Recently at the Slickster headquarters in San Diego, we had the opportunity to chat with John Vogel about his new comic strip, Skitter [www.Skittercomic.com]. We discuss all things comics, oh, and his showering habits may or may not be mentioned as well.
When did you first become interested in comics?
That all started way back in grade school. During that time I was heavily into Mad Magazine. At the time it was the Playboy for kids because you were not supposed to have it. The cartoon style and jokes and overall substance was right up my friends and I’s alley.
Growing up, what was one of the most inspiring comics to you?
The Don Martin cartoons, they were funny and we would draw them all the time. In Junior High, my friends and I would pass “notes” to each other. While boys would be passing notes to girls, we would be passing cartoons to each other in effort to make each other laugh. Later it would be Garfield. Not that I really liked Garfield all that much, I just appreciated what Jim Davis was doing with Garfield. He was turning this character into this big huge merchandising machine, something that I truly admired.
How does your comic strip differ from others?
To put it as simply as possible, its like making a video game, where everything is modular. There is a guy who does a model of the characters, a guy does the backgrounds, etc. Except with Skitter, I handle all of these said aspects and put them together little by little as the process requires. It’s really quite fun and challenging at the same time.
Where do you write your best stuff? Shower, bed, bike…?
I get most of my inspiration from either driving or in the shower. That may sound weird but there’s something hypnotic about those situations. One of my theories is when you are awake your consciousness is in charge and when you are asleep your sub-consciousness is in charge, but when you’re in that hazy middle ground of just waking up, or while taking a shower, driving that mundane drive to work, etc. At that point, it’s like both parts of your brain are shaking hands and you have more brain to work with, per se. At times, when I am stuck on an idea or can’t come up with a punchline, I will deliberately jump in the shower and come out saying, “Eureka!”
Take us through the process of creation for a Skitter comic strip, from start to finish.
First the idea must happen. The next phase is figuring out how many panels are going to be needed; usually around three. Then I figure out how the word balloons are going to correlate with the panels. After the word balloons are placed, I figure out how and where the characters are going to be placed. Each character I draw digitally, on its own layer. I bring each element into its own file and start the inking process. Everything is done in layers. Then I will have this character, Jack the spider for example. I will flatten that, copy that, and insert him into the comic strip itself, and scale and align it with its original drawing. I will repeat that with each individual character and everything comes together.
Comic strip creators get a lot of chicks, right?
NO. *laughter issues*
How long have you had the idea for Skitter?
The idea for Skitter actually started around 25 years ago without me even knowing it. I had this thought about a video game that was similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except instead of involving turtles, it was about bugs. The idea involved a shooting game where you have bugs running around someone’s house shooting things up. In 2014, I got this idea to do a side project involving a comic strip. Then it hit me, I could take these bugs that I dreamed up 25 years ago.
Do you plan on adding any additional characters in the future? Love bug, millipede, human centipede…?
Human Centipede!? *laughs* Thank you for that idea I’m going to work on that one. I am adding new characters every once in a while. One of the things I plan on doing next year is adding a little girl who is afraid of spiders, to add to the story and expand on the subjects I can write about. The relationship between Jack the spider and the little girl, with the girl being afraid of spiders.
Who is your favorite character to write for at the moment?
Right now, Jack. Originally Jack was a minor character and the grumpy cockroach was the main guy. The issue with the cockroach was that he was a cranky type of character. Jack, on the other hand, is the fun Muppets type of character that seemed to resonate the most with the readers. Switching the two around gave Skitter that boost of playfulness and humor I was originally shooting for.