Canadian Web Comic Interviews

Bill Duncan Author of "Monster Hollow" and more

I'm an educator in the province of Quebec, in the Eastern Townships, where I grew up with my younger brother, and both my parents. I studied Social Sciences and English Literature in College and University respectively, though I wanted to go to film-school at the time. I did my best to live up to everyone's expectations, and managed to be somewhat successful in the things I do, though I have wanted to make stories (write/draw) since I can remember.

What was the first online comic you ever read?
I suspect that it was Superosity by Chris Crosby, though the first webcomic to get me hooked on the form was John Allison's Bobbins.

What were your favorite comics growing up?
I was an avid fan of Batman's Detecive Comics when I was very young, but I discovered Swamp Thing in my pre-teens, and followed the whole DC/Vertigo explosion, until it sort of ran out of steam in the mid-nineties.

Tell us how you landed began working on your web comic.
I had actually given up drawing in high school, so I had no intention of starting my own webcomic. Instead I convinced my brother James, who wanted to draw comics, to start something with my friend Matt. They've been doing Man-Man.org for about three years now. I'd read both of the McCloud books, and was keen to do something, and I didn't feel that I had the talent to do something myself, so I lived vicariously through them. A few years ago, when my brother and his wife were having a baby, I offered to do two weeks of fill-in's. In order to cut down on what I saw as a waste of time, I decided to do the entire fill-in with my mouse, working on the computer.
That experience led to the creation of my first webcomic Japanimation Fist, which after it's initial run of 100 episodes, led me to the first of my Zombilly Picture Stories.
Monster Hollow, the comic I am working on now, was supposed to be part of the original line-up for Creature Feature Comics, a sci-fi/horror subscription site. but the project fell apart and I had several months of stories already done, so I got myself a domain name and started. In between I have worked on a number of small projects, one of which appeared as part of Modern Tales Longplay last Summer, and all of it is now drawn with my trusty wacom tablet.

What other writing or comics have you worked on?
Well, I've mentioned a few of these above, but before I came to comics I considered myself a writer. I wrote poetry and short fiction, but because of the line of work I got into I've also written a number of plays for children. I've had a few things published, but I've put much less into it since I started comicking.

For readers not familiar with your work, can you tell us something about your web comic?
The best description I could give for Monster Hollow would be to suggest that if Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton were to have a child together (a frightening thought, to say the least) that child might be Monster Hollow. It's a weekly series of six panels, with text in rhyming verse, that tells the story of one of the residents of Moster Hollow. The residents generally tend to be circus freaks, but on occasion they are just very strange people.
In terms of art, I suppose that it may resemble John Allison's Scary Go Round in some ways, if only because we are both drawing with vector programs on our computers with a tablet. The end effect much of the time is somewhere between an animation cell and a construction paper collage, depending on how successful I've been with any given panel.

Tell us how you acquired your artistic skills.
I loved to draw as a child, and I've always been a very visualperson, but did very little drawing after high school because I was set on learning more "practical" skills. I studied film and literature, and loved them both, but it took Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for me to really see that comics contained the potential of both.
I started drawing again about three or four years ago, and I have recently started taking some beginner's courses in order to develop some of the basic skills that I have been working around. I think I manage right now, but if I ever want to make it to the next level I will have to work on my craft.

What artists have inspired/influenced your artistic and writing styles?
I've mentioned quite a few of them already. John Allison really awakened me to the possibility of vector art, but since then I've become a huge fan of people like Shag who use a retro style to inform new art. I'm also a a huge fan of the team behind Samurai Jack, which I think is visually stunning. Writing-wise, I have always been a huge Ray Bradbury fan, but I don't think that's very apparent from anything I've done online. I think that if people were to pick things out of Monster Hollow for example they might catch bits of Edward Gorey or Tim Burton (The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, for example).
At the moment I am really excited about comics work by people like Scott Morse and Craig Thompson, who seem to be treading a fine line between illustrated children's lit and comics. I think I want to go even further in that direction at some point, though that may wait until I have more time on my hands for such things.

Where do you get your ideas for story arcs or comedic relief in your comic?
Working in education, I am constantly surrounded by examples of the torturous journey we've all made from child to adult. I watch those people who don't fit in, and sometimes bits and pieces of what I observe work their way into Monster Hollow. While some characters, like Zombilly or the Hougan in the Hat, are really bizarre offshoots of my own personality, many of the characters come from situations.
There are no real story-arcs, per se, in Monster Hollow at the moment. I learned from working on Japanimation Fist that I have a great deal of respect for people who can work in the serial format, but I find it difficult to work without the end in mind. MH stories are generally self-enclosed, and my other projects are really more like short stories than anything else.
(see http://www.dunktank.ca/7days/page0.html).

Your thoughts on the online comic community?
One of the things that has kept me in webcomics is the sense of community. I share with such a wide variety of people, many of whom I've never met in person. We meet online and have jam-sessions, we support one another's work and critique it on occasion. It's great.
That was one of the reasons I got involved in Comixpedia, which I feel is a great example of how the online community can help one another.

Being non-american, do you feel somewhat removed from many of the more mainstream web comics?
Not really. I find that the online community has fewer borders. Many of my favourite online comics are produced by people who don't even live in North America. Modern Tales and its sister sites have incorporated webcomics from all over the place, and I think that's pretty consistent with the make-up of what's what online. That being said, there's a phenomenal number of great webcomics coming from Canada. I feel right at home for the most part.

Does anything set you appart, being a Canadian comic artist, from other American web comics?
Politics and familiarity. Like in all things, it often seems that Americans know very little about what goes on outside their own borders, so saying that you are from Canada really means very little to them. They have no concept of how big we are, or what goes on here.
For my own comics though, I don't find that it makes much difference. What I do doesn't really have an affiliation with anything.

How, if at all, does being 'Canadian' factor into the creative process?
You might also ask how being an English Quebecer factors in. I suppose it's a factor in that I am exposed to a lot of American media with an outsider's perspective, but being a linguistic minority within a linguistic minority has probably influenced the kinds of stories I do. They're often about people who don't quite fit in, and I think that's something that interests me quite a bit.

Have you ever attended any Canadian or American Comic Conventions?
I went to the Montreal convention this year. Apart from a great conversation I had with Tom Devlin (Highwater books) and James Kochalka, it was a total geek-fest - which was cool, but not really my scene. I enjoy comics, but I find that my tastes have travelled much more towards the alternative end of things, and I am much more likely to pick up a mini-comic that looks cool than I am the latest DC or Marvel title.

Do you believe that popular cultures preoccupation with the Anime-style of art has diluted the overall quality of web comics, or improved it?
Not at all. I think it has broadened some horizons. People are experimenting with it now, and I am sure that it will dominate in some areas for a few years to come, but like everything else in the great cultural stew, it will eventually be digested, and the useful bits will be integrated. I don't draw that way myself, but I can see that the "big eyes" have probably worked their way into some of what I do.

How do you feel about the vast increase in web comics sporting the 'Sprite Comic' (or 'Cookie-Cutter') style?
Well, here again, it's brought some people to webcomics that would not have come. Some will stay and do other things, and others will fade away. Perhaps something really exciting could come from it. It's not for me, but if they're well-written, and use their "spriteness" in an interesting way I would read.

What movies, cartoons and TV shows are your favorites?
I'm currently abstaining from cable, but we have several Buffy and Angel box sets. I watch movies mostly. Kurosawa films lately. If I had cable I would be watching Samurai Jack, but I guess I will wait for a box set. I read a lot. My favourite films tend to be those that are a little surreal, like Terry Gilliam's Brazil, or Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. I'm also a big Burton fan, but I think I've already mentioned that (though [the movie] Big Fish was very un-Burton-like).

If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you bring with you?
A sketchbook to draw and write in - to record my experiences, and to keep myself sane; A copy of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine to travel places with, and remember what it was like to come alive for the first time; A flashlight to read and write by :)

What books do you read?
I'm currently working my way through Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events books. I didn't read much in the way of children's literature growing up, and I find I am making up for it now, plowing through oodles of Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, J.K. Rowling, etc.
When I read "grow-up" books I tend towards Canadian authors, and poetry (particularly Dylan Thomas).

How can somebody contact you?
They can generally reach me through the website. I think there may be a link on Monster Hollow, though I'm currently revamping my other site into a portfolio site which will be for that express purpose (www.dunktank.ca).
My email address there is bill [at] dunktank [dot] ca.

That ends the interview, any last words of wisdom?
Find what you love, and do a little of it everyday. Then your day is never wasted, and everyone brings you closer to whatever you're striving for.

-Bill Duncan

Dunktank.ca

Monster Hollow
Japanimation Fist
Zombilly Picture Stories

Authors Favorite strips:

"Seven Days" - Drunktank.ca
"Ghastly Gert" - Monster Hollow
"Hougan Hears a Howl" - Zombilly
"Green Eggs and Brains" - Zombilly

Posted by B.Scott
Return to The Main Page - Canadian Web Comic Ezine



	Canadian Web Comic Interviews Bill Duncan Author of "Monster Hollow" and more I'm an educator in the province of Quebec, in the Eastern Townships, where I grew up with my younger brother, and both my parents. I studied Social Sciences and English Literature in College and University respectively, though I wanted to go to film-school at the time. I did my best to live up to everyone's expectations, and managed to be somewhat successful in the things I do, though I have wanted to make stories (write/draw) since I can remember. What was the first online comic you ever read? I suspect that it was Superosity by Chris Crosby, though the first webcomic to get me hooked on the form was John Allison's Bobbins. What were your favorite comics growing up? I was an avid fan of Batman's Detecive Comics when I was very young, but I discovered Swamp Thing in my pre-teens, and followed the whole DC/Vertigo explosion, until it sort of ran out of steam in the mid-nineties. Tell us how you landed began working on your web comic. I had actually given up drawing in high school, so I had no intention of starting my own webcomic. Instead I convinced my brother James, who wanted to draw comics, to start something with my friend Matt. They've been doing Man-Man.org for about three years now. I'd read both of the McCloud books, and was keen to do something, and I didn't feel that I had the talent to do something myself, so I lived vicariously through them. A few years ago, when my brother and his wife were having a baby, I offered to do two weeks of fill-in's. In order to cut down on what I saw as a waste of time, I decided to do the entire fill-in with my mouse, working on the computer. That experience led to the creation of my first webcomic Japanimation Fist, which after it's initial run of 100 episodes, led me to the first of my Zombilly Picture Stories. Monster Hollow, the comic I am working on now, was supposed to be part of the original line-up for Creature Feature Comics, a sci-fi/horror subscription site. but the project fell apart and I had several months of stories already done, so I got myself a domain name and started. In between I have worked on a number of small projects, one of which appeared as part of Modern Tales Longplay last Summer, and all of it is now drawn with my trusty wacom tablet. What other writing or comics have you worked on? Well, I've mentioned a few of these above, but before I came to comics I considered myself a writer. I wrote poetry and short fiction, but because of the line of work I got into I've also written a number of plays for children. I've had a few things published, but I've put much less into it since I started comicking. For readers not familiar with your work, can you tell us something about your web comic? The best description I could give for Monster Hollow would be to suggest that if Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton were to have a child together (a frightening thought, to say the least) that child might be Monster Hollow. It's a weekly series of six panels, with text in rhyming verse, that tells the story of one of the residents of Moster Hollow. The residents generally tend to be circus freaks, but on occasion they are just very strange people. In terms of art, I suppose that it may resemble John Allison's Scary Go Round in some ways, if only because we are both drawing with vector programs on our computers with a tablet. The end effect much of the time is somewhere between an animation cell and a construction paper collage, depending on how successful I've been with any given panel. Tell us how you acquired your artistic skills. I loved to draw as a child, and I've always been a very visualperson, but did very little drawing after high school because I was set on learning more "practical" skills. I studied film and literature, and loved them both, but it took Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for me to really see that comics contained the potential of both. I started drawing again about three or four years ago, and I have recently started taking some beginner's courses in order to develop some of the basic skills that I have been working around. I think I manage right now, but if I ever want to make it to the next level I will have to work on my craft. What artists have inspired/influenced your artistic and writing styles? I've mentioned quite a few of them already. John Allison really awakened me to the possibility of vector art, but since then I've become a huge fan of people like Shag who use a retro style to inform new art. I'm also a a huge fan of the team behind Samurai Jack, which I think is visually stunning. Writing-wise, I have always been a huge Ray Bradbury fan, but I don't think that's very apparent from anything I've done online. I think that if people were to pick things out of Monster Hollow for example they might catch bits of Edward Gorey or Tim Burton (The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, for example). At the moment I am really excited about comics work by people like Scott Morse and Craig Thompson, who seem to be treading a fine line between illustrated children's lit and comics. I think I want to go even further in that direction at some point, though that may wait until I have more time on my hands for such things. Where do you get your ideas for story arcs or comedic relief in your comic? Working in education, I am constantly surrounded by examples of the torturous journey we've all made from child to adult. I watch those people who don't fit in, and sometimes bits and pieces of what I observe work their way into Monster Hollow. While some characters, like Zombilly or the Hougan in the Hat, are really bizarre offshoots of my own personality, many of the characters come from situations. There are no real story-arcs, per se, in Monster Hollow at the moment. I learned from working on Japanimation Fist that I have a great deal of respect for people who can work in the serial format, but I find it difficult to work without the end in mind. MH stories are generally self-enclosed, and my other projects are really more like short stories than anything else. (see http://www.dunktank.ca/7days/page0.html). Your thoughts on the online comic community? One of the things that has kept me in webcomics is the sense of community. I share with such a wide variety of people, many of whom I've never met in person. We meet online and have jam-sessions, we support one another's work and critique it on occasion. It's great. That was one of the reasons I got involved in Comixpedia, which I feel is a great example of how the online community can help one another. Being non-american, do you feel somewhat removed from many of the more mainstream web comics? Not really. I find that the online community has fewer borders. Many of my favourite online comics are produced by people who don't even live in North America. Modern Tales and its sister sites have incorporated webcomics from all over the place, and I think that's pretty consistent with the make-up of what's what online. That being said, there's a phenomenal number of great webcomics coming from Canada. I feel right at home for the most part. Does anything set you appart, being a Canadian comic artist, from other American web comics? Politics and familiarity. Like in all things, it often seems that Americans know very little about what goes on outside their own borders, so saying that you are from Canada really means very little to them. They have no concept of how big we are, or what goes on here. For my own comics though, I don't find that it makes much difference. What I do doesn't really have an affiliation with anything. How, if at all, does being 'Canadian' factor into the creative process? You might also ask how being an English Quebecer factors in. I suppose it's a factor in that I am exposed to a lot of American media with an outsider's perspective, but being a linguistic minority within a linguistic minority has probably influenced the kinds of stories I do. They're often about people who don't quite fit in, and I think that's something that interests me quite a bit. Have you ever attended any Canadian or American Comic Conventions? I went to the Montreal convention this year. Apart from a great conversation I had with Tom Devlin (Highwater books) and James Kochalka, it was a total geek-fest - which was cool, but not really my scene. I enjoy comics, but I find that my tastes have travelled much more towards the alternative end of things, and I am much more likely to pick up a mini-comic that looks cool than I am the latest DC or Marvel title. Do you believe that popular cultures preoccupation with the Anime-style of art has diluted the overall quality of web comics, or improved it? Not at all. I think it has broadened some horizons. People are experimenting with it now, and I am sure that it will dominate in some areas for a few years to come, but like everything else in the great cultural stew, it will eventually be digested, and the useful bits will be integrated. I don't draw that way myself, but I can see that the "big eyes" have probably worked their way into some of what I do. How do you feel about the vast increase in web comics sporting the 'Sprite Comic' (or 'Cookie-Cutter') style? Well, here again, it's brought some people to webcomics that would not have come. Some will stay and do other things, and others will fade away. Perhaps something really exciting could come from it. It's not for me, but if they're well-written, and use their "spriteness" in an interesting way I would read. What movies, cartoons and TV shows are your favorites? I'm currently abstaining from cable, but we have several Buffy and Angel box sets. I watch movies mostly. Kurosawa films lately. If I had cable I would be watching Samurai Jack, but I guess I will wait for a box set. I read a lot. My favourite films tend to be those that are a little surreal, like Terry Gilliam's Brazil, or Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. I'm also a big Burton fan, but I think I've already mentioned that (though [the movie] Big Fish was very un-Burton-like). If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you bring with you? A sketchbook to draw and write in - to record my experiences, and to keep myself sane; A copy of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine to travel places with, and remember what it was like to come alive for the first time; A flashlight to read and write by :) What books do you read? I'm currently working my way through Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events books. I didn't read much in the way of children's literature growing up, and I find I am making up for it now, plowing through oodles of Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, J.K. Rowling, etc. When I read "grow-up" books I tend towards Canadian authors, and poetry (particularly Dylan Thomas). How can somebody contact you? They can generally reach me through the website. I think there may be a link on Monster Hollow, though I'm currently revamping my other site into a portfolio site which will be for that express purpose (www.dunktank.ca). My email address there is bill [at] dunktank [dot] ca. That ends the interview, any last words of wisdom? Find what you love, and do a little of it everyday. Then your day is never wasted, and everyone brings you closer to whatever you're striving for. -Bill Duncan Dunktank.ca Monster Hollow Japanimation Fist Zombilly Picture Stories Authors Favorite strips: "Seven Days" - Drunktank.ca "Ghastly Gert" - Monster Hollow "Hougan Hears a Howl" - Zombilly "Green Eggs and Brains" - Zombilly Posted by B.Scott Return to The Main Page - Canadian Web Comic Ezine