Interviews

Straight Outta Warrenton: Clay and Hampton Yount

By: Xaviar Xerexes
Department: Interviews
Issue: May 2008 Issue

Rob and Elliot

Clay and Hampton Yount are the co-creators of the weekly-updated comedy comic Rob and Elliot.  Clay is also the creator of the now on hiatus Cosmobear as well as the creator of "Bikini Frisbee Suicide Days", the former Saturday-only series at Sluggy Freelance.

Rob and Elliot is one of those "wacky roommates doing crazy random things" comics that is a lot stronger than its thin premise would initially suggest.  As a comedy comic it scores on the most crucial criteria -- it's funny.  And it does so through both the writing and the artwork. 

Read on for my interview with the brothers Yount.

Weekly Scatter-Shot Pop Culture Blast: An Interview with Jose Cabrera

By: Xaviar Xerexes
Department: Interviews
Issue: April 2008 Issue

jose3.jpg

This month I got a chance to interview Jose Cabrera, the creator of the weekly webcomic Crying Macho Man which has a print collection of its first year out called Prime Cut.  Cabrera's work uses caricature, parody and gross-out humor, often all at once and has been attracting notice over the last year. Cartoonist Keith Knight wrote, “Jose Cabrera's Crying Macho Man touches me in ways I cannot explain. Sharp, well drawn, and funny. It deserves your attention." 

Decoding Mr. Roboto: An Interview with Chris Harding

By: Xaviar Xerexes
Department: Interviews
Issue: April 2008 Issue

We, Robots

Chris Harding was kind enough to do the February cover art for ComixTalk and it gave me a great excuse to hit him up for an interview.  Harding is the creator of the new webcomic We The Robots which offers a cynical, bemused take on work and family.

Crosbys Consolidate Control of Keenspot: An Interview with Chris Crosby

By: Xaviar Xerexes
Department: Interviews
Issue: March 2008 Issue

Superosity by Chris Crosby

At the tail end of February Chris Crosby announced that he had closed a deal to buy out the shares of Darren "Gav" Bleuel and Nate Stone in Keenspot Entertainment.  Although Bleuel and Stone are to provide technical support to Keenspot through the summer, from now on Keenspot will be strictly the Crosby show.  And following on the heels of this announcement, Keenspot has moved to offer to its roster of creators a new advertising split.  In this brief interview we catch up with Crosby on these recent announcements, the 8th anniversary of Keenspot itself, and the 9th anniversary of Crosby's webcomic Superosity.

Some Jibba Jabba With Webcomics' Own Mr. T


Fans! by T Campbell

I've known T Campbell for a number of years now and we used to kid that he's the hardest working man in webcomics but there's definitely a kernal of truth to that.  This guy writes a lot of webcomics and than he goes out and writes about webcomics as well.  And although he's no longer local to my neck of Virginia and no longer writes for ComixTALK  I thought it would make a good interview to catch up with him as we barrel on into 2008. 

If you haven't run into T before, well, his webcomic projects include Fans, Penny and Aggie, Search Engine Funnies, Rip and Teri, and Cool Cat Studio.  He's got another one out just now called Sketchies (with co-writer Phil Kahn and art ist Ryan Estrada).  He wrote for ComixTALK before writing for other sites as well as turning his History of Online Comics series into a book.  He also spent a number of years editing the action webcomic anthology site Graphic Smash.

A Conversation with Cat Garza


Cat Garza is the man.  He's got this inventive, imaginative art style that both references classic comic styles of old, but brings a new twist on it.  He has experimented with mashing up music and comics.  He's also been making webcomics before we called them webcomics.  Scott McCloud pointed to him as a pioneer in this world of 0s and 1s we inhabit (McCloud has consistently linked to cat on his website). 

Most recently he's living in Comics Town USA and working on a new comic The Year of the Rat. You can find the Year of the Rat comics at his site The Magic Inkwell and older comics and music at his webcomicsnation site.  I caught up with cat in an interview over email this month.

The 8th Annual WCCAs: An Interview with WCCA Chairman Frank "Damonk" Cormier


With the Eighth Annual edition of the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCAs) coming up I wanted to get an interview on the state of the awards with current WCCA Chairman Frank "Damonk" Cormier. Frank worked with me on ComixTalk in the first two years of its existence and I know from experience that he is quite passionate about comics and isn't one to shy from stating his opinion. So I put a range of questions to him regarding this year's awards, changes from last year and how to improve things in years to come.

International Man Of Webcomics: An Interview with Ryan Estrada


Ryan Estrada is a prolific creator with several webcomic titles to his credit as well as the ongoing video short series, Expeditions. He is currently handling the art duties on the poker-themed webcomic Life's A Bluff.

As to where he is, well, either at his new home base in Mexico or literally anywhere else on Earth.

Get Happy! An Interview with Matt Melvin of Explosm.net


Think xkcd is the most popular stick figure webcomic around? Don't be so sure - Cyanide and Happiness consistently pulls in similarly large numbers on publicly available sources of data such as Alexa and Compete.

C&H resides on the website explosm.net which features work from creators Matt Melvin, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick and Rob Denbleyker. We recently interviewed one of the four: Matt Melvin about the webcomic, the website and what's next.

Catching Up With Stephen Notley


There's an incredible wealth of articles in the ComixTalk archives: features and columns on craft, theory and business, insightful reviews and interviews with some of the most interesting folks in webcomics. We'll be taking a regular look back at past issues and catching up with creators we've previously covered.

Stephen Notley is the creator of Bob the Angry Flower which I'm sure is still the angriest angiosperm character in comics today. I caught up with Notley via email last month.