In the fifth interview of our His and Her Webcomics series this month, Terrence Marks interviewed Andrew Farago and Shaenon Garrity. Andrew Farago currently creates The Chronicles of William Bazillion. Shaenon Garrity currently writes Smithson, and is the editor of Modern Tales. Comixpedia has previously interviewed Shaenon Garrity in 2006 and in 2004.
Introduce yourselves – who are you, what comics do you do?
Shaenon Garrity: I'm Shaenon Garrity. I'm the creator of Narbonic, and I currently write Smithson, drawn by Brian Moore and Roger Langridge, and the temporarily-on-hiatus Li'l Mell currently drawn by Neil Babra. I'm also the editor of Modern Tales.
Andrew Farago: And I'm Andrew Farago. In addition to collaborating on sporadic freelance writing assignments with Shaenon and the occasional anthology contribution or mini-comic, my current project is called The Chronicles of William Bazillion, which appears on WebComics Nation and also at ComicSpace.
When did you marry?
Valentine's Day, 2004.
How did you meet?
We were both volunteers at the Cartoon Art Museum here in San Francisco.
Did your wedding or proposal involve comics in any way?
Shaenon: We had the reception at the Cartoon Art Museum. We decorated the table cards with wedding-themed comic-book covers (the head table was Spider- Man's wedding) and set out a collection of wedding-themed comics. The wedding colors were black and white to match the comics theme.
Andrew: I proposed at the Cartoon Art Museum after work on Valentine's Day 2003, while standing in front of a Peanuts cartoon. Rather than call up all of our friends and family individually to break the news, Shaenon drew a comic about it and put it up on her website (around 12am Sunday), then took the phone off the hook so that Shaenon's family wouldn't wake us up first thing in the morning with panicked phone calls.
Do you work together on any of your projects? Who does what?
Shaenon: We work together sometimes. Andrew drew one of the Li'l Mell storylines. I gave him thumbnails, and he drew from them. We also collaborated on the writing for our work for Marvel Comics. When we write together, we usually spend a lot of time brainstorming, then Andrew plots out the story and I write the dialogue.
Any crossovers between your comics? Cameos?
No, not yet.
Do either of you have a job outside of comics?
Shaenon: I work as a manga editor at Viz Media. Andrew is now the curator and gallery manager of the Cartoon Art Museum. So no.
Has your spouse influenced your art or writing? If so, how?
Shaenon: Of course! I couldn't do anything without Andrew's constant support and creativity.
Andrew: Shaenon's a brilliant writer, and she's always working on something. I definitely wouldn't be doing webcomics without her influence, and I don't know if I'd be creating any comics at all right now without her support.
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