Your comic for the day will follow shortly ... but first! I did a little interview with Wizard Magazine (yes, that Wizard Magazine. I know, I'm as surprised as you are) about, of all things, Demonology 101. They have a webcomic column, and they've posted it here. So click the link to read me yammering on about webcomics and villains and a bit about my upcoming stuff.

And here's your comic for the day. I have no idea where this joke came from. I shall call it ... my 'random-ness' period ... much like Picasso's Blue Period, just not as ... artistically fulfilling? Sure.

Oh, and a bunch of my LJ friends were doing that fun looking comic-related meme. I never get to do memes because they always seem to be about anime or fandom or things I don't really know much about, so it was exciting to find a meme that somewhat related to me. Obviously I need to get out more.

PART ONE: COMICS PERSONALITY TYPE
Name: Faith Erin Hicks. You can call me Faith.
Age: 29
Sign: Libra

Introverted or extroverted?
Both. And I think everyone's both. We all have the capacity to be outgoing among people we feel comfortable with, and shy with those whom we don't know well. But I do love people; I like working with them, being with them, living with them. The only thing I don't like is conflict. So occasionally I don't like people. But most of the time I do.

What are your top 5 procrastination tools?
Internets, boyfriend, cats, cleaning the mess in the apartment, biting my fingernails.

What gets your juices flowing?
Having something not too distracting, but still somewhat interesting to watch while working. I know there are people out there that consider having the TV on while working an unforgivable sin, but really, we all have our methods and this works for me. I'm particularly enamoured with house-buying shows, especially if they're British. I want a British house.

PART TWO: COMICS CONSUMER
What kind of comics do you like to read?
Everything! I like graphic novels of pretty much any topic and I've started reading manga this year. Some of it's good, some of it isn't, but thanks to the library I can try most of it for free. It's SO AWESOME. Obviously, because I am a girl, I tend to gravitate towards graphic novels that focus on girls (and if it's girls having adventures and kicking ass, all the better for it), but I'll read pretty much anything. One thing I don't read though is the 24 page stapled comics, the traditional comic pamphlet. It has to be in book/trade form. I don't like floppy annoying stapled comics. It takes me ten minutes to read them, and they don't contain a complete story and that angers me.

What kind of comics do you dislike?
Anything that has the stink of violence against women fetishized for male enjoyment. So anything Frank Miller recently got his paws on, I guess.

When were you first introduced to comics?
I learned to read on Tintin and Asterix comics, which I got at the local library. For a very long time they were the only comics I knew about, mostly because of lack of access to good comic stores or friends who knew about comics that would appeal to someone like me.

What were some of your first comics?
Beyond the Asterix and Tintin comics, the first graphic novel I ever bought was Geisha by Andi Watson. I ordered it from Chapters when I was in university, and it took something like three months to reach my hands, and I read it about five hundred times. I'd never seen anything like it (previously I'd read some X-Men comics, but had fallen out of love with them once I realized superhero comics don't usually contain a beginning, middle and end. And I wanted a story with a beginning, middle and end). Then I found Bone, which pretty much opened my eyes to what the art form could be, and spent the next few years tracking down all the Bone trades and devouring them. I love Bone.

When did you first get "The spark"?
Probably when I found that first Bone trade, in a Chapters in Kitchener. It was volume 3, The Eyes of the Storm, which is one of the worst Bone volumes to start with, because it explains a lot of Thorn and Grandma Ben's background, and if you didn't know the characters previously ... well, it was confusing. But I looooved the black and white artwork and the sense of story in the book. It was a very eye-opening experience. I had discovered THE ART OF COMICS. Or whatever.

What is your favourite animated movie?
Oh man, I don't know. I can't pick just one. The Iron Giant, WALL-E, Toy Story 2, Beauty and the Beast, Persepolis, The Triplets of Belleville, Aladdin, Tarzan, Lilo and Stitch ... honestly, I'm sure there's more.

What is your favourite anime series?
I haven't watched a lot of anime, and what little I have watched I haven't enjoyed very much, the exception being Cowboy Bebop (but everyone likes that). There's something about the pacing in anime that bothers me ... it feels sloppy and slow. I think it's a different form of storytelling and I'm not used to it and just don't know how to properly engage with it, but I haven't really found a series that I completely click with.

PART THREE: COMICS CREATOR
What kind of comics do you make?
Ummm ... I don't know. Right now I'm really big on the whole girls-having-adventures thing, but that's a recent evolution. I used to be big into male adventurers (probably an Indiana Jones influence). I'll probably evolve into liking another genre in a few years. I know I really like making black and white comics, and I like the graphic novel format. I don't know if I'd ever want to make something that's a pamphlet. Unless there was a giant bucket of money involved. And a pony.

When did you first start making comics?
1999, I guess. Whenever I started doing Demonology 101. Before that even though I really loved the art form, I never thought I'd end up ... y'know, DRAWING comics. It still feels very strange to me, to be an "artist," and to be known as that (that is to say, getting jobs being the "artist" as opposed to, say, writing, which I feel I'm maybe better at. Or am I? I don't know anymore). I still feel somewhat ... I don't know ... uncomfortable? with being an "artist" ... like someone's going to leap out of a crowd and point at me a shriek that I have no clothes on, and I will be revealed as someone who is not an "artist," but an interloper, a poser, a fake. I think all people who come to their chosen professions late in life (I entered university thinking I'd become some sort of writer, and left it determined to become an artist) probably feel the same way. It was only years into doing Demonology 101 that I realized I'd fallen in love with the art form, and wanted to continue doing comics, and maybe some day make it my life's work. It was ... I don't know ... kind of a painful realization, because I'd grown to love something I'd convinced myself I was not particularly good at (drawing does not come naturally to me, I work BLOODY HARD at it, and bristle whenever anyone implies my skills are "a talent" or "a gift from God"). Even now when someone tells me they like my work (someone whose opinion I hold in regard, especially), my first thought is that they're lying or being 'nice' to me. Which is completely awful. I'm trying not to do that anymore.

... wow, bit of a digression there. Yikes!

What are your favourite comic artists right now?
I will always love Andi Watson, even though I'm kind of scared of him. Jeff Smith. Steve Purcell (OH GOD WILL HE REALLY BE AT COMICON???? EEEEE!). Claire Wendling (sigh... the lone female). Ted Naifeh. Paul Pope. Jim Rugg. Oh, and the guy who draws Monster, Naoki Urasawa, I think? Did I get that right?

What are your main influences in comics?
Honestly, I don't know. I read a ton of comics, and I think to some degree they all influence me. People see what they want in my work, and I've never had anyone actually mention any of the people I've mentioned above, people whose books I buy and careers I follow (no, wait, I got compared to Paul Pope once. That was cool).

Who do you admire in comics?
I really admire Jeff Smith, who built an empire on one amazing story with amazing artwork. And, y'know, from the interviews and stuff I've read, seems like a really decent human being. I'd like to be like him when I grow up. Although not a boy.