Interview Time!

What? Another interview so soon? And of a comic we haven't reviewed yet? In the spirit of doing something oh so wrong, here is terrible interview with World's Worst Webcomic creator, EvilCouch. What's wrong about it? The interview is up before the comic review! Look for it tomorrow. But for now, melt your brain with question and answer fury!

1. Thanks for doing this, because otherwise I would have had to put up pics of me before and after drinking an entire bottle of vodka. With that said, tell us about your comic, WWWC.

It's the World's Worst WebComic and it's an ancient curse that I found during one of the archaeological digs that I had my minions on. It dates back to Ancient Sumeria and was the cause of the Tower of Babylon myth which resulted in the complete collapse of the singular language system that at one point unified humanity. It is my belief that through the application of the Enki nam-shub in reverse, all affected humans will have their higher order language knowledge disrupted and supplanted by the original primordial language and be completed enmeshed in its more direct hold on the human brain.

The reason why I'm telling you this, is because you're already infected and your knowledge of it will actually impede in any possible defense against it.

2. When you started it, what were you thinking?

I began writing and drawing WWWC because while there was a glut of poorly written and illustrated comics out there, no one had the balls actually call themselves the World's worst and stick to their guns about it. Several people called themselves by the name, but lost their motivation along the way and either ended their projects after only a handful of strips or simply stopped believing in the awfulness of the comic and instead "moved on".

3. What other projects do you have currently or in the pipeline?

I'm currently writing several comics for various projects, both online and in print, mostly collaborating with Hope Hooper of Wynd of Change. We're entering the Zuda Comics competition sponsored by DC Comics with a project called Affinity. I'm also currently participating in the National Novel Writing Month competition with a novel of my own devising called Cyclopean Highway. There's a few other comics that'll get made sooner or later and I have a fistful of other projects on the back burner, such as rewriting the Chinese equivalent of the Iliad, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms into contemporary English, as it's even more difficult for modern audiences to read than anything written by Grecian bards. Oh, and there's also the whole taking the world over thing that I'm in the middle of.

4. Describe your style.

My style is mostly blunt trauma of words. After they've been properly brutalized, I pack them into a steel drum and then run air at very high pressure through the drum, creating a sort of sand or bead blasting technique. Also, I draw like a toddler who's had his bottle replaced by espresso.

5. What do you feel about the ongoing violence in Iraq and the repercussions on gas prices here in the states?

I actually took place in the violence in Iraq from early summer 2004 to late summer 2005. It's pretty sad that we invaded them. The US interests would have been much better served by continuing to use the Food for Oil program to maintain petroleum imports at pennies on the dollar. By treating them like a real country, we really squandered a great opportunity to have a slave country/colony. With an almost universally reviled dictator at the helm of Iraq, we could really rule by proxy and establish virtually any sort of rules that they would have little choice but to abide by. In a very real way, invading Iraq was more humanitarian than leaving them the way they were.

Also, your mom's fat.

6. Sorry bout that last one. What tools of the trade do you use to create your masterpiece?

I use the GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP to do my bidding. Early WWWC strips were drawn with a trackball. More current strips are mostly drawn with a Wacom Intous 3 tablet. Any special effects that I can't do inside of GIMP are done with Particle Magic, which is a particle effects generator that I started using when I was doing machinima.

7. If you could do a crossover with any other webcomic, which would it be and why?

I don't know that there's really a webcomic that could truly work synergistically with the ocular horror that is WWWC. A comic that focuses on its art would probably the best bet to really capitalize on the stark contrast of the two art styles. Something like Inverlock or whatever the new one by the same artist is. Or perhaps a well-drawn comic that I actually read, like Marsh Rocket.

8. About how much time per day/week do you spend on WWWC?

The more simplistic comics take about 2-3 minutes to think of something to draw and then about the same amount to actually get it done. More complex strips, like the puzzle's saga, which involved a lot of special effects can take an hour or two, simply because there's so much tweaking that goes into rendering particle effects to make look like what I want them to.

9. Any advice for budding webcomickers out there?

My suggestion to anyone wanting to make a comic is to draw something. If you like it, keep doing it. If you don't, do something else. If you end up creating something that you enjoy doing, don't bullshit yourself and take whatever criticism you get. If you're creating the one millionth Penny Arcade rip-off, you'll win a prize, simply by virtue of being that far removed from your source material. The prize will be the undying hatred of everyone else that has every picked up a drawing instrument and the every lasting embrace of obscurity, because you will never ever stand out.

That said, if you really like doing it, fuck it. You shouldn't be in this hobby if you don't like doing it. You should have utterly no blinders on. You can take criticism to create something better, but you should never start doing something that you cannot stand, simply for the sake of allowing yourself to stand out. If you like what you're doing and actually believe in your project, then you'll keep doing it and it'll be a source of great fun. Your love will show through your work.

10. One last thing: why should people peruse WWWC?

Everyone should gaze upon World's Worst WebComic, because in the future, it will be required by my Imperial decree, so you might as well get caught up now.

Thanks for reading!