The Xcentrikz - Interactive Comic

Interview with Kris Overstreet and Ben Rodriguez

About their astounding comic: Peter is The Wolf!

July 2, 2009

Hey gang, just got through a fun gab with the talented dudes of Peter is the Wolf. This interesting comic features great art and amusing stories, depicting werewolves' intriguing adventures. If you haven't seen it already, read up on it below and go check it out. Peter is the Wolf features a mature audiences version, as well as a definitely "not safe for work" version. Have fun. It's updated Wednesdays.

--- Kirk Reidhaar

July 2, 2009

Kirk from The Xcentrikz Team: Hey Benjamin, Kris, thanks for doing this interview with us. I bet your dedicated fans out there enjoy it. But I'd like to drive new viewers to ya guys too… So tell them a bit about your awesome comic, and why it's so cool?

KRIS OVERSTREET: PETER IS THE WOLF is a webcomic about werewolves as ordinary people... with a bit of sex and comedy thrown into the mix. The main characters are Peter Stubbe, a born werewolf and the runt of his pack, and Sarah Hazen, his formerly secret, formerly human girlfriend. Sarah now transforms into a werewolf every bit as big and strong as Peter ISN'T... and, because of circumstances, it's Peter's responsibility to train Sarah in controlling her instincts and transformations, while at the same time keeping her from making trouble for the pack and their secret existence.

BEN RODRIGUEZ: Somehow, I think we came up with the formula for a Harem Anime in reverse...
Also, unlike a lot of supernatural fiction nowadays, we've tried pretty hard to keep it lighthearted, in the realm of comedy. That isn't to say that there aren't dramatic elements, but there isn't long pages of people pining for each other to lame music. None of the werewolves in PitW spend their days moping about what monsters they are-

KRIS: - except for Sarah, and she only does that occasionally.

BEN: Of course, that may be because although she's a fangirl, she's not a werewolf fangirl, like some girls are into emo-vampires. She'd be much happier tagging along with some Brit in a blue box.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Alrighty! When did Peter is the Wolf get started, and how did you decide to do it?

KRIS: Well, for my part it began with a quick two-page gag idea I wrote ten years ago for another artist working on another comic project. That artist never touched it, but Ben Rodriguez picked up on it and drew it. The core of the gag is, if you're a werewolf, then silk underwear that doesn't stretch or rip isn't a good idea on full moons.

In addition to that two-pager, Ben submitted two stories for the adult anthology comic WLP was publishing at the time, BOOTLEG. One of them got used in issue #12- "The Coyote and the Jackalope." The other, which was about werewolves and had a proto-Peter main character, just wasn't good enough to see print, but if Ben ever annoys me substantially enough I'll pull it out of archives and use it for filler in PitW...

Anyway, these submissions came in right around 2002 or 2003. The more I thought about 'em, the more I considered doing a werewolf webcomic with Ben. Eventually, in 2004, I began pitching the idea of a runt werewolf with a super-duper-werewolf girlfriend and a brutally aggressive rival girlfriend-wannabe to Ben. Sketches and then script followed, and the first page went on the WLP website in 2005.

BEN: Kris hasn't mentioned that I'd also done a stint on one of the other webcomics. That's part of what got the ball rolling for us. I figured it'd be fun to do a weekly webcomic.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What typically gives you the concepts and inspires your great ideas?

KRIS: I'm a member of the Concept of the Month club. You get the first ten concepts for a penny, but you have to buy four concepts at regular price in the following year...

Seriously, ideas are a hard thing to track. Most of the stuff that went into PitW doesn't have a clear-cut origin. There's no one thing that prompts ideas. All I can suggest is keep your eyes open and question the things you see around you.

BEN: Mainly, the rest of werewolf lit out there. Legends & modern lore, and what it can stand in for. Then we boil down all our reactions to what's out there.

THE XCENTRIKZ: So Ben, Kris... do other comic creators and entertainers influence your work?

KRIS: Oh, yes. For PitW the fundamental influence on me- and I presume Ben- was and remains Fred Perry (creator of the comic GOLD DIGGER), who introduced us both to the concept of lycanthropes that, in and out of the fur, acted like regular people with regular personalities.

On my end, major influences on writing include Terry Pratchett, Tex Avery, Rumiko Takahashi, the late Robert Aspirin, and to a lesser extent J. R. R. Tolkien (who wasn't much for comedy).

BEN: For me it'd be Ben Dunn, Fred Perry, Adam Warren, Rumiko Takahashi, Keniichi Sonada... and that's just the comics artists!

THE XCENTRIKZ: Yea, I love Tratchett's work. So what's it like for you guys to work together as a team? Do you assign certain schedules and plans for each other?

KRIS: The comic assigns the schedule, and we regularly fail to meet it.

Ben suggests stuff now and again, and he often takes liberties with the script, but I generally set the storyline and exercise veto power when something just plain doesn't work.

BEN: We bounce stuff off of each other's heads, and Kris thinks that I have a knack for snappy dialogue. I'm also the one responsible for putting some of the odder "landmarks" in the series when drawing. It's odd how he bases bits off of his college years in Texas, while I'm drawing bits of Michigan... so somewhere between those two states, the action take place...

THE XCENTRIKZ: Peter is the Wolf has a big following of viewers… What do you think of your fans?

KRIS: Well, they're mostly silent. There's about twenty or so semi-regular posters at the WLP message boards, most if not all of 'em PitW fans. Aside from them, though, we live in a real quiet zone, fandom-wise, except when we go to conventions.

There are moments of pure win, though. At A-Kon last month a group of five people all came together in costume as PitW characters, some more so than others. Still... when people love your comic enough that a whole group of cosplayers gets together for it, you've arrived.

BEN: I honestly never knew there was a devoted, specific Werewolf fandom, as it stands, before PitW. I knew there was a horror fandom, that was a given, but I'd never thought about how fandoms can revolve around and explore individual iconic monsters.

KRIS: Oh, come on, you must have known about vampire fandom. Ten years ago half the women of America were mad over Anne Rice.

BEN: Admittedly, yeah... But at least the Lestat books were well written. And Vampires had been hogging the spotlight for the longest time. Most monsters get no love at all.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Sweet deal... What's it been like getting Peter is the Wolf to be as popular as it is today? Do you work hard to push advertisements and frequently go to conventions, or does it just spread word-of-mouth?

KRIS: We push pretty hard at conventions, yeah. Money hasn't been there for advertising much, but we've tried it a time or two- most recently just now, at the end of June, we dropped a few hundred bucks to promote the upcoming graphic novel collections, pluggity plug.

BEN: Mostly at conventions, there the pressure's on, though. You're not only selling your work, but you're trying to sell yourself!

KRIS: Aaaaaand if that's not an entendre, I don't know what one is.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Ha hah! What do you like most about doing updates for Peter is the Wolf?

KRIS: Being done with it. Seriously, script writing is fun sometimes, but all the updating process is is editing HTML and sitting around hoping your FTP connection doesn't foul up.

BEN: My regular job is a midnight shift, so the page goes up as I'm off to work. When I get home, there's a few comments in the message boards.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What are some of the more difficult moments you've encountered in your comic work?

KRIS: Writer's block is a major problem. In fact, we're dealing with it right now, which is why instead of the main story the comic's currently off on a tangent re-telling the Robin Hood myth (in about twelve pages).

Another major problem is when an idea just plain and simple doesn't work. The prime example here is the "shoulder-wolf" concept we had around, oh, page #100 or so, and then inverted (shoulder-human) about twenty or so pages later. It did NOT work how it was planned to work, and in fact undermined one of the major premises of the work, i. e. that werewolves are NOT split-personalities. Unfortunately, the demands of weekly updating made it impossible to have do-overs, so all we could do was minimize the damage and then make sure we'd never use that idea again.

BEN: Yeah, as much as some fans liked the little shoulder wolves, and I liked drawing chibis, for driving the story forward in the way Kris wanted, it kinda flopped. As for me, it's a problem with procrastination sometimes, at other times, I've got the problem juggling multiple art projects and a 'day job'.

THE XCENTRIKZ: If you could fix anything on Peter is the Wolf with no limitations of money or time, what would it be?

KRIS: No limitations of money or time? Cool! Daily updates in full color with animated panels. No, better yet: PETER IS THE WOLF: THE MOTION PICTURE! Oooh, and we'd have to add a new character just so we could cast Simon Pegg in it!

BEN: I'd have to say a movie would be almost out of the question, as much as I'd like to see one. It'd be so damned bowdlerized that the fans would never be able to recognize it.

As for time, and money limitations? If we were making enough that drawing was my primary employment, you might not see page-a-day updates to Peter is the Wolf, but you might see me juggling multiple webcomics in similar universes... oh! here's what Jean's up to on campus! And on the other side of town, Walt's working on a car! And that wacky lil' tanuk- er... raccoon dog girl...

KRIS: Cherry could star in her own comic, yes. Call it The Torture of Cherry Lee.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Heh! That WOULD be cool. So how about random fun stuff: What's your best… Talennt? Friend? Video gaming experience? Vacation spot? Comic page? Halloween costume?

KRIS: Talent: goofy ideas. Friend: the guy who prints WLP's shirt line. Video gaming experience: Suikoden II. Vacation spot: what vacation? Comic page: don't have time to go through 'em all to pick. Halloween costume: the turtle (not ninja) outfit I used three years running in elementary school.

BEN: Talent: Self-immolation. Followed closely by slam-bang artwork. Friend: Hm, I'd have to go with the conchair of YoumaCon (youmacon.com), another of my 'employers'. Video Gaming? Left 4 Dead. Not sure whether tis better to pub-stomp an opponent, and end a Versus game with a score of 7990; or to randomly join in on a team that's lagging behind, and pull it around for a nail-biting close win by the end. BTW - Bar1Scorpio's the XBL name. Vacation Spot: Disneyland.. I really gotta see the redone Pirates & I've always been a fan of the Haunted Mansion. Comic Page: There's a 2-page spread in the most recent book of Adam Warren's Empowered (vol. 5) that floored me. Halloween Costume: I dressed up as Wicket the Ewok for several years in a row as a child...

KRIS: Wicket? That's got to be child abuse right there, especially multiple years...

BEN: Should I mention the time I was Twiki? Beedee beedee beep!

THE XCENTRIKZ: If you could have a superpower for one day, what would you pick, and what would you do with it?

KRIS: Since this is meant to be a worksafe interview, I plead the Fifth.

BEN: Ooh! Ooh! The power to make Espers, Aliens, and Time Travellers exist! You'd only need it for a day, once you've already done it!

KRIS: But how would you ever know you did it? In fact, how do you know there aren't espers, aliens and/or time travellers walking the earth right now?

BEN: Are... are you saying... I'm god? Or a Japanese School Girl?

THE XCENTRIKZ: How do you feel about the future of the webcomic biz?

KRIS: I'm of mixed feelings. First off, very, very few webcomics are popular enough to really be business (that is, profitable of themselves). PitW isn't one of 'em yet, and may never be; otherwise we wouldn't sell the T-shirts and other stuff. On the other hand, newspaper funnies are dying out, the print comic market is becoming absolutely hostile to independents and newcomers, so the Internet is the only place for most new creators to turn.

BEN: I think there's a lot of room for experimentation, but you still have to conform to certain print guidelines to make that final book, and have it able to sell... it's a bizarre little schizm. But if you've got a story to tell, it'll get out to a few more places here than it might have at the old Comic Con's of the 90s...

KRIS: Won't be as financially viable, though. It might be we're heading back to the days of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, when artists depended on patrons to pay the day-to-day bills.

BEN: As long as it's not government grants. I'd really hate to think that your tax dollars are going to fund what we do here at WLP...

THE XCENTRIKZ: Some really foresightful stuff there, thanks. Do you have any tips to share with newbie comic creators?

KRIS: Yes. Have a plan, have a schedule, and do everything you can to stick to it. Have at least a vague idea of where your story is going. And- I cannot stress this enough in today's environment- LEARN TO SPELL. Really. The word is THE, not T3H, 4 is a number and not a preposition, and use apostrophes for possessives and NOT for plurals.

BEN: On that note, I'll add this: from PaletteSwapNinja.com: "Learn to Spell"

Heh, that song also happens to feature some of the guys at TalkRadar, (at gamesradar.com) one of my favorite podcasts. Yeah, I'm listening to quite a few podcasts now, Rotting Flesh Radio, Otaku Generation, The Webcomic Beacon, Ballycast (yes, a podcast for the Carnival, Sideshow, and Burlesque entertainment industries...)

On That note, listen to, read up on, watch documentaries, on stuff outside your initial field of knowledge, or interests! It's a great way to flesh out your characters, by making them less and less like stand-ins for you!

KRIS: Or just sit somewhere and eavesdrop on conversations. Listen to what's important to people, how they talk, what makes them happy or sad. If that seems too intrusive, then just do a hell of a lot of reading.

BEN: Really, the key to making a good cast of characters is start out trying to make characters that are less like you, and more like... themselves. Not only does it mean that after a while they'll be able to stand on their own two feet, but it can also help you figure out how other people might work, to a degree. And that might make you a better person in the long run.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Good points. Would you guys like to tell everybody anything else about Peter is the Wolf?

KRIS: We're raising money and preorders for the trade paperback collections- more info at http://www.peteristhewolf.com/tpb.html . We also appreciate your donations and merchandise purchases through the WLP Online Store at http://www.wlpcomics.com/shop/ .

THE XCENTRIKZ: Alright! Hey guys thanks again for the interview, really appreciate it. Keep up the great work. And for all you dudes reading THIS, go run over to read Peter is the Wolf!

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