This interview is conducted by usedbooks!
Username: Crifmer
Comic: Posted
Age: 32
In what part of the world do you live: NJ, USA
Are you single/boyfriend/girlfriend/married: I have a wonderful girlfriend.
Day job: Computer Operator
When and why did you decide to make a webcomic?
I've always been interested in comics, but until very recently never had the courage to draw one. I've written one or two in the past as just a fun thing to do, but never showed them to anyone. I don't think I even have them anymore. Last summer I discovered just how big the world of webcomics has become and - more importantly - I found Drunk Duck. It sounds harsh, but I saw a vast wealth of really really bad comics (if I've commented in yours, it means your comic is not one of them) and realized that webcomics have become the new blogging. So I decided to do my own stupid webcomic (my words). I mean, in this sort of community, so what if it's bad? If people like it, they'll read it, and if they don't, they won't. Drunk Duck is an amazingly supportive community, and that's what gave me the courage to give it a go and see what I could do.
Why did you decide to use Post-It notes for your comic?
You know, I don't actually know what started it. I always liked to doodle on post-its, and I've always thought the post-it was a wonderful invention. I use them an awful lot. I think it was because I had no idea, technically, how to put a comic together. What size paper should I use? How big should the panels be? I knew I wanted to do a three-panel strip because I'd be experimenting and using it to develop artistically. With a random strip, I could just draw whatever I wanted to work on and go in any direction I wanted. And as I was doodling on a post-it, it hit me that they were just the right size for the panels. So I decided to draw the strip on post-its, using commonly found business materials to turn my lack of ability into a gimmick.
Since you use an unusual medium for your webcomic, can you tell us your process for putting together a strip?
It's actually pretty simple. I'll grab a blank 8.5x11 sheet of paper first to use as the "easel." On there I'll write any pertinent information. If I have a script written, it'll go on there. Sometimes I'll do thumbnails in one of the corners if I can't see it already in my head (a lot of the planning/writing is done in my head - I almost never write this stuff down, even though I should). After that, I draw on post-its with mechanical pencil, erasing a LOT. Pink Pearl eraser. Awesome tool. As I finish drawing each panel, I'll transfer it to the "easel." I ink with ballpoint pen (I can hear all the artists shuddering) right on the easel, which now serves as a blotter for when I go off the post-it. I let the ink dry, then erase all the pencil. A quick transfer of the panels to the opposite side of the paper (the clean side), and it's ready for scanning. I have a logo template made up in Illustrator, so after scanning in Photoshop, I'll do the lettering in Illustrator. I exclusively use fonts from BlamBot (blambot.com) because they're nifty and Nate Piekos is awesome.
Have you or do you plan on incorporating other office supplies in the comic (labels, paperclips, index cards, etc.)?
I would like to. I have an idea for masking tape at the moment. I try to keep it in mind, but it's such a change in format that it has to be done organically or it'll be jarring and take away from the strip. But I do want to. I think it'd be really funny.
You have a very unique cast of characters. Why did you choose the characters (and species) you did?
Mainly because I have so much trouble drawing humans. Heh. I'm only partially kidding. Beaufort was inspired by a comment my brother made. The beer can is a nod to one of my best friends, and the growler is another nod to one of my favorite bartenders. Not that he reads the strip. And Meep… well, Meep's been with me for a very long time. Speaking of Meep….
What is that little fluffy "meep" thing?
Meep is the first character I knew I wanted in Posted, mainly because I've been drawing him forever. He's just a puffball with eyes and antennae. He was inspired by Nero, the caterpiller from DangerMouse. Officially, he's a Pooken, a creature from one of my board games. Maybe more of them will make it into Posted, and maybe I'll go more into some sort of characterization for Meep. But I just throw him in because he's cute and makes things funny.
A few of your strips present visuals of well-known jokes. Are you planning on drawing any more of those? Do you have a favorite joke?
While I have no current joke strip ideas, I would like to do more in the future. The thing is, those early ones frustrated me because I think my artistic ability wasn't quite good enough to pull them off without text.. well, I think the oboe one worked, but it's amazing the number of people who didn't recognize the orange as an orange - that was a big hint to me. I was left with a feeling that that particular experiment failed, but I would like to revisit it in the future. I didn't want to do them so close together, either, but those were the only ideas I had at the time. It was supposed to be a semi-regular feature, like Sketch Theater. Maybe it still will be…
I do have a favorite joke, a really old one… it's the phone gag where you answer the phone and keep saying "you don't say…" Then someone else asks "Who was it?" when you hang up, and you respond "he didn't say." I do that bit all the time. Drives my girlfriend nuts.
Aside from the "old joke" strips, what are your biggest influences for your Posted's often non-sequitur humor?
I really dig the absurdist comic strips. My two favorite comics growing up were Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County, and I really liked the Far Side. Spider and Scorpion over at Collected Curios (also the home of Sequential Art, another fantastic comic) is very inspiring, and the Garfield Minus Garfield strips are starting to seep into my creative mind, too. My biggest influence, actually, is the Muppets. A lot of Beaufort's personality comes from there - from Fozzie specifically. Jim Henson and the Muppets were the biggest single influence on me growing up, and you can see it in just about anything I do. Laugh-In and the Benny Hill show were also big influences in my early life, while I didn't discover Monty Python until well into high school.
Do you have any plans for future webcomic projects – like the "teasers" shown in your "extra" filler pages?
I do, although I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do them. I want to do a somewhat more "traditional" story-based comic. I have a bunch of different ideas for one, all based on various projects I'm working on. The one that looks most likely at the moment is a comic based on a web game Improbable Island. I've already talked to the game's creator, and he was very supportive of the idea, going so far as to give me backstory to help me understand the world better. I'm currently sketching out a plot and doing character design. Although I still can't draw people very well, so this will be interesting. I also had the idea to do a comic entirely in Microsoft Visio. Amanda really wants me to do Psycho Biker, so I'm trying to develop an idea for that as well.
Speaking on the extra pages… they're not "filler" per se because they don't take the place of a regular update, but really extras.. I wanted to throw a bit more into the comic because I don't think updating twice a week is enough with what little I offer every update, but it's all I can really keep up with right now. So I had found these old pages and thought it'd be neat for fans of the comic to see what I was up to so long ago. Unfortunately, I can't find any of my other old papers, so the Saturday extras are on hiatus for now. I'm starting to doodle in Visio to see what it can do and what the limitations are, so those might show up on Saturdays, too.
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Interviews
Usedbooks interviews Crifmer!
after reading POSTED, I decided to delete my comic Cubicle…
his was better. :(
Wait, what?? You had another comic that I didn't know about, Midge??? Aww, I want to read it now. :(
And thank you for the praise, and you, N_Y_Japlander. It really does mean a lot coming from you guys.
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