The Xcentrikz - Interactive Comic

Interview with the very talented Gordon McAlpin

On his comical creation, Multiplex!

July 10, 2009

Do you like movies? Ever worked in a theater before? Then you'll love the behind-the-scenes amusements of Multiplex! Gordon's fun comic features a sit-com-like cast of great characters and a cool vector-art style, so go have a view. And unlike most comics, this one actually covers real-life, real-time events. Enjoy the funny parodies and commentary on current movies! The comic is pretty tame, although not totally kid-friendly due to the occasional language and mature topics, and it's updated every Monday and Thursday. Send Gordon a note and tell him what you think of MULTIPLEX!

the Xcentrikz Team: Thanks again for the interview Gordon, I’m looking forward to hearing all your answers, and hope your readers enjoy it too.

Happy to oblige.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Great! How did you get started in webcomics, and then create Multiplex?

My first online comic was called Stripped Books, which I did for the book website Bookslut. It was a series of self-contained strips adapting book-related events in the Chicago area — So, like, poet and translator Stephen Mitchell gave a talk about his new translation/version of Gilgamesh, and I would record it, take reference photos, transcribe the talk, edit it down to an 8–10 page comics script, and then draw it (or in one case have a friend of mine draw it).

I didn't read any webcomics at that point, and it never really even occurred to me that what I was doing was this thing called a "webcomic," because it was for this book website, but obviously it was. That was pretty well-received, so I did a few more of those, and after a year or so, for a variety of reasons, I left Bookslut and took Stripped Books with me, to its own website. I only did two more before shuttering the strip, though, because of Multiplex.

I had started Multiplex as a back-up feature for Stripped Books. I could only do a full 8–12 page "Stripped Book" every couple of months at best, because of how long it took to do each strip (to say nothing of actually having an event worth covering). So I wanted to have some kind of co-feature that would update more frequently.

I'd had this old idea — first suggested years before by my friend Kurt, although I'd actually forgotten that at the time — of doing a comic strip called "Multiplex" about a bunch of kids who worked at a movie theater, and so I dusted that off, and there you have it.

THE XCENTRIKZ: I'm glad you did, because the comic is great fun. What was it like early on for Multiplex? Did you work to promote it? How did your reader base build up, to the popular place it’s at now?

Early on, when it was still a back-up feature, I really just thought of Multiplex as this lark — this silly thing I did every week or so, whenever I had an idea, but I had gotten a kick out of drawing the Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith Stripped Book digitally and had fun playing with digital illustration further in Multiplex, so I just kept it up.

I did try promoting Multiplex early on — probably too early on — with limited results. I got some good feedback from readers, and I learned to develop slightly thicker skin because there are [jerks] on the internet, but readership slowly grew to a few hundred visitors per day on average.

Eventually, after retiring Stripped Books and focusing on Multiplex, I decided to buy a single-day Something Positive ad and that doubled or tripled my readership to about 1000 a day. And then Scott Kurtz asked me to do a guest strip for PvP and that doubled my readership. From there, it's been mostly a slow and relatively steady rise to the point I'm at now (maybe 7000 a day on average, or 10,000 or so on update days).

I've had some jumps in traffic from StumbleUpon or my Newsarama interview or other websites, but mostly the growth has been just from that slow and steady accumulation of regular readers. Multiplex has its gag-strippy moments (especially early on), but I'm the first to admit that it's not something a casual reader can just find a random page from and instantly fall in love.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What do you think about your readers?

I love them! I am definitely very humbled that there are people out there who like to check for the comic right at midnight on update days (and yes, I feel bad when I'm running late with a new strip), and people who like to talk about whom Jason should be dating, or whether he's "right" about some movie or just being a snob again.

They've given me ideas now and then, too — I mean, anybody who ever talks with me about movies is indirectly or directly giving me fodder for the strip. And my movie-theater-employed readers tell me when I've drawn something wrong up in the projector booth (which is especially helpful since I've never actually worked at a movie theater).

THE XCENTRIKZ: Well that's really cool, you're fortunate to have that. I really enjoy your illustration style for Multiplex. How did you develop your style?

Well, like I said, I enjoyed drawing the Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith Stripped Books, and since I've always wanted to do Multiplex as a Flash animated short, I've always drawn it with that sort of sensibility in mind — with character, "set" and prop files slowly building up as I've continued to work on the strip. I've taken inspiration from a whole slew of vector artists — such as Chris Bishop (Girl vs. Pig) or traditional artists who use fairly geometric figures with mainly flat-colors.

Figuring out how to coax a facial expressions from a bunch of ovals and lines or to quickly(!) draw relatively detailed backgrounds almost exclusively with geometric shapes piled on top of each other is tricky, and it's taken me four years to get where I'm at now. I'm sure in another four years, I'll look at the stuff I'm doing now and cringe, like I do when I look at the first couple of years' worth of comics. It's not at all a fast way to draw, and needing to get a strip done in 8 hours or less makes for a lot of creative or not-so-creative corner-cutting.

Overall, it's just slow, gradual improvement and figuring out how to do things in Adobe Illustrator. Sometimes technology helps me work faster and/or better, too, like getting my Cintiq (which I use pretty infrequently, but it's invaluable when I do) and the new Blob Brush feature in Illustrator CS4.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What do you enjoy most about doing this funny, “slice-of-life” comic about the movie theater life?

I love how many different ideas I can touch on in the strip. I can do the gag strip thing, movie parody, teen drama, and movie commentary — not only about specific movies, but about movies in general, how we talk about movies, how we watch them or used to watch them… how we're passionate about them to the point that if I draw a strip making fun of the slow-mo in 300, I have a dozen internet trolls posting inane treatises about how stupid I am on StumbleUpon (and yet, somehow, I'm the movie snob). That's what Multiplex is about, ultimately, though: love of movies.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Heh, that's neat you have such cool attitude about your work. Is there something difficult about making Multiplex? How do you overcome it?

Occasionally I have trouble coming up with ideas for a specific movie, but usually as the deadline looms, I'll just figure out a scenario — where people are talking, who's talking, and what about — and then just start drawing, and I'll worry about the dialogue later. That's actually one of the better things about drawing the strip digitally: the freedom to do much more improvised strips like that. If I drew the strip by hand, that wouldn't be possible. Sometimes these work out pretty well; sometimes not, but I'd rather get a so-so strip out than no strip at all.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What typically instigates your great sense of humour?

Mostly it's just the voices in my head.

The humor in the strip is mostly character based, so I'm basically just improvising with myself (as the various characters) over and over until I'm happy or I run out of time, whichever comes first. Hopefully the former.

If I don't have any clue what to do, I'll turn an idea over and over and eventually find myself gravitating towards one idea, which usually ends up as the beginning or the end of a strip, but basically I'll just figure out what "needs" to happen in the strip, whether it's a small development or some large moment, and just build around that.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Do you have a favorite character to write or draw for?

Jason is my favorite; that's pretty obvious, isn't it? He's the closest to me out of the characters, in taste in movies and in personality. He's kind of a di**, but he's lightening up slowly. He started the strip at 19, and he's mellowing with age. He's got a long way to go, though. But I don't think "likeable" characters are terribly interesting.

THE XCENTRIKZ: So is cartooning more a hobby or job for you? Any interesting experiences to share about your work? Weird fan encounters? Crazy deadlines? Amusing special requests you’ve gotten?

Well, I don't make my living off of Multiplex by any stretch of the imagination, but it pays for its hosting, all my computer equipment and software, and all my movie-going, so I'd say it's definitely a job. It's just one I happen to really enjoy. I take working on the strip — but not the strip itself — very seriously and try to keep consistent work hours as much as possible — like, for instance, I'm always working on the strip on Sunday by 4pm. Always.

The Thursday strip is more difficult, because I don't have that same fire under my seat on Tuesday nights, so I occasionally waste them struggling to find an idea.

I haven't had any weird fan encounters, though. I mean, once in a while, people who have talked with me online think that I will recognize them when I see them face to face for the first time, which is a little awkward, but nothing too strange, sorry.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What other cartoonists and entertainers do you admire? Do they influence your work?

Joe Sacco and Larry Gonick are my idols. I would be writing and drawing non-fiction comics if people would pay me to, but Multiplex is the strip that took off, not Stripped Books. There's an element of non-fiction in Multiplex, of course, with the movie commentary and all.

Dave McKean is one of my favorite cartoonists, as well. His Cages is, I think, one of the greatest comics ever written. It's got so much going on in it — the superficial story about an artist trying to work through a creative block, but also these fascinating explorations of stories, storytelling, and ideas about art — and yet it all works in the end.

I love the '40s–'60s Archie comics. At first glance, you could say the characters are just cardboard cut-outs who do the same thing over and over, but there's so much more going on (at least some of the time). It might not all be brilliant stuff, but the classic (cliché) stories appeal to me.

I also love Calvin & Hobbes and the earliest years of Peanuts. The influence from those is maybe not as obvious, but I think a lot of the strips in Multiplex follow the same patterns as Calvin & Hobbes, for instance. Like, Jason will just babble about something for a few panels and then there's a reversal at the end. It's a classic structure, but C&H is where I really started dissecting how comic strips were done.

And so Multiplex ends up this kind of this weird smooshed-together gag strip/Archie/non-fiction hybrid.

Film is obviously an influence as well, but their influence is probably much less obvious. Billy Wilder was amazing. I think Wes Anderson is a fantastic director. A few Japanese directors: Hayao Miyazaki, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa.

THE XCENTRIKZ: That's fun to know who your inspirations are. How about telling us some of your all-time favorite movies?

My all-time favorite movie is The Apartment by Billy Wilder. Like Multiplex, it's a blend of drama and comedy, with a dash of romance. It can be corny and light-hearted in one scene, and then deadly serious in the next, and I love it for that, because that's how life is, sometimes.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What are some pages of Multiplex you’re most proud of, and why?

I'm stupidly proud of the Harry Potter strip — #23, where the boys convince a group of children at a Harry Potter screening that if they're noisy, the Dementors will get them. Messing with children is always funny.

I'm exceedingly proud of the recent strip tied into "Ghost of Girlfriends Past." The "Ghost of Girlfriends Future" in that is totally juvenile, but I also managed to touch on some of the relationship stuff at the same time.

Art-wise, I really enjoyed the short flashback to the Regal Theatre when I introduced James Harris, the security guard, last year. I want to do more of those, but finding photo reference has been tough.

THE XCENTRIKZ: #23 is indeed one of my favorites: Here it is! So Gordon, do you have advice to share with other comic creators?

My favorite thing to tell people is a quote from Raymond Chandler: "Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know."

THE XCENTRIKZ: Super quote, it's very true. Thanks! Is there any thing else you’d like to add? What’s coming up in Multiplex…?

Oh, jeez, I dunno. I might have some T-shirts for sale soon, maybe another eBook or two as I slowly but surely work towards getting a print book ready for some publisher out there who wants it — hint, hint — or self-publishing, I suppose. But it's all a lot of work, and sometimes just the two strips a week is enough to eat up all my Multiplex time. The second eBook is a year late, so… uh… you know, don't start holding your breath or anything.

Within the actual strip, I have a long-term arc for the entire series. As I've mentioned in other interviews, there is an ending to the strip, but it's several years off. But in the short-term, I don't really plan the strip out past the current relationshippy subplots, or what-have-you. I have subjects I come back to now and then, like Jason's budding interest in classic movie theaters, but as for current films, Hollywood's gotta make the movies for me to write strips about, you know? I can't plan much of that stuff in detail too far ahead. I have to keep it timely.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Thank you so much for the lovely chat, Gordon. Keep it up with your great creation! And hey everybody, please check out MULTIPLEX…

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