The psychic frat boy has your Halloween Fratoscope at Super Frat!
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At Super Frat, I’ve got a quick game review for Dead Island.
Our friends at Hot Mess have a new post, Para Abnormal.
Hey Factory Fans, welcome to another In-House Artist interview. Today, we talk to Eddie Jensen, artist for digital hobo.
Tony: Welcome Eddie. Tell the fans a little bit about your art background. How did you get started drawing comics?Eddie: Well, when I was really young I drew all the time, mostly I’d copy stuff. Eventually I’d move on to ripping off original concepts with my cheap knockoffs. For instance, remember that superstrong ant in the Hanna Barbera toon? I did my Bug hero, or I was copying The Simpsons Radioactive man with my Electric man, who was a secret agent that got shocked because he climbed an electric fence , and thus got superpowers. But eventually I ventured into writing stories that were like Tolkiens The Hobbit only more childish. When I eventually discovered the internet at age 11, I saw webcomics and realized that combining my love of drawing and writing to make comics was definitely my goal in life.
Eddie’s new haircut pic
Tony: You’re from Norway. For our American fans, give us a sense of the world of comic books and webcomics in Norway? What’s the most popular Norwegian comic book? Do they read Batman in Norway? What’s the most popular American comic there? Do they have comic book stores like the ones in America? How do they differ? Do they have comic book conventions in Norway? How are webcomics perceived in Norway?
Eddie: Uh the most internationally popular comic artist from Norway would be Jason, he does these melancholy cat comics with no dialog. But the most famous comic in Norway is probably Pondus, a strip comic about a family man. And mostly Strips are the only things that are made in Norway other than self contained graphic novels. My friend is the biggest batman fan, and I certainly read batman myself so yeah they read Batman in Norway.
Most popular american comic… hmmm… I don’t know probably Calvin and Hobbes? Just like the rest of the world norway is experiencing a manga craze these days. We have comic book stores but only in big cities, I haven’t been to comic stores in america so I don’t know how they differ, but I’d say they’re pretty much like Forbidden planet in London, but smaller both in sense of size and content. We have a convention which is based in Bergen called Raptus. Don Rosa was there last year, it’s a pretty alright convention. We also have an anime convention called Desucon, which to me seems like a little piece of hell on earth (don’t get me wrong I like manga, just not it’s fans) but some of my friends seem to like it. Uh we have one webcomic free hosting site that’s Norwegian, and it’s decent, but to the general public in Norway They’re practically nonexistent.
Tony: Tell us about your background. What’s your family life like outside of work?
Eddie: I’m currently living with my parents till I pass my exam and can move on to greater things next summer. I’m pretty much just a young unattached student that’s just now starting to venture into the world of adulthood and reality.
Tony: What other comic projects have you worked on? Is there a comic book you’ve always wanted to draw?
Eddie: Too many to count really. I’m very much an idea man, and up until the recent years I didn’t understand my own limitations. Whenever I had a new idea I’d bring it to life only to have it bore me 7 pages in. But I’m still fond of those ideas and I do intend to get through them all, Dragon Slayer Master of Theft an Robot being at the top of that list.
Right now I’m working at a test stage on a comic called Robot about a boy and his Robot at www.drunkduck.com/Robot or http://robot.thecomicseries.com/
Eddie’s boy and Robot
Tony: Who are your influences in art and comics?Eddie: I’m mostly influenced by animation, I absolutely love it. I just happen to hate animating. So Disney is a big influence for me, and Cartoon network shows, and like Early disney channel things, back when dreamworks was animating. Also I came into webcomics really early, so alot of my style comes from accidentally leeching off webcomics I loved back in the day.
Tony: Do you think webcomics will supplant print comics completely?
Eddie: I personally kind of hate reading long archives of Webcomics. I’ll do it if the comic is good enough, but that’s rare to never. So for long stories, I definitely think print is here to stay. I don’t really see any way webcomics could improve this problem either. As for strips, if they catch my eye and I don’t have to read through billions of pages of archive yeah. I think that could wipe out strips in paper format, but honestly I’m the kind of guy that when he wanted to see if PVP was a good comic, I went and bought the “best off” book instead of reading random strips online. Granted I pay attention to it online now, but I really had no interest reading through the archives as I find it an exhausting experience. Biggest problem with webcomics I feel is that you never feel like you can just put it away and read the rest later, you feel a need to finish t from start to finish and usually you end up giving up and never revisiting the comic.
Tony: Interesting perspective on the webcomic archive. Do you think creators could achieve the same sort of feeling of print by splitting up their archive? I’ve seen some webcomics that have chapters and stories.
Eddie: Well, more so but still no, I’d say splitting it into self contained stories certainly helps but you still feel that urge to catch up because you WANT TO like this comic, but you’re not caught up so you have to know everything before next update. And I personally just don’t have that kind of dedication in me. It becomes more of a chore than anything else.
Tony: So in the case of PVP, do you think you would’ve become a fan had it not been for the print comics?
Eddie: If I had come at the right time sure. Like if that day’s strip was a self contained one that was just funny and showed me what kind of humor the comic had to offer I might have checked out that same link the next time I was reading Penny Arcade and then slowly built up reading strip by strip. But that was not the case for when I got on the site, it’s in the middle of this storyline, and I don’t know where it starts and I don’t care enough to browse through strips backwards to find out. So if it hadn’t been for the best of book I’d probably have given it up then and there.
Tony: Thanks for your time today. We’ll keep an eye out for your new stuff and more digital hobo!
Eddie’s Mojo Jojo pinup
Today at Super Frat, it’s Rewritten Headlines: Charlie Sheen to Dinosaurs!
Dave Windett, artist for Comic Book Mafia, has an illustration book and you can download it for free!
Check out the links here at Media Fire and at DaveWindett.com!
Check it out! It’s free!
