Canadian Web Comic Interviews

Ryan Hill Author of After? and GutterWidth and more

I grew up in Flin Flon. I moved to Winnipeg to attend university and got my degree in Computer Science.
Since graduating over two years ago, I have not had a full-time job.

What was the first online comic you ever read?
Sluggy Freelance is the first one I remember. I think I had been shown a few User Friendly strips before then, but it wasn't really my bag.
I really started reading them in earnest thanks to a call-centre job which gave me spare time to surf the web between calls. I read every single Doonesbury. I read comics linked from BigPanda.net. Goats, Superosity, RoadWaffles, [and] The Thin H Line. I couldn't even name half of them.

What were your favorite comics growing up?
Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield. Now that my tastes have matured a little, I don't care for Garfield so much anymore, but back in the day I had most of the Garfield collections.
As for comic books, I didn't have a lot of spending money so I ended up reading whatever my friends had. The comics all had these involved storylines that you couldn't follow unless you had read the previous five issues, and I never had the patience for that.
The only comic books I would seek out and buy were the black-and-white Conan Saga books, which I still like. I guess my tastes haven't mature too much. My favourite web comics right now are Achewood and Superosity. I liked Neil B.'s journal comic, but he's taken it down. Bob the Angry Flower and Doonesbury are very good.

Tell us how you landed began working on your web comic.
Most of the comics on my web page were print comics first. In my first year of university, I started drawing comics in the University of Manitoba's student paper, the Manitoban. (My inspiration didn't come from a Manitoban strip, but from an excellent strip called Bob the Angry Flower that I had read in the U of A paper, the Gateway.)
The first comic I did was about an alien attending university, and it was pretty bad. I abandoned it shortly, and tried a few other comics.
A few years and comics later, I created my personal homepage. I got free space from the university, so I decided to try it, and for lack of content I scanned and posted most of my comics (But not the one about the alien).
This was also the year I started 'After?' so I gave that strip its own section, and I made a point of posting each new strip every week. I started running the URL below the comic in the Manitoban, got a listing on BigPanda, (where I managed to get on the front page listings for a decent chunk of time) and when spring came, and the Manitoban took a hiatus for summer, I wanted to continue. So I started making web-only 'After?' strips.

What other writing or comics have you worked on?
Since 'After?' I've made 'F--king the Dog', the 'Tars Tarkas Lunar Park', 'GutterWidth' and 'HP Sauce', which all appear on HorriblePain.com.
The only ones I still regularly update are GutterWidth and HP Sauce. When I started GutterWidth, I had no plans to continue it beyond a one-off strip that was meant to fill space on the comics page, (hence the name) and now it's my longest running comic. When I started HP Sauce, I had no plans except to make a web-only comic that would force me to experiment a little.
It's evolved into an autobiographical comic, of sorts. All the comics where I planned what the comic was going to be about before I started, run out of steam. There might be an important lesson in that.
My mini-comic, 'Hillthology', includes some older Manitoban comics that aren't on the web, plus some that were printed only in the Hillthology. I sell that online, as well as a Jack Chick parody tract of 'After?'.
I'm trying a new thing with the After? tract where you can buy the .pdf file for 75 cents and print your own copy. You can pay for it wih BitPass, the micropayment system. Nobody's bought it, as of yet. We'll see.
I've done a couple of PopeAlien guest strips. I've learned a lot making them. Somehow, it forces me to experiment with things that I might not think of trying with my own comic.

For readers not familiar with your work, can you tell us something about your web comics?
The most popular are After? and GutterWidth.
After? is a story about an atheist girl who dies and goes to purgatory, where she meets God and gets a job in a call centre, answering people's religious questions.
GutterWidth is about two men, one named Jerrio, and is basically a thin premise for social satire and meta humour about comics themselves.
HP Sauce is the only comic I make exclusively for the web, and has become a bit autobiographical, in that every strip is based on a true event. The Tars Tarkas Lunar Park was my first social satire comic. It doesn't have any recurring characters. Of all the strips I have on hiatus, it's the most likely to be revived, because it's open-ended enough that I didn't feel constrained when making it.

Tell us how you acquired your artistic skills.
I have no artistic skills.

What artists have inspired/influenced your artistic and writing styles?
Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury. Stephen Notley of Bob the Angry Flower. Those guys that make PopeAlien. Dance till Tomorrow by Naoki Yamamoto. Dave Bort's Dave Bort Draw Now was the inspiration for HP Sauce.

Where do you get your ideas for story archs or comedic relief in your comic?
When I see anyone do something stupid, Jerrio will usually end up doing it, only stripped of all unnecessary details, distilling the stupidity of it. HP Sauce is based on true events. After? was inspired by religious discussions.

Being non-american, do you feel somewhat removed from many of the more mainstream web comics?
No, I feel removed from the mainstream web comics because they are popular.

Does anything set you appart, being a Canadian comic artist, from other American web comics?
I use the letter 'U' more often. I don't shy away from mentioning Canadian or even Winnipeg references, but that probably alienates no more readers than making jokes about poster-design or religious minutiae.

How, if at all, does being 'Canadian' factor into the creative process?
Certainly not conciously. It's affects the culture I've grown up with.

Have you ever attended any Canadian or American Comic Conventions?
Nope.

Do you believe that popular cultures preoccupation with the Anime-style of art has diluted the overall quality of web comics, or improved it?
Diluted. Fortunately, I'm not forced to read all web comics, so that's not really a problem.
Hyung Kim does a good job of taking Japanese influences without his comics becoming a big steaming pile of blue-haired cat-girls yelling "Sugoi!" and "Wai!" and is about the only obviously manga-influenced web-comic artist I still read regularly. Except for maybe Tang's Weekly.
Blue Monday is probably the best example I've seen of an artist using Japanese style influences without being derivative, but that's a print comic.
The problem isn't really with Anime-style art, so much as it is with people being derivative rather than original.
If they were all imitating Fred Astaire musicals, it would be just as bad.

What movies, cartoons and TV shows are your favorites?
Untalkative Bunny, Farscape, FLCL, Repo Man, and The Royal Tenenbaums.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you bring with you?
A swiss army knife and a metal pot, so I could survive. A sketchbook and some pencils, so if I make it off alive, I can sell a mini about my adventures.

What books do you read?
Ones that will teach me how to make things on the computer so I can get a job. And science fiction. And Shakespeare. And books about religious cults.

How can somebody contact you?
Is it somebody I know?
My e-mail address is RRH (at) HorriblePain (dot) com.

That ends the interview, any last words of wisdom?
Anything is funnier if you have robots instead of just humans.
http://www.horriblepain.com

-Ryan Hill

Favorite strips:

The Tar Tarkas Lunar Park - "Wow, it the Hitler 3000!"
GutterWidth - "Why? Vengeance!"
GutterWidth - "What happened to your hand Jerrio?"
HP Sauce - "He misses the subtle hints!"
After? - "Jesus Sanchez? Tell me more..."

Posted by B.Scott
Return to The Main Page - Canadian Web Comic Ezine



	Canadian Web Comic Interviews Ryan Hill Author of After? and GutterWidth and more I grew up in Flin Flon. I moved to Winnipeg to attend university and got my degree in Computer Science. Since graduating over two years ago, I have not had a full-time job. What was the first online comic you ever read? Sluggy Freelance is the first one I remember. I think I had been shown a few User Friendly strips before then, but it wasn't really my bag. I really started reading them in earnest thanks to a call-centre job which gave me spare time to surf the web between calls. I read every single Doonesbury. I read comics linked from BigPanda.net. Goats, Superosity, RoadWaffles, [and] The Thin H Line. I couldn't even name half of them. What were your favorite comics growing up? Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield. Now that my tastes have matured a little, I don't care for Garfield so much anymore, but back in the day I had most of the Garfield collections. As for comic books, I didn't have a lot of spending money so I ended up reading whatever my friends had. The comics all had these involved storylines that you couldn't follow unless you had read the previous five issues, and I never had the patience for that. The only comic books I would seek out and buy were the black-and-white Conan Saga books, which I still like. I guess my tastes haven't mature too much. My favourite web comics right now are Achewood and Superosity. I liked Neil B.'s journal comic, but he's taken it down. Bob the Angry Flower and Doonesbury are very good. Tell us how you landed began working on your web comic. Most of the comics on my web page were print comics first. In my first year of university, I started drawing comics in the University of Manitoba's student paper, the Manitoban. (My inspiration didn't come from a Manitoban strip, but from an excellent strip called Bob the Angry Flower that I had read in the U of A paper, the Gateway.) The first comic I did was about an alien attending university, and it was pretty bad. I abandoned it shortly, and tried a few other comics. A few years and comics later, I created my personal homepage. I got free space from the university, so I decided to try it, and for lack of content I scanned and posted most of my comics (But not the one about the alien). This was also the year I started 'After?' so I gave that strip its own section, and I made a point of posting each new strip every week. I started running the URL below the comic in the Manitoban, got a listing on BigPanda, (where I managed to get on the front page listings for a decent chunk of time) and when spring came, and the Manitoban took a hiatus for summer, I wanted to continue. So I started making web-only 'After?' strips. What other writing or comics have you worked on? Since 'After?' I've made 'F--king the Dog', the 'Tars Tarkas Lunar Park', 'GutterWidth' and 'HP Sauce', which all appear on HorriblePain.com. The only ones I still regularly update are GutterWidth and HP Sauce. When I started GutterWidth, I had no plans to continue it beyond a one-off strip that was meant to fill space on the comics page, (hence the name) and now it's my longest running comic. When I started HP Sauce, I had no plans except to make a web-only comic that would force me to experiment a little. It's evolved into an autobiographical comic, of sorts. All the comics where I planned what the comic was going to be about before I started, run out of steam. There might be an important lesson in that. My mini-comic, 'Hillthology', includes some older Manitoban comics that aren't on the web, plus some that were printed only in the Hillthology. I sell that online, as well as a Jack Chick parody tract of 'After?'. I'm trying a new thing with the After? tract where you can buy the .pdf file for 75 cents and print your own copy. You can pay for it wih BitPass, the micropayment system. Nobody's bought it, as of yet. We'll see. I've done a couple of PopeAlien guest strips. I've learned a lot making them. Somehow, it forces me to experiment with things that I might not think of trying with my own comic. For readers not familiar with your work, can you tell us something about your web comics? The most popular are After? and GutterWidth. After? is a story about an atheist girl who dies and goes to purgatory, where she meets God and gets a job in a call centre, answering people's religious questions. GutterWidth is about two men, one named Jerrio, and is basically a thin premise for social satire and meta humour about comics themselves. HP Sauce is the only comic I make exclusively for the web, and has become a bit autobiographical, in that every strip is based on a true event. The Tars Tarkas Lunar Park was my first social satire comic. It doesn't have any recurring characters. Of all the strips I have on hiatus, it's the most likely to be revived, because it's open-ended enough that I didn't feel constrained when making it. Tell us how you acquired your artistic skills. I have no artistic skills. What artists have inspired/influenced your artistic and writing styles? Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury. Stephen Notley of Bob the Angry Flower. Those guys that make PopeAlien. Dance till Tomorrow by Naoki Yamamoto. Dave Bort's Dave Bort Draw Now was the inspiration for HP Sauce. Where do you get your ideas for story archs or comedic relief in your comic? When I see anyone do something stupid, Jerrio will usually end up doing it, only stripped of all unnecessary details, distilling the stupidity of it. HP Sauce is based on true events. After? was inspired by religious discussions. Being non-american, do you feel somewhat removed from many of the more mainstream web comics? No, I feel removed from the mainstream web comics because they are popular. Does anything set you appart, being a Canadian comic artist, from other American web comics? I use the letter 'U' more often. I don't shy away from mentioning Canadian or even Winnipeg references, but that probably alienates no more readers than making jokes about poster-design or religious minutiae. How, if at all, does being 'Canadian' factor into the creative process? Certainly not conciously. It's affects the culture I've grown up with. Have you ever attended any Canadian or American Comic Conventions? Nope. Do you believe that popular cultures preoccupation with the Anime-style of art has diluted the overall quality of web comics, or improved it? Diluted. Fortunately, I'm not forced to read all web comics, so that's not really a problem. Hyung Kim does a good job of taking Japanese influences without his comics becoming a big steaming pile of blue-haired cat-girls yelling "Sugoi!" and "Wai!" and is about the only obviously manga-influenced web-comic artist I still read regularly. Except for maybe Tang's Weekly. Blue Monday is probably the best example I've seen of an artist using Japanese style influences without being derivative, but that's a print comic. The problem isn't really with Anime-style art, so much as it is with people being derivative rather than original. If they were all imitating Fred Astaire musicals, it would be just as bad. What movies, cartoons and TV shows are your favorites? Untalkative Bunny, Farscape, FLCL, Repo Man, and The Royal Tenenbaums. If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you bring with you? A swiss army knife and a metal pot, so I could survive. A sketchbook and some pencils, so if I make it off alive, I can sell a mini about my adventures. What books do you read? Ones that will teach me how to make things on the computer so I can get a job. And science fiction. And Shakespeare. And books about religious cults. How can somebody contact you? Is it somebody I know? My e-mail address is RRH (at) HorriblePain (dot) com. That ends the interview, any last words of wisdom? Anything is funnier if you have robots instead of just humans. http://www.horriblepain.com -Ryan Hill Favorite strips: The Tar Tarkas Lunar Park - "Wow, it the Hitler 3000!" GutterWidth - "Why? Vengeance!" GutterWidth - "What happened to your hand Jerrio?" HP Sauce - "He misses the subtle hints!" After? - "Jesus Sanchez? Tell me more..." Posted by B.Scott Return to The Main Page - Canadian Web Comic Ezine