It's
an anger and frustration I carry with me to this day. Despite my
authorship of the comic, I disapprove of suicide more than anything - I
think that message comes across, but may sometimes be buried under the
maniacal villainy of the protagonists.
I tried to design
Hunter as that dark inner influence that everyone has but is afraid to
admit is there - the one that enjoys karmic retribution and seeing
people reap what they've sewn for themselves, the one that will go to
any extreme to do what they think is fitting, the one that strives to
bring balance and order to a nonsensical and hypocritical existence by
any means necessary, and the possibility that a more "sane" world would
carry "logic" to the extremes that he does. Anyone who says they don't
have that influence is lying to themselves - it's just that some are
better at quelling and smothering it than others. He is the smug
self-satisfaction of an exacted revenge, the manifestation of a selfish
impulse acted upon. Despite his obviously evil influences, by my
account he is still the more popular of the two characters, so I can
only imagine that, though his means to the ends he achieves are
questionable at best, the ideals he has are held by others in real life.
Arcturus
I designed to represent that logical voice that says the duo must act
in accordance with societal norms, the suppressing logic that keeps
people from acting upon the emotional impulses represented by his
counterpart. The foil to his vulpine friend, he represents the ideals
and restrictions of a civilized society - that despite the sometimes
confounding illogic of others' behavior, that there are more socially
acceptable means to rectify a situation. In a normal society, he is
the influence that should win out, where people use tempered judgment
to peacefully resolve a situation. However, because he frequently
gives up on his chosen course of action, the choice of his species,
often perceived as easily frightened and "weak," is pretty obvious. His
are the real-life ideals of our contemporary society, but he lacks the
conviction to quell his own devious compulsions.
TWCR: Where do you get the ideas for potential 'customers'?
RM: A
lot of the customers are caricatures of people I've dealt with in my
lifetime - usually they are an amalgamation of at least two or more
individuals with whose behavior I've been forced to reckon. One
customer was actually influenced at least four different people rolled
up into one horrendous abomination of a character.
However,
on a few occasions I've not dealt with the person directly - the case
of the cancer-stricken client deals more with euthanasia as a whole and
not with any one person I've dealt with, though I have lost one
grandparent to a long and painful battle with cancer when I was in
elementary school. The current storyline, with the college student
dealing with the guilt of feeling he caused his frat brother's death
(and the outside intereference which he receives to futher make him
feel that way) was inspired by a similar incident at my own university
not too long ago.
For
the most part, I try to pick situations where the offending behavior
can be extended to apply to the greater part of society, and show the
lamentable stupidity of the irritating conduct. When a client
dies, usually it's to convey the elimination of the behavior in
question, not of the person themselves. This is not the case in all
the stories, however - the aforementioned cancer-stricken client and
the current story arc come to mind, as does the first client of the
next story arc. Personally, I'd love to see the people who inspired
the stories to become better people, learning from the mistakes of
their past actions, though the focal characters would rather not let
them have that opportunity.
TWCR: What are you planning to do with the book you potentially have coming up?
RM: Well,
a while back I was given the opportunity to do SFH in print form, and
I've always kinda wanted to have my older comics on some sort of real
medium, you know, like REAL webcomics have. However, the further along
I get in producing my comic, the unhappier I become with my earlier
works -- GeorgeLucas-itis if you will. I definitely don't feel
comfortable charging people to look at those, it'd be highway
robbery, the "Thing" of comic archives, if you know what I mean (and
anyone whose ever driven on I-10 between the New Mexico border and
Benson, Arizona knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about).
Reluctantly,
and against my better judgment, I've decided that I'm going to re-draw
my early comics, so that I have my past comics on hard copy but with
the style and experience of a SEASONED hack as opposed to a hack new to
the comicking world. If all were to go according to plan, I would
divide up the comics into 32 page comic books and sell them by
chapters, or half-chapters in the case of your longer storylines.
The
going is slow, because I'm really trying to make the comic something
special, something about which I can hold my head up high and say, "Now
THERE'S a comic I feel I shouldn't have to pay people to look at." I'd
be wrong, of course, but at least I might be able to deceive myself a
little better.
TWCR: About how long would you say it takes you to write, draw, and ink an entire strip?
RM: Well,
that depends on a great many factors. In all cases, the answer is "too
long," because I quite often get distracted and don't knuckle down and
just illustrate something that should be quite easy to render. I'd say
I spend anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours draw an individual
character as a result of that, so depending on how many panels a comic
has it may take from four hours to almost a week just on pencilling
alone. Script-wise, I usually spend at least an hour and a half on an
individual script, but the whole time after it is written I am
improvising lines and deleting others up until the point that the comic
appears on the site.
Inking
is a brutal affair; having to re-learn how to ink digitally after a
couple years of the real medium has definitely taken more than its fair
share of my time - when I started it was taking me about one and a half
to two hours to render a single panel I already drew. Thankfully, I've
been getting faster at it (better is entirely out of the question) so
I'm cutting my time down to about half an hour to an hour at most per
panel.
As for grand time total... in any
given time period between updates, I need to steal up to 24 hours to
get a comic finished. And yes, I especially agree with the opinion
that it is an excessively long time.
TWCR:
What sort of drawing style would you say you use, and which application
do you use to edit the comic before posting it? (photoshop, Paint, etc)
RM: When
I first started drawing, it was mostly because of my fondness for the
now-famous Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics - so that when I learned to
draw, it was in a style very similar to that established in that
publication. When I finally got the internet way back in the day, the
first places I drifted to were StH fansites where Sonic-style art was
accepted and appreciated.
However, the more I
drew, the more I realized I enjoyed more anthropomorphism in an
illustration, and eventually tried to break free of my tendency to draw
only in the Sonic style. Though I think I've broken that habit, the
aesthetic design of Arcturus is clearly a throwback to that style - but
I liked the sickeningly-cute design he had for someone as prone to evil
as he is, which is why I've never gone back and given him a design
based more on realism like the other characters that inhabit the SFH
universe.
As
it is now, I'd say my style is a blend of anthropomorphic realism and
your standard cartooning, with hints of Anime influences here and
here. I'm terrible at it, and that's probably due to my lack of proper
training, but I'm always trying to develop my (lack of) skills
properly. As a result of that, the style is always evolving, sometimes
in giant leaps and other times in nigh-undetectable ways.
As
for programs, being a self-funded sort of person, I use an old copy of
Photoshop 7 - ancient and decrepit technology by today's standards, but
still a godsend in my opinion. I used to do the inking by hand, but my
recent acquisition of a Wacom graphics tablet has allowed me to be more
versatile with digital ink than the physical medium ever was.
TWCR: Have you gone to any sort of art school, or are you self-taught?
RM: I
think it's pretty evident from my earlier strips that I'm a self-taught
illustrator, save for two art classes in middle school and one in high
school (which, if you went to my schools, you'd realize they were
useless time-wasters during which you learned next to nothing) and a
introductory drawing class during college.
In a nutshell: I have had no formal training, so thus I am a hack.
I'd
been a hack drawing comics since I was in elementary school, though I
never really was any good at them. Unfortunately, my mother had this
staunch anti-drawing phase when I was in middle school, claiming I had
other things to be doing with my time, so for reasons unbeknownst to me
I was forced to take a several-year hiatus during a critial
skill-building time, so in my opinion I'm horrible for my age.
Eventually I just stopped caring what she had to say about it and
picked it up again in high school - and they were childish crimes
against art for how old I was.
Slowly
- and I stress the "slow" part of that - I think I've gotten better,
but not because I know any illustration "theory" or advanced artist
tricks or techniques, but because after a thousand times of drawing the
same characters I damn well SHOULD be getting better. My style
developed by studying the art of those I admire - the J. Axers, Mark
Bagleys and Patrick Spaziantes of the world - and studying their work,
and applying some observation I've made to my own drawings.
I've
still got a long way to go, and I doubt I'll ever be satisfied with how
I draw, but I think that's a great motivator to try new things all the
time and keep pushing myself to become a better illustrator. If I'm
ever satisfied with something I do, then I'd become complacent, and the
work would suffer - so I'm always driven to improve my hackery.
TWCR:
Some of the thoughts and ideas expressed in your webcomic seem very
personal, especially in Hunter's case (for example, the story arc where
Hunter puts down a bunch of Religious Right people). Do you use the
webcomic as means for venting social or political opinions?
RM: Certainly. I
would make the argument that Suicide-For-Hire is nothing BUT venting of
socio-political frustrations, but with more violence and swearing than
is usually necessary. From the pages-long monologues about the sheer
stupidity of earlier clients wanting to be offed for the most
baseless reasons to the debatable necessity of uselessly large breasts
on women, rarely is there ever a comic that hasn't been supplied by
some sort of irksome encounter with the way society conducts itself.
As
for the aforementioned story arc with the Religious Right, that grew
out of my frustration with people who attempt to use the bible to
justify their bigoted and hateful beliefs they attempt to impose upon
the rest of the populace. I was brought up Catholic, and few things
enrage me more when some self-righteous piece of crap spewing nothing
but venom from his mouth and claiming that Jesus would do the same, all
because said bigot is holding a bible and thrusting it into the air.
Their words and arguments are not sacrosanct, and I am furious when I
hear them say they are, just because they accepted some notion of "God"
into their lives, that means they've got his blessing on their
high-volume hatred.
And
I'd just like to end this answer with the thought that "High-Volume
Hatred" would be an AWESOME name for a heavy metal album.
TWCR: I wholeheartedly agree. What sort of advice would you give to others that would like to start their own webcomic?
RM: Use bombs wisely. Do a barrel roll.
I
jest, of course. Besides "Don't, run away and live your life... RUN
LITTLE ONE!" I'd have to say to them: never give up, even when the
hardest thing in the world to do is get up and do your comic. Never
let it become a burden unto you, because then you've lost the real joy
of comicking: the love of the craft. And always make your comic
exactly what YOU want to make it - don't let the obnoxiously held
opinions of others dictate what you should do with your creation.
Constructive and valid criticism should be heeded to the point that it
helps, but never let the input of others steer your comic from what you
wanted it to be.
TWCR:
Last question. Who would win in a fight between a gigantic but modest
bee in an all-wool jumpsuit and a similarly gigantic moth?
RM: The
bee. Bees are scary, and even modest bees have stingers. But I'm
gonna go non-sequitor here too and say that a gigantic bear comes in
and owns all.
TWCR: Well, that's all! Thank you for your time.
We at The Webcomic Review would like to thank Rafael for agreeing
to be the first of our reviews and graciously consenting to this
interview.