PKD Media

Welcome once again to the PKD Media Spotlight, shining the light on independent creators, comics, and various bits of pop-culture you may be sleeping on.

On March 3^rd of 2008, a character named Mumblepuss was unleashed to the World Wide Web for all to see. The adventures of this misguided, yet free-talking stuffed bear cracks me up on the regular, so I thought it was only fitting to have the creator of Mumblepuss and Co-host of the N3rdcast, Jamie Fickes in the PKD Media Spotlight! Sit back and enjoy the interview.

What is Mumblepuss and what inspired you to create him and its universe?

That’s an interesting question with an embarrassing answer.  Great way to start off the interview! I got the idea for Mumblepuss on vacation at the beach.  I had been dating my wife for a few months and we thought it would be cute to make stuffed animals for each other. We named them Mumblepuss and Futzy Muppins.  We went through the stuffing procedure and picked out outfits for them, Mumblepuss was dressed as a Halloween pumpkin and Futzy was a sparkly witch. We dressed them in their outfits and something just wasn’t right about how Mumblepuss looked.  I showed him to my wife and she noticed the same thing: the bear’s fur went over his eyes so that he looked surly and once we put him in a pumpkin outfit, he looked downright mad. We then started talking about how funny it would be to have a teddy bear who didn’t act the way teddy bear’s should. Mumblepuss is a teddy bear who does everything within his power to appear tough and mean, but in reality is a cute stuffed animal who’s filled with fluff.

From that original premise, my wife Caitlin and I started telling our friends stories about Mumblepuss.  Miraculously, they laughed and didn’t have us committed to an asylum. We grew the cast of players out of Mumblepuss and Futzy to include other stuffed animals we had aquired over the years. Jamie Superbear was actually a stuffed animal I had given my wife years earlier and Ducky P. McFatty was a stuffed animal I had kept because he is litterally a puffball with a lone tuft of hair (much like he appears in my comic). Skidoo is Caitlin’s childhood carebear that is about the raggediest stuffed animal I have ever seen.

The universe all the stuffed animals live in is one of imagination and pretend play.  Since they are stuffed animals, they are able to do things and make things happen that are outside the scope of reality.  All the characters are aware they are in a comic strip and often speak to the audience directly.

Do you have a favorite Mumblepuss storyline? If so, what is it?

Most of the time, my favorite strip is the one I am currently working on. I’ve been putting together my first “best of” book for Pittsburgh this year, and out of those strips, I think “Brown Lantern” is one of my favorites.  That starts right here:http://www.mumblepuss.com/2009/04/15/brightestday/

Personally, I see no issue with it, but I’ve heard people mention that your artistic style for Mumblepuss contrasts to the stories you tell. What do you say to such detractors?

That’s pretty interesting, I’ve never really thought of my style and storytelling as working against each other.  I use vector art because I am most comfortable with manipulating art digitially.  I can draw, but I let those skills atrophy over the years to where I am just starting to get my confidence level back where it should be to draw by hand. I’m pretty open to critique though, so to those detractors, I say: What style should I be doing the strip in? I’m open to suggestions. Mumblepuss has been something that I decided “no more excuses” and just started producing, and I’ve been holding on going 100 miles an hour since I decided to do this strip.  When I started, I was drawing by hand, then I adapted this vector art style to my strip several months later, and I’ll probably change it again as my skill and technology changes.

My idea for Mumblepuss can grow and adapt, I don’t feel I’m locked in to anything. Right now, I’m using this vector style and experimenting, the only limitation I’ve found is I don’t have an unlimited amount of time to craft the comic. If I did, I’d hand draw everything and spend hours upon hours tweaking and re-tweaking. I am a firm believer that the stuff I am putting out must go out on deadline. So many of my friends or artists in general, keep waiting until their skills are “there” and everything is polished and perfect.  Since they have such a perfectionist mentality, they end up producing nothing.  I didn’t want to be like that; I’d rather throw my work out into the world and refine it as I go along. Sure, I’m not as great an artist as Skottie Young or Brad Guigar, but at least I’m working on something that’s out there and not hidden in a sketchbook somewhere wasting away. I am a perfectionist, and I’m trying to break myself of that. I kinda like that my work is out there, blemishes and all.

Who are some of your favorite storytellers?

One of my favorite authors right now is Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden files and Codex Alera. I absolutely love both of these series, and if you are in any way a fan of intrigue, fantasy or mystery; I recommend you check out his novels.  I love stories where characters have very defined and individual voices, and Mr. Butcher is one of the greats when it comes to characterization (in my opinion). I feel very cliché mentioning Neil Gaiman, as he’s such a legend in comics (and novels, I feel). I absolutely think he is a wonderful storyteller. http://www.jim-butcher.com/

All hail the Whedon, Joss Whedon is one of my favorite storytellers, ever. I’m a huge Buffy fan, a huge fan of Firefly and Dr. Horrible. I have Dollhouse in my DVR, and I hope it has enough of that Joss magic in it.  I love his work on the Buffy comics, in particular.

I have comic authors that I become aware of and follow ravenously.  I became aware of Dan Slott through a friend of mine recommending his run on the first She-Hulk series.  I started collecting his run on Shulkie, then Thing, then everything he’s ever written.  I love Dan’s ability to tell a complex story that is heartfelt and serious, while maintaining humor and pacing so effortlessly in his writing.  I feel his runs on Amazing Spiderman is some of the best written Spiderman stuff out there. One of my prized possessions is a Ren and Stimpy comic Dan gave me last year at WizardWorld Philly.  Dan loves sharing his work with people, and how can you not love that?

One of Dan’s fellow Spiderman writers, Joe Kelly, is rapidly gaining my interest. I met him in WW Philly this year, and he is definitely a cool guy with tons of great stories to tell.  I Kill Giants and The House of They are among some of the best stories I read this year: seriously great stuff. http://www.manofaction.tv/

I probably don’t need to hype Matt Fraction to any more people, the dude is on fire.  His run on Invincible Iron Man is (in my opinion) the definitive Iron Man. It’s perfect, note by note, to what I envision Tony Stark and his world to be in my imagination. His dialogue is some of the best out there! His X-men is wonderful, and I am glad to see the X-men be handled by someone who loves the X-men, respects their history, but can still move plots forward. I was a huge X-men fan in the late 80′s and 90′s.  Age of Apocalypse was the worst for me, sent me right out of collecting comics and I honestly hadn’t picked up an X-men comic since then.  Fraction brought me back into the fold of loving X-men again. http://mattfraction.com/

Geoff Johns is the Shakespeare of comics right now. I am pretty sure he could write a haiku on toilet paper about stocks and I’d find it interesting. Everything Johns touches is like comic gold to me. His Flash run, his Green Lantern: Rebirth, his run on Justice Society, Booster Gold, Blackest Night….the list goes on and on. I have never been a Legion of Superheroes fan, but John’s run in Action Comics actually had me interested and now I know the legion characters. Johns understands how to quickly establish a great story structure and allow for new readers or people who aren’t steeped in comics lore to jump in and have a great time with comics.

Lastly there are a few people I look up to in webcomics, but one in particular I’ve been looking up to for inspiration a lot to lately, Brad Guigar.  In my opinion, the guy is a master cartoonist.  His writing has a razor wit, and his cartooning skills are phenominal.  I just got current with all his books and am an avid reader of his webcomic Evil Inc. I hope to keep at it and one day be 1/160 the cartoonist Brad is.  Also, he really is a super nice guy.  I’ve met him a few times at cons and he’s got an infectious good nature about him that is really cool. I really admire the way he uses gag strips to tell an overarching story.  Check out his comic: http://www.evil-comic.com/

Tell me one thing you love about the comics’ medium and one thing you despise about it.

I love paring pictures and words together to tell a story.  When you have good artwork and good writing, there’s something magical about that.  There’s a synergy there that is really exciting. It’s the Golden Fleece that I am constantly striving for as a cartoonist.    I really love the community of comics/webcomics right now as well.  There is a large community out there and all you need to do is find YOUR audience for your project. It’s a great time to be a cartoonist, in my opinion, because there is such a huge amount of support out there if you are willing to get out there and network.  It’s really great.

I despise when you plunk down $4.99 for a comic, and find out that 1/2 the book is a reprint of something I already have.  I hate getting an 8 page story and 18 more pages of reprints. I have learned to be very cautious when buying books!

There are a high number of web comics across the internet; how do you make your comic stand out?

High number? There are literally thousands and out of those I read less than 20. I just want to keep improving, gaining steam and energy until I become a jugernaut of creativity and product.  I think the only way you can stand out in webcomics is staying true to your vision of your product. I looked around and I don’t see many vector art comic strips that are working the same way I do and I hope to expand on that.

Can you tell the people what N3RDCast is, and how did you become a part of it?

The N3rdcast is a podcast I’ve been doing for close to four years now. It literally started because Kwip wanted to get his childhood friend, Happyjack, and me together to talk comics.  Kwip had started podcasting, and had done I think 2 episodes before I joined them. From that meeting, it kind of took off from there. We record close to every week, and literally just plunk down a recorder and go. If I had to classify us, it would be potty-mouthed comic nerds talking about their lives with each other.

We are friends who just hang out, swear a lot and are extremely passionate about things we love: gaming, comics, movies and zombies. We interview creators we’d like to talk to.  We won’t do interviews with someone whose work we can’t stand, that gets awkward. We have opinions and are generally loud mouths who like to get riled up and passionate. I have a lot of fun doing the N3rdcast, but it’s not for everyone and we are okay with that. I think the closest podcast to what it is we do is the Geek Savants, which is another great podcast of kindred spirits. I often think of ourselves as the bizarro version of Comic Geek Speak: they are professional, knowledgeable and entertaining…everything we, as the N3rdcast, aren’t.

Where can people find you and Mumblepuss on the web, and is there anything else that you would like to mention?

Mumblepuss is on Facebook, so please join FOM: Friends of Mumblepuss, which is the fan page. Mumblepuss has his own twitter account at twitter.com/mumblepuss/. He does answer his twitter often, and interacts with the fans. Once I get my book, Mumblepuss: Dark Rain, out for Pittsburgh, I hope to go back to updating 3 times a week again. For right now, I update at least once a week on Mondays (which I have begun to refer to as #MumblepussMonday on twitter) at www.mumblepuss.com.

Thanks Shawn, you rock!

jamiefickes@gmail.com
webcomic: www.mumblepuss.com
podcast: www.neenerneeener.net

Thank you Jamie for participating in the PKD Media Spotlight!

Come back tomorrow for more Mercury & The Murd, yall. Peace and good times.

-Shawn

Tags: independent creators, indie comics, Indie Creators, Jamie Fickes, Mum, Mumblepuss, PKD Media Spotlight, webcomic

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 9:10 am and is filed under Comic, The PKD Media Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.