Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4
The DrunkDuck Interview:
Amelius
Our first interview is with Amelius, creator of Charby the Vampirate, one of the top DrunkDuck comics.
What are your goals as a comic artist?
Hopefully, I can make a career out of this someday...hopefully very soon. I do intend to get either Charby or Unlife is Unfair published or printed somewhere. I would also like to meet as many of the fine people who've supported me as possible, should I ever come into enough money for such a goal! As much as I'd like to make money off my comic though, I have a fear of it becoming like many other comics lumped into the "Goth" genre: commercial with no substance. In fact I have a comic in mind that has more merchandise than comics (grand total of one issue!) I don't want to be like that. I don't want to meet someone on the street wearing a Charby shirt who doesn't know there was a comic to go along with it.
Did you think up your whole story before writing it out or do you do work out the story as you go along?
A little bit of column A, A little bit of column B. I have had the entire thing thought out for ages, as well as quite a few of the story arcs, but I like to leave it a little flexible. It's not as fun when you're doing something because you have to, I admit. Sometimes I gauge reader reaction before I move on to another arc or make a big decision on something.
What comics inspired you when you were growing up?
Contrary to what some people believe, I never read a single "gothic" comic before starting Charby ( through almost all of its initial offline run, which was around 600 or so pages before I posted the first one online) but the most inspiring comics to me were mostly those in the newspaper of course. I hadn't even set foot in a comic store until a few years ago honestly! Among those most inspiring were Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" ( whom I will admit played a small part in Charby's early proportions as well as some surreal in-jokes as homage to that comic), Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" (again proportion and sometimes you'll spot a little influence from time to time) "Garfield" (yes Garfield, it was funny at one time, and had a lot more characters) and though I wasn't an avid reader of MAD, I saw a few old copies in a box of old comics and was particularly interested in "Spy Vs Spy". I was discouraged from copying artists at a young age so I always kept a watch on my art to make sure whatever influences and elements I picked up, they were evenly mixed with my own particular style. Still, this sadly doesn't stop people from wrongfully assuming my comic is a carbon-copy of a certain popular Goth comic about a homicidal maniac. Overall I would have to say what inspired me most in regards to CTV was the Golden Age of Animation, (1940's Looney Tunes to be specific)and old cautionary tales and poems from the 1800's that were recited to me by my grandpa. Boy, was that dark humor at its finest! Nothing made junior behave quite like telling him he'd get his thumb lopped off if he sucked on it, or he'd shrivel to nothingness if he was a picky eater!
< Prev
Next > |
