Monday Interview: David Malki !

I first came across Wondermark thanks to a link from the Perry Bible Fellowship site, one great webcomic linking to another. I then spent several minutes perusing the many wonderful strips created by David Malki ! (he requires the space and exclamation point, and I’ll indulge him here on first reference) that involve images from Victorian-era publications scanned, rejuxtaposed and captioned for maximum comedic effect.

What I stumbled upon was a one-man assault on our collective free time. While the main thrust of Wondermark is the twice-weekly comic strip, Malki also offers videos, greeting cards, spoof Victorian novels, incisive analysis of the comics medium and more. You could spend hours – if not days – at Malki’s web site.

For those of us who spend too much time in front of a computer screen already, Malki has branched out. The third print collection of his strips, Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death, begins shipping this week. It follows Beards of Our Forefathers and Annotated Wondermark onto bookshelves.

The creator of all of this hilarity and mayhem was a professional film trailer editor before deciding that he could fully jump into the world of webcomics. The film world’s loss is our gain.

New to Wondermark? Check out Malki’s favorite strips here.
Curious about his process? Watch it here.
Want to read the longest, most jam-packed interview in TIRBD history? Scroll down for much more Malki.

TIRBD: Assuming you characterize yourself as such, at what point did you consider yourself a comic artist rather than a movie trailer editor, and what marked that defining moment?

DM !: Oh man, this is a tough question to answer,because I was still calling myself a movie trailer editor even when I was spending 85 percent of my time working on comics.It’s such a fun thing to call oneself!

I think it was late 2007 or early 2008 when I realized that more often than not, I was turning down work in trailers to work on comics. In the “webcomics community” or whatever, I think there is a subtle pressure to go full-time — it’s almost a status symbol to be a Professional Webcomics Person. So I was trying to make that work, but then taking a two-month gig working on TV spots for a horrible movie and getting totally demoralized.

For a while I tried to build a makeshift career out of doing both — earning money at trailer work that I could use to delegate some tasks in my Comics Empire, so both could progress simultaneously. But that was hard to maintain, because working in advertising can be very draining — you’re asked to be very creative and to manufacture an interest or an investment in a product that you usually do not have a legitimate interest in, and which in many cases is not deserving of that interest. And I found that the more I worked on comics and found some measure of success, the less and less I wanted to go back to work for someone else and submit my creative energy to their agenda.

It all came to a head earlier this year at the first New England Webcomics Weekend, which was a wonderfully fun and invigorating gathering of friends, colleagues and fans in western Massachusetts. NEWW provided me with the golden moments that everything else was intended to enable. Any purely mercenary work I had done was to finance experiences like NEWW. It was the payoff!

So I knew that I had to make a choice. Coincidentally, I was working a trailer gig at the time (I took a few days off in the middle to go to NEWW) and to be honest, it was a great gig — nice people, an interesting movie to work on, a fun environment. But when I got back to work the day after NEWW, I knew it wasn’t for me anymore.

It sounds a bit silly, but I’m getting older. I spent years racing from hare-brained scheme to hare-brained scheme, and in the process I discovered what pays, what doesn’t, what I enjoy, and what I don’t. It was the week of Wondermark’s sixth anniversary when I told my producer at the ad agency that while I enjoyed working for him, I was done with trailers and that he should take me out of his Rolodex.

That specific moment was just a few months ago — though it was a long time coming, and a long time building to the point where it was possible financially. Since then, I’ve taken on new responsibilities as the director of marketing and business development for TopatoCo, the company that handles merchandise production and fulfillment for Wondermark and several dozen other webcomics and fine artists. In the coming year I hope to be able to help many other artists find their ability to become financially secure through their art. That is a cause I am personally invested in, and have no problem being passionate about.

I should also mention, at the end of this long-winded spiel, that for some, trailer editing is a wonderfully fulfilling artform. I have many, many good friends in the business, all smart and creative people, some of whom tried many other things before landing on trailers as the art that they wanted to perfect. But for me, I’d sort of fallen into it by accident — my first job out of film school was at an ad agency, and I just worked my way up — and I knew I never wanted to be a career trailer editor.

Still, it was a really fun thing to brag about at parties. But I’ve found that “cartoonist” is just as good.

From the sketches on your web site, it’s clear you have talent as an artist. Why not follow more traditional formats and draw cartoons yourself rather than use clip art?

I find myself asking the same question every time it’s three in the morning and I still haven’t found the perfect image to match some concept in my head! The short answer is that when I started the strip, I didn’t have the patience or, I felt, the skill to draw cartoons. I’ve always been a doodler, but have had trouble sitting down and drawing consistently for long periods. (That’s actually why I went to film school — because you could tell stories with REAL PEOPLE instead of having to draw every single danged panel.) And Wondermark really started as a lark, and only became something more complicated over a long period of time.

Over the past few years, thanks to encouragement (and some peer pressure) from colleagues in comics whose work I greatly respect, I’ve been doing more drawing and getting closer to a place where I feel confident with my skill level. So there may be more hand-drawn stuff forthcoming. But I also like Wondermark as it is, because any cartoon strip I do will only ever be the millionth-best cartoon strip in the world, whereas I can be the absolute best at my own little (highly distinctive) artform.

What is your process like? Do you scan old images into a computer and manipulate from there?

That’s exactly right. I have a huge collection of books from the late 19th century, and I’ll scan in the woodcuts and engravings that they contain. I use entire images, backgrounds, props, characters or sometimes even just shapes or textures as building blocks to assemble each comic in Photoshop. I try to keep each comic looking stylistically consistent (there are a lot of different art styles among the eras and volumes in my collection) as if it could actually be a Victorian illustration — the verisimilitude is part of the fun.

Sometimes I’ll think of a concept and find (or build) images to match it; other times I start by building the image and then see what scenario it suggests. I’ve found that this “write it as (or after) you do it” technique is pretty unusual among comic artists, and maybe that’s why I never had the patience for drawing traditional comics that usually have to be scripted out beforehand. With most projects I find I never know quite what I’m doing until I’m half done, so I usually just barge in, start messing around and almost passively watch what happens.

More often than not I end up figuring something out, and to be honest the hardest part of the whole process isn’t the actual work by a long shot — it’s getting up the courage to sit down and start working on something even if you have no idea what it’s going to be, what it’ll look like or how it’ll turn out.

Do you have a file full of great art just waiting for the right strip? Do some strips yield numerous gags that leave you questioning which one to use?

There’s lots of stuff I’ve scanned that I haven’t worked into anything yet. Usually if I happen across something particularly weird or interesting I’m able to incorporate it into something without much difficulty, because those strips usually write themselves! And while I do a lot of revision to each strip in the writing process, I’ll usually keep going until I’m happy, then stop and be done with it. The only times I’ve waffled over multiple versions have been when there are questions about the best way to make the story clear, or something pushes possibly beyond the comic’s established bounds of taste (which are admittedly a bit flexible).

But I am often surprised by what certain illustrations yield. Sergei Eisenstein did a famous experiment in the early days of cinema where he edited the exact same footage of an actor’s neutral expression into sequences involving food, people, spaces, etc. Viewers were asked to describe the character’s feelings, and depending on the context, they said he was hungry, lonely, awestruck, etc.

So what I am saying is that who knew that angry-looking soldier in an 1887 engraving was actually mad at a tiny mischievous triceratops that only he could see?

There is a democratizing, punk rock element to webcomics, but the quality and care you put into the products you sell seems to run counter to that. I’d guess, however, that the freedom allowed by web publishing actually makes that quality control easier. Thoughts?

Hmm. Well, there are a few things at work here. First is the idea that on the web, because it is more or less a level playing field, work lives or dies on its quality. So, punk rock or no, it still has to be good work.

I’m also really, really picky about the things I make. It’s ballsy to ask strangers to care about anything you do, much less actually hand over their hard-earned money, and the only way it’s palatable for me to do so is to ensure that every product is absolutely as good as it can be. I can only be an enthusiastic seller if I have 100% confidence in the product.

That’s a rule that’s sort of drawn a circle around the all the various things that I produce and sell. I don’t sell “information products” like a lot of people who make a lot of money on the Internet, I don’t offer “free reports” as a means to collect email addresses that I can hit with a concussive sales pitch later. I only want to sell products to people who appreciate the specific thing that I do, and once I have that relatively intelligent, relatively literate audience’s attention, the standard to meet is things that they will like. So it forces me to stay on top of my game.

As far as the freedom of webcomics, sure. I am my own editor, which means my own standards are the only standards I have to meet. Luckily Dark Horse (who’s published my last few strip collections) has seen things my way, and has sat back and allowed me to micromanage every element of my books, down to the finish of the specialty ink on the cover, down to making sure a single period in a block of text was in the correct font size. There are few better feelings than being proud of one’s work.

Are we nearing a point where the distinction between comic strip and webcomic is unnecessary? Other than delivery method, is there a fundamental difference between what you and folks like Nicholas Gurewitch are doing and what Stephan Pastis and Darby Conley are doing?

I think I sense the kernel of your question, but let me digress on a semantic note. To me, a “comic strip” is a creative product but the word “webcomic” is a weird way of talking about a delivery medium. Sort of like saying “sitcom” and “TV channel.” Sitcoms can be on more than one channel — or on Hulu, etc — and TV channels can have more than just sitcoms on them. So I see them as apples-to-kumquats.

I think that distinction is important is because the traits common to “webcomics” — i.e. what makes a webcomic a webcomic — are mechanical characteristics, not content or style or appearance. Webcomics are, first and foremost, web sites — a breed of entertainment website just like a blog or any site. And that influences everything: the subject matter, the relationship of the author to the audience, the nuts-and-bolts of how the strip is posted online and shared and promoted, the business model that the artist adopts. These things all come from the essential nature of a webcomic as an entertainment website — most webcomics, even those that look just like newspaper comics or graphic novels, typically do not share business models with comic book companies or newspaper syndicates. And thank goodness!

Insofar as those considerations affect the content of the comic, there can be distinctions drawn between a strip like mine or Nick’s (which is a very traditional newspaper-style strip) and Stephan’s or Darby’s. At a level of craft, there’s certainly a lot of similarities, but to be honest I think we’re talking about car radios vs. iPods. Both play music, you know?

Finally, “webcomic” is probably not a great word because it encompasses my strip, Nick’s, and also Aaron Diaz’s Dresden Codak. You can draw lines connecting The Perry Bible Fellowship with Get Fuzzy if you want to discuss the similarities be
tween syndicated comics and webcomics, but then when you swap out the “webcomic” in the expression with Dresden Codak (as much of a webcomic, and arguably more, than PBF) the equation doesn’t balance anymore. The word “webcomic” says next to nothing about content.

This didn’t start as a business for you, but it has evolved into one. Do you approach the work differently as a result? Is the (non-monetary) reward for you different now?

I think the growth of the business has been directly geared to my ability to take the whole endeavor more and more seriously. In other words, approaching the work like a professional has made it into a profession — the attitude always comes first. In that way I think I approach the work on whatever terms I’m able or feel is appropriate for the time, and the business concerns sort of rise or fall to match that level.

There is a lot of inherent business potential in webcomics, depending on the merits of the comic itself of course, and I think it’s always incumbent upon the artist to figure out what’s possible at whatever level they’re comfortable with. Webcomics that are wildly popular can never develop into businesses if the artist doesn’t choose to go that route. No artist will make a dollar until they create their first product, unveil their first ad space or request their first donation. And some artists prefer it that way! Their comic is a fun exercise and nothing more, and God bless ‘em.

But as far as the reward goes — the reward is always doing good work and having people enjoy it. Money can be one measure of how effective that is (book sales = people liking the book) as well as the means that allows an artist to spend time working on their art. And a comic that is a well-oiled business machine will usually have a lot of promotion, reader participation, and activity surrounding it — so a monetarily successful comic can definitely reach more people by virtue of the business considerations.

But money is always only a tool. The non-monetary reward is the only reward that matters.

You’ve said you’re ‘interested in making things that people enjoy,’ and have branched into various areas such as greeting cards and film in pursuit of that goal. What other formats might you explore in the future with that goal in mind, and what will that mean for things you’re already doing?

As I said before about getting older, I’ve started to narrow down what exactly it is I’m good at and interested in. I think I’ll probably be making fewer films, for example, but whatever skill and experience I have in that field will surely inform other projects in the future. I’ve written a series of parody Victorian novels (the ‘Dispatches from Wondermark Manor’ trilogy) and those have proved both fun and popular, so I’ll definitely be doing more prose writing and storytelling in that vein. I’ll be experimenting with audiobooks this year, as well as issuing new editions of some books that have fallen into the public domain, and I’m interested to see how those ventures go — a certain amount of experimentation I think is always necessary to keep things fresh. With Ryan North and Matthew Bennardo, I’ve edited an anthology of illustrated short stories that we hope to bring out soon (Machine of Death). And I’m working closely with TopatoCo to develop new products and new creative concepts both for Wondermark and also other artists. So there are always new and exciting ventures.

I think you hit on a good point when you ask, what will that mean for the things that’re already going on? There are only so many hours in the day. I’m thankful that my greeting card line, for example, has been quite popular, but there comes a point where it becomes a hindrance to spend all day fulfilling orders. So the process has to adapt — how can the mechanics of that be delegated or outsourced? Or should we take a closer look at whether the whole thing is worthwhile considering the labor involved? Everything has to evolve over time; we have to continually recalibrate our goals and our priorities in response to what’s working, what isn’t, and how we feel.

That’s another great thing about doing this oneself — You’re the boss. No idea is too crazy if you think it’s cool, and no idea is too precious if you think it’s run its course. It’s tough work, because when the inevitable failures arrive, they’re YOUR fault. But that means you get to claim the successes too.