The Xcentrikz - Interactive Comic

December 2, 2009

Interview with that very talented guy, Christopher,

on the very fun comic, Precocious!!

(Click on the images to visit the site!)

Hello hello! Here's a great interview I did with Chris on his fun creation, Precocious. These hilarious animal kids are always up to something, tune in and find out what it is this time! An all around entertaining comic for all ages, please check it out.

--- Anna

Anna from The Xcentrikz Team: Hello Chris and thank you for talking with me! Could you please share a little insight, on this lovely family-friendly comic, for the new readers?

Thank you for having me! Precocious is a daily, newspaper-style comic about a group of kids that are far too smart for their own good. It revolves around a mischievous foursome – Bud, Autumn, Jacob and Tiffany – who prefer to use their brains for cartoonish supervillainy and needlessly complicated schemes.

THE XCENTRIKZ: So how did your Precocious originally come about? What inspired you?

Ever since I got my hands on my first Peanuts book around age six, I was in love with cartooning. I learned half my vocabulary from Calvin and Hobbes! It was around 1991, when I was in sixth grade, when I first started working on a cartoon of my own. It was titled “Brats” and revolved around a mischievous foursome – Autumn, Jacob, Tiffany and their leader, whose name kept changing. Sound familiar? Realizing I couldn’t draw what I wanted, I gave up the idea but kept it in my mind. From then on, every other year I’d try some new cartooning thing and it would never stick. Eventually, I decided I just couldn’t draw comics. It wasn’t until 2004 when I sat myself down and decided that I would teach myself to cartoon. I was on my way to a fine art degree, but I couldn’t let it go! Once I realized I was improving, I resurrected the Brats idea and began to build upon it. Bud got his name, characters were fleshed out, a vast supporting
cast was added and I changed the designs from human to funny animal because I thought it would be cute. The newly-christened Precocious was born!

THE XCENTRIKZ: What was your career and educational background, before Precocious? How do you think this influences the comic?

I borrowed heavily from my childhood to craft the strip. I was indeed the overbright gifted kid who outsmarted himself time and time again. At one point, I attended a school for gifted children and that served as inspiration for Precocious’ Poppinstock Academy. I was always in the smart group while going through school, and you write what you know. I’ve been around a lot of gifted kids, and they get into trouble no mundanes could! (My “bad influence” friend in fifth grade went on to be class valedictorian. That’s as rough as my crowd got!) That ivory tower of intellectuals was my playground, and that’s why my characters are elitist little devils!

On the career side, I quite a job in webdesign partially so I could focus on launching Precocious, which is not yet a source of income. This is why my degree is in art and not business.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What was it like telling people about Precocious, when you were just starting out? How did the public react to promotions you tried? How did your friends react? And most importantly, tell us how YOU felt about their reactions!

It’s very intimidating to launch a new webcomic, so I wanted to do something to show Precocious deserved attention. My solution was to hit the ground running, with a full storyline in the archives. You can have great ads on Project Wonderful, but if there’s not enough to read once the people get there, you’re not going to retain many readers. It’s worked well for me so far! I’ve come a long way in a year, and I have gained some really amazing readers!

On the friends and family front, reception was generally positive, if confused at time. It’s nice to have support in my crazy cartooning venture, as it’s a lot of work for little reward in the beginning. The longer I go, I hope to achieve enough success to justify the faith others have had in me.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What is your brainstorming process usually like? Does it take a lot of planning and inspiration to do each page, does it vary, or are you more spur-of-the-moment?

While the comic is family-friendly, brainstorming sessions are full of frustrated swearing! Since I like working in longer storylines, a lot of planning is needed before I start production. The story has to be good, and it has to be funny in EVERY strip, which means a lot of fiddling with ideas until they’re just right. I like working with a plan, even if I’m only doing a week of standalone gags. This is not always the case, of course! Recently I’ve been working deadline to deadline and stressing muchly because of it. I will concede that some of my best stuff comes out of those stressful sessions, so they’re not without their own charm.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What’s your favorite part about updating Precocious?

I’m really proud of having the archive I do. I want to provide a smorgasbord of humor of people to enjoy, be it a nibble here or there or in one gorging session. Each update means there’s more in the archive for people to enjoy, and that’s very satisfying.

THE XCENTRIKZ: How did you come up with the main cast? Are any of the characters inspired by real people (or animals!)?

First off, they’re people – definitely people. They may look cute and fuzzy, but I treat them as adorable humans. For inspiration, Bud was initially created as an avatar for my sixth grade self. He would cause mayhem while I spent my time as a goody goody. As time went on, he evolved into his own character. There’s still a lot of me in him, though. Jacob was created to be Bud’s loyal sidekick initially, and later evolved to act as the conscience of the group. Autumn’s initial creation was as a love interest for Bud, but that lasted all of five minutes. Her forceful nature worked much better as a best friend who always kept him on his toes. Tiffany was initially based on a girl from my class, but very quickly became her own (loopy) person.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Family-friendly webcomics are not common, and ones with compelling stories like yours are quite rare! What do you think of this, and why do you keep your storylines kid-safe?

There was a huge generation shift when information moved from the papers to the internet. Online, the audience is younger, hipper and edgier – so naturally most webcomics that are born reflect this. I was raised as a student of the classic newspaper strips, so that was what I wanted to do as a cartoonist. My view of being family-friendly has never been about making something tame and inoffensive. Instead, it’s about giving people something that can be read and enjoyed at all levels. Precocious may not be for kids, but if they can enjoy it that’s a bonus.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What are some of your favorite fictional animal and people characters? Did they affect the creation Precocious’ characters?

This answer can start and end with Lucy Van Pelt of Peanuts. She’s my favorite comic character of all time and it shows in the strip. There’s something about the unapologetic forcefulness and the pride in having a rough personality that appeals to me, and it’s led to the Precocious girls having their own Lucy qualities. The boys of Precocious have to get out of the way or face the consequences!

THE XCENTRIKZ: Interesting points to hear about. How do you feel about the dialogue you write? What are some of the best moments between the characters?

Precocious is at its best when I let the characters bounce off each other naturally. They have such strong personalities, I find all I need is a simple premise to set them off. One of my favorite bits involved the kids trying to decide on what to make for dessert and having it all break down into a brawl. With the personalities involved, they are determined to complicate matters and introduce drama, so all I have to do is sit back and record the carnage.

THE XCENTRIKZ: And how do you feel about the art style of Precocious? Anything you’d improve?

I wanted to hit the ground running when I launched the strip, so what you see now is the result of years spent sketching and designing the characters. It’s a great feeling to have the early rough strips still look fairly passable, but there’s always the artistic drive to improve the designs. I look at my drawing as a five year plan, as I believe it takes that long to truly solidify the looks. It saves me a lot of stress in the present to imagine how good the characters will look in the future. While I’m proud of how my art looks, I’m still growing stylistically. It can get frustrating if I can’t pull off a specific angle or complex pose/expression, but time and practice will fix that.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What are your favorite newspaper comic strips?

I’m a big fan of all the modern classics, such as Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Bloom County, Fox Trot and the Far Side. As for *current* strips, that’s a bit harder. I’ve given up on most newspaper comics, although I do read Pearls Before Swine and Mutts. At this stage, print comics are choking to death on legacy strips and oversensitive censorship, so all the action has moved to the web.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What's it like being part of Spider Forest comics?

When I started out, I knew nothing of the webcomic community. I thought I had to do everything myself. SpiderForest is a revelation. The wonderful and generous people there have helped improve my site so much, and I can’t thank them enough. It’s that support that is the most valuable aspect of collectives. The people in SpiderForest are motivated, talented and always willing to lend a hand. They’ve given me a lot more than I’ve given back at this point, but I look forward to the next round of admissions, where I can be the supportive veteran and assist new members.

THE XCENTRIKZ: That's great! So doing comics can be really fulfilling. Although especially since many web-comics are for free or non-profit, it can be challenging for some creators to reach all their goals. Like paying the bills? What are the pros and cons for you with doing Precocious?

I didn’t start cartooning for the money, although that would be lovely! If you put the time, effort and quality into a webcomic, then it can pay the bills one day – but the key word there is “time.” I told myself that I would spend Precocious’ first year worrying about developing the product, because I’m in this for the long term! As of now, I put in crazy hours of work for something that gives me back next to nothing financially, but I am building a base and reputation that can prove far more valuable in that long term plan. Besides, the main reason I do this is because my soul demands it! Artistic passion might not always be profitable, but it does keep the spirit going!

THE XCENTRIKZ: Did you take classes or workshops on cartooning before Precocious? If so, how did it go? If not, did you feel better off being self-taught?

I learned how to cartoon through the force of frustration and jealousy! As a fine artist, I could draw all sorts of way – but cartooning seemed impossible. I refuse to be defeated! Finally, I made a vow to teach myself to cartoon, and spent four years in which I sketched hours a day. My drawing was hideous for a long time, but I pressed on with the long term visions in my head. Cartooning did not come easy, but that makes what I have now even more satisfying.

THE XCENTRIKZ: How about opinions on the “web-comic industry!” Do you think its future is promising?

While its future is indeed promising, I believe the era of the new webcomics superstar is over. There will always be exceptions, of course, but in general we’re going to see the superstars remains super while an increasingly strong second and third tier of webcomics fight for an audience. There are so many great strips out there, and there is limited time in a comic reader’s day. If they spend their time reading the big names, there’s only so much room for up-and-coming strips. Fortunately, as webcomics improve the audience grows with it. Even without superstar status, I think you’ll find more and more cartoonists in the coming years who will be able to support themselves with their webcomics. This is where the momentum is right now. The superstars established webcomics as legitimate, so now it’s time for the second/third wavers to keep that momentum and create something impressive.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Can you name a time when the viewer reactions significantly affected the comic? If so, why did you listen to their ideas?

Recently, in the class revolution storyline, I had initially planned to imply the chaos that ensued. I thought it funny to have characters comment on the wild action off-panel. The readers responded so well to the idea that I decided to expand upon it and develop the formerly off-panel events. The result is what many consider to be my best work, so points for the readers there.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Any other fun topics, to share today?

Have I not rambled enough yet? I suppose I could take this time to plug my other sites. As I mentioned earlier, I came into cartooning through fine art. I’d love to point people to www.chrispco.net to see the artwork I do when I’m not drawing funny animal cartoons. Also, for those who want to know about the creative process behind Precocious and my art, I maintain a daily sketch blog over at http://chrispco.blogspot.com!

THE XCENTRIKZ: Fun, thanks. How about any new developments in Precocious? What might be happening next?

The new year terrifies me! A year ago I sat down and mapped out large number of Precocious storylines – enough to last a year! I chose stories that would expand the Precocious universe and feature all its rich cast of characters. This was the introduction year! Now it’s time to build on that and… uh… I’m sure I’ll think of something! (Worry not! I still have some ideas in my head. Some.)

THE XCENTRIKZ: Looking forward to those! It’s wonderful hearing your answers and I bet your fans will enjoy it. Thank you and keep up the good work. Please visit Precocious, gang!

Thanks for this opportunity!

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