The Xcentrikz - Interactive Comic

December 1, 2009

Interview with Konrad Okoński from the awesome comic,

A Quartz Bead!

(Click on the images to visit the site!)

Hey, here's a great comic with really unique artwork and a cool story. Konrad's characters have some great inspirations behind them, and they have fantastic powers. Read the comic today. (Available in Polish AND English!) Enjoy...

The Xcentrikz Team: Hiya Konrad, I appreciate chatting about your comic today. It’s awesome! Would you tell the newbies about your work and what the title means? So they’ll check it out!

Hi everyone! Thanks for having me here, Kirk. The title of my comic doesn't have any literal connection to the comic. It's a phrase from Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere", which some people actually recognized. A quartz bead is an important item at one point of the book and in that context could work as a metaphore for some things in my comic, but telling any more would be spoiling quite a bit, so I'll stop here.
The origin of the title has always been a kind of a secret, but since I recently put it in a banner on top of the page, I guess the game's up for everyone.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Okay, how did you get started doing webcomics, and then decide to do this one?

This isn't a really original or interesting of a story- I found Megatokyo on the web several years ago, got inspired to do my own thing, drew around two hundred pages of my first webcomic (most of which are absolutely terrible). Then after I started studying art I decided I needed a comic that not only allowed me to use more traditional media, but also told a story that didn't end in three to four panels.

THE XCENTRIKZ: How did A Quartz Bead’s cool characters get invented?

I had the idea of a talking, conscious shadow nestled up in my head for a long time and wanted to try it out. As to the rest of the characters, I knew who I needed for the story and created characters that fulfilled the expectations. Furia for example is a gun- a person with practically unlimited power, but only fulfilling the wishes of his scheming master. I also needed a person fit to introduce the main character (along with the reader) to the world. He needed to be interesting, cheerful and he also needed to have some kind of mystery to uncover later (so the Piper was born). The main character I needed to be a girl- it's more fun to draw that way. I also intended her to be a regular human being without any special powers. She may have powerful allies or enemies, but she is not supposed to influence the story with force by herself. I named her Raina, because it's a name I really loved when I came across it on the web (Raina Telgemeyer, Raina from the comic Blankets).

THE XCENTRIKZ: Whaddya think are the best moments of dialogue in the comic? Anything you’re really proud of?

I need to re-read the comic from time to time to remind myself of all the small stuff I may have written in the dialogues that wouldn't be mentioned in the written plan of the comic. And so it may sound vain, but every time I read some of Raina's insolent replies to people I can't help but laugh. I'm also really proud of a certain scene of juggling and a recent, first-ever romantic scene in the comic.

THE XCENTRIKZ: So you’re studying graphics and animation, that’s cool. Tell us more about that!

At some point in my life I decided to study whatever was the most fun for me. And so I managed to somehow get into Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland and since then I try to learn proper way to do things only to later pervert them into comics. I also try to learn all kinds of animation and have not yet made anything worth watching- probably because I attempt to learn a different technique every time. I tried 3d animation, flash, stop-motion clay, stop-motion figure animation and am now working on a classic cartoon drawn short movie. I'll be sure to show some of it on my site when it's done.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What do you usually do to motivate yourself to do updates regularly?

I call it a nature of a clown- I absolutely love it when someone smiles because of something I did. That is why when I can't manage to draw a regular A Quartz Bead page I draw small comics for my main site www.kokoart.net . It's addictive.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Tell everyone about the interesting art process and colors you use to tell the story.

I draw A Quartz Bead with ink and and watercolors. Being a rather bad painter I decided to keep the story in monochrome (sepia to be exact) and introduce other colors in all kinds of supernatural scenes. Therefore I used blue to signify magic, red for evil, demonic purposes and an almost full-color palette for Raina's insane daydreams.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Has someone in public ever recognized you because of your work? Whether it’s happened yet, or not - Do you find it flattering, or kind of weird?

I find it incredibly flattering every time it happens, but it's taken time for me to stop feeling weird and gather some confidence about my abilities. I had a few chances to exhibit my comic work, got several well-paid commissions and I worked as a concept-artist for a big polish game-making company, which gave my confidence a great burst. I feel most recognized whenever I learn from someone whose art I really respect that they've seen some of my work.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Cool. What’s it like for you to get the word out on A Quartz Bead? Do you work hard at it, or do the fans spread it around?

When it comes to english readers, I understand that it takes a lot of time to gather a strong base. I have just recently got back to drawing AQB and I think I may not have been doing enough work on promoting it yet.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What are some of your difficult moments as a comic creator?

The main problem is time- I try to juggle really cool schoolwork, commissions (a man's gotta eat and play videogames!), comics and all the other stuff that's so awesome you just can't pass it up. It also sometimes means juggling a lot of different stories at the same time and that could be tiresome.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Yeah, true. What’s the most rewarding part, for you, about doing A Quartz Bead?

I remember when I printed a chapter of AQB to show it to someone at school- the moment i saw the pages finished, lettered and on paper was one of the best moments of doing the comic.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Are there any cool people who mentor you or cheer you on? How do they affect the comic?

There isn't a specific mentor- my school professors are interested in my comic work, but not enough to get involved with it in any way. I have some friends I like to ask about any changes in the way I draw things and from time to time I get some feedback from other polish comic artists which always gives me a big positive boost of energy. AQB is a story I rather write by myself, but it's good to sometimes bounce idea off someone else's ears- my brother is a good partner for plotting the story because he listens and never says anything other than "that's cool".
On the other hand, the small comic strips i do on my main page are loosesly based on real life events and so very often involve my friends and other people.

THE XCENTRIKZ: How about this… What was the last book you read? Movie you saw? Music you listened to?

This would be really embarrassing if I'll tell the truth, because the last movie I saw was New Moon and the last book I read was Eclipse. So to hide my bizarre and weird fascination with emo-gay vampires let's skip those.
Before those I saw UP! by Pixar, whose work I absolutely adore. Up! premiered in Poland just recently.
When it comes to books I read a lot of fantasy that doesn't involve elves or dwarves. I re-read Frank Herbert's Dune and read everything in George MArtin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. By the way, all of those were audiobooks, the last real book I read was probably Do androids dream of electric sheep? by Phillip K. Dick.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Whaddya like doing most to relax by yourself? And how about with friends?

I love working out. There is nothing better than sports to balance a life of drawing and computers. I train acrobatics and a lot of other things, some of which I do with friends. I'm not really a party person. Oh, and I play videogames. At the moment- Left 4 dead 2. Gosh I wonder why I'm single.

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

I once devised my very own superpower- the control of friction. I could reduce the friction of my body to zero and slide with incredible speeds just to then slow down by gradually increasing it. I could also neutralize any punches or kicks by reducing friction of my attacker's limbs. Awesome.
But if I could really have a superpower, it'd probably be flight. Because deep inside we'd all choose it.

THE XCENTRIKZ: So how do you feel future of the webcomic biz? And how do you feel about the future of A Quartz Bead?

My dream is to provide comics for free and living off profits from ads and merchandise- I know it's possible in USA, but not in Poland (where you can't even live off making regular paper comics). I think with the internet more and more popular webcomics will keep increasing in popularity as well, they're an easy source of entertainment. When it comes to A Quartz Bead, I hope to finish it and in the meantime have some paper comics published. Then I'll probably return to short comic strips. Story-based comics don't really work that well published online in two pages a week.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Okay, nice. So would you like to share something else about A Quartz Bead? Give everybody a huge teaser here!

At some point I will realize my life-long dream of drawing a character ripping out a tramway rail out of a concrete street and hitting someone with it. It will probably be Furia and it will probably appear on A Quartz Bead. So stay tuned.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Whoa that'll be interesting. Okay, thanks for the interview. Take it easy man. Hey readers, go and check out this comic, A Quartz Bead!

Thank you for inviting me. Take care!

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