Not a comic strip question, but comics question… Who is the real brains in Jack Kirby/Stan Lee duo? Jack Kirby or Stan Lee?
Good question. I don’t think it would be right to take anything away from either of them. Having watched most all the documentaries it seems like they were a Wozniak/Jobs type of combo. One guy created the technology and the other sold it.
How has your Patreon account been helping out? How can people donate?
It seemed like quite a number of people in the past were making a bit of money off of the ads they had placed on their sites. It seems like now, even that model is changing due to things like ad blocker and such. Now the trend seems to be moving towards things like Patreon. If users want more content, you can pay something like five bucks a month for additional ad-free material. It gives the users a way of showing their support and in turn getting more in return for doing so. [https://www.patreon.com/Skitter?ty=h]
What advice would you give to a young aspiring comic strip creator?
Research, research, research! Oh, and draw in the meantime. Do not be afraid to make mistakes. When Skitter first started, I had days where nobody was looking at my strip. I had to remind myself that this is a good thing. I took that as a blessing in disguise in the sense that I have the time to fix mistakes without having 20,000 people noticing. You can make your mistakes in private.
With print newspapers going the way of the dinosaur, do you feel the ‘Golden Age’ of comics is gone?
Newspapers are dying and, therefore, comic strips seemingly do not have a place to live in newspapers. The Golden Age is either dying or totally dead. The model has been changing over the past ten years. There have been a lot of people making some headway online with web comics. As a result there is a lot of freedom; you can swear, have more adult themed content, and even show boobies if you want! Not that I’m doing that. Well, if you count spider tits then yeah, maybe, but I digress.
Are there any gears in motion to bring Skitter to a print format?
The end goal is to have printed copies of Skitter. Whether it’s small comics or big collected volumes, I have been playing around with the idea. I hope to have something printed by late next year [2016].
What about a Skitter web movie series?
Yeah, since everything is modular already I can take the completed artwork and potentially animate it. What I am doing now is I’m taking the comic strip and animating them for Instagram. It’s looking at each panel and reading off the voices myself. When I’m home alone, I will act out the voices and then speed them up, creating these neat cartoon voices. The music is all done with my voice as well. It is another way to show my appreciation to my fans and gives me a reason to make goofy sounds in the muse of “work.”
Being a father, have you let your daughter look at Skitter yet?
Funny you should ask! My daughter, Luna, who just turned 19 months, is starting to “speak.” As fate would have it, we were over at my parents’ and saved a cricket from my parents’ pool. My daughter sees the cricket and starts yelling “Bugga, bugga!” We could not believe that she was saying this and that she knew what a bug was. After that, we started showing her the comic strip, and every time she sees the bugs she will point and say “Bugga, bugga!”
On that cute little note, we will end with BUGGA BUGGA, John!
Thanks, guys… BUGGA BUGGA!
You can see all of John Vogel’s published work here: http://www.Skittercomic.com/
Support Skitter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Skitter?ty=h
