay, alrighty then. I suppose i shouldn't even ask about where you keep the Easter Bunny, the Great Pumpkin, Channukah Harry, or Mister Hanky. And i could probably venture a guess regarding your plans for the Tooth Fairy. She's in cahoots with Krishna, Moses, and Spider-Man; but she probably prefers your company, since you really know how to make those pearly whites shine.

In Response to Teledildonix (#14676):

No, he sold the tooth fairy to the movie industry [imdb.com] to make a quick buck.

In Response to deerboy (#14600):

I'm reading your post without some vital piece of information that will make it understandable to me. Can you clarify?

If you give Real Phillip twelve beers, the result will approximate Fictional Phillip. Does that make more sense?

In Response to jon (#14684):

So, if you lead Real Phillip to twelve beers, will he drink?

If we give Real Phillip thirteen beers, will the approximation of Fictional Phillip be improved, or worsened?

What happens if we give him twelve clarified beers?

In Response to zamphir (#14685):

I'm not sure, but I suspect he would be up for the experiment if you were to provide him with the beers.

In Response to jon (#14686):

So, how many beers does it take to get your hair to do that thing that Fictional Jon's hair does?

In Response to jon (#14684):

some vital piece of information that will make it understandable to me.

Twelve Beers?

In Response to deerboy (#14696):

How about this:

Phillip with 12 beers = Phillip
Phillip with 0 beers = Fictional Phillip

In Response to deerboy (#14697):

Backwards.

Real Phillip with 0 beers = Real Phillip
Real Phillip with 12 beers = Fictional Phillip

In Response to jon (#14702):

Are you trying to understand what I am saying or what you are saying? I hope you already knew what you were saying, because I knew that as well.

I am saying: Real Phillip with 0 beers. Real Phillip with 12 beers. Which one of these is fictional?

Is that any clearer? Apparently 2 other people understood my 'joke'. Somebody, please help.

In Response to deerboy (#14704):

One of us needs to be more sober.

In Response to jon (#14708):

Try a nap?

In Response to deerboy (#14711):

Drugs work.

In Response to Teledildonix (#14676):

Oh, Heavens no. All those are false. Except probably Moses. Everytime I die my water supply red it gets cut in half.

So how did this 6th grader find you? Was it a cold e-mail? Because I live in constant fear that one of the e-mails with a subject line of 'We Need 2 Talk' that I delete every day might actually be individualized content from a guileless writer, and I'm not even looking at the thing.