Ingot into cartooning toward the end of high school when I discovered MattnGroening’s Life in Hell. I’d mainlynjust read the Sunday comics up until then, and Groening’s stuff was this othernside to the medium that I hadn’t seen before. It was edgy satire, and it feltnlike such a cool way to express ideas. A few months later in college I started PDL.
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nI’m partial to Mrs. Jones, but who is your favorite character? Are any of themnbased on real people?
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Inlike Kevin the blue duck. He’s naïve and trusting, but might secretly be thensmartest guy in the room. Or he might just be thinking about cake. His characternhas a lot of depth.
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Thenonly PDL character explicitly based on a real person is Jacques Cousteau, who’snbased on the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. And also Small Cat, who isnbased on Neil Armstrong.
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I read that you only tooknon writing PDL full-time a year ago. Tell me more about your background, whatnwere you doing before?
I started writing PDLnfull time in March 2013. Before that I worked for a media company in LosnAngeles, mainly writing and editing for blogs. It was my first job out ofncollege, and I spent a lot of time there day-dreaming about being anprofessional cartoonist. After a couple years of drawing PDL on my lunchnbreaks, my audience was large enough that going full time became a real option.
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With so much great contentnto choose from, how do you choose what gets published? Is there a largernnarrative arc you try to convey in our book or is the idea to just print thenfunniest ones?
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Havingnmy work on the internet means I know exactly which comics have done well withnthe most people. So it was easy for me to put together the fan favorites, alongnwith my own personal favorites. A big chunk of the book is brand new material,nwhich keeps the same tone as the stuff from the website. There’s no narrativenarc, but the book is divided into sections based on topics like robots andnfriendship.
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It’s pretty incredible tonsee the success of PDL take off so quickly– you have an amazing followingnonline that manifests itself in the form of hilarious comments, and hello,nyour book is coming out in October from Plume!– what kinds of projects are younlooking forward to in the future?
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I’dnlike to do a longer form graphic novel or novella. I love writing short strips,nbut it would be a fun challenge to work on something with a story arc.
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Bonus: What books have younread recently that you loved?
