In this third and final part of our interview with the Tales Designed to Thrizzle author, we discuss comedy writing, the appeal of Webcomics, and Twitter, Twitter, Twitter.

[Part One][Part Two]

There’s a different sort of humor you would have to employ to work on a 200-300 page graphic novel—something more sustainable.

Well, yeah. I mean, one of the things I’ve learned is that there’s a kind of math you can do, so that if you put in this kind of detail, it will be comedic and already half of your work has been done for you. Graham Linehan said something similar for sitcoms with the IT Crowd, where he sees three big laugh moments and builds a whole script around them. It’s kind of like building a house, I guess. If you know that such and such a detail is going to be there, then with the rest of it, you have a little more freedom to conceptualize.

In the same sense, it seems easy to get stuck with a joke character or plotline that’s hard to escape from.

Well, sure. You see that happen to people a lot, hampered by their own success. You if you really don’t want to do the thing and be known for it for the rest of your life, don’t do it.

Basing a longer work on, say, a clever pun, you could easily be trapping yourself in the first couple of pages.

Oh sure, but the way you’re working on something, it usually sends back signals. If you find something that you’re working on unbearable, it’s usually a signal that you shouldn’t be doing it.

It sounds like you’ve got a very set schedule for work, but, in terms of the jokes and characters and storylines you develop, does inspiration strike throughout the day?

Yeah, more or less. There are two kinds of working on a joke. One is not really working, so much as having an idea pop into your head or something comes fully formed. And that’s great, but you can’t depend on that. And then there’s another kind that involves building the joke—sensing a vantage point and then starting to construct it. but of course the point of humor is that you always want it to look easy. You don’t want it to look like you spent two hours on your 140 character line—not that I’ve ever done that [laughs].

We’ve all done that. Are you carrying around notepads with you and writing down jokes as they pop into your head?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Right now, after I get off the phone with you, I have to think of what swears I would use, if I was a British tramp millionaire. That’s the latest question I’ve thrown out on Twitter, so I know people are already coming up with some good ones.

Is the Twitter output feeding into your comic work, or are these two totally separate pursuits?

It’s very rewarding in a lot of ways. Artistically it’s kind of like performance with interaction.  And I’m really enjoying it on several levels.

Making comics is a very lengthy process and the feedback is nowhere near as instantaneous as tweeting something and getting five million @ replies.

Yeah, it’s amazing, and there’s so many witty and smart people on Twitter. It really keeps you on your toes. When I started doing comics, it was for a zine in Williamsburg. I knew a lot of people in other departments, so I’d do comics and they’d respond to them right away. It’s a little feeling of interactiveness that’s part of what drew me to comics. And of course that was done very quickly. It’s been years since I’ve gotten an immediate response to what I’m doing. So Twitter fills like a return to that.

Are you interested in doing more art online? That’s another opportunity for instant feedback.

Oh, absolutely. I think that’s where everything’s heading.

Is there something holding you back from that? Do you prefer having your stuff in print?

Oh no. It’s money. It’s all money. I have so much work to do that it’s hard to find the space for things that are purely conceptual at this point. Right now I have some illustrations to do and 34 pages of comics to do in the next few months—20 of which will never be printed, I think. So time is a big thing.

Twenty pages that won’t be printed?

Yeah, it’s these Lemony Snicket things.

But the money still comes in.

Yeah, that’s why I’m doing it [laughs].

–Brian Heater

In this second part of our interview with the Tales Designed to Thrizzle artist, we discuss the premier of the first (and possibly last) episode of his Cartoon Network series, Snake ‘n’ Bacon, get some details on a new series he’s working on for an undisclosed network, and figure out how the hell a cartoonist can support a family in early 21st century New York.

[Part One]

Did you gather people together to watch [Snake 'n' Bacon] when it premiered?

No, I did that a year ago when it was finished. This was purely a conceptual event. It just was on Twitter.

So it must have been a bit anti-climactic.

Not exactly. Thanks to Twitter and other places on the Internet, there was a feeling of an event, which is important, in and of itself. I was actually quite happy with the way things went that night.

Snake ‘n’ Bacon doesn’t really seem like the ideal choice from your work to translate into a TV show.

I actually agree. It’s been odd with Snake ‘n’ Bacon, because the joke is that they’re non-characters. They don’t do anything. There’s not much there. And it’s been a weird progression because I started doing them in comics way back when. And then the editor at Avon, later Harper Collins who did Snake ‘n’ Bacon said, “you know, we’ve got to call it ‘Snake ‘n’ Bacon.’ He was really enthusiastic. And it was the same thing with the show. It’s always been someone else’s decision to thrust those two out front.

Are you opposed to the idea of creating a single character that you can really sort of hang your hat on? For lack of a better term, a ‘marketable’ character?

Yeah, I must be, right? I haven’t exactly been doing it. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Twain and Einstein, and they’re not really marketable, either, even though they’re much more fulfilling as characters. They’ve been flowing out. They’ve kind of taken over for a bit. A lot of the latest Thrizzle was them and there’s been more material since them. Marketing—I guess essentially I’m an artist, so it’s very hard for me to look at things in a marketing light. I guess in a way I’m like a lot of artists who wish they had someone to sell them the right way.

Is the new TV series that you’re attempting to option more Snake ‘n’ Bacon?

No, it’s something completely different. It’s time travel humor.

Is it stuff from Thrizzle or is it completely new?

Yep, completely new idea—new everything.

Is it tough to compartmentalize these divergent projects?

It’s a challenge because I have to keep so many things going all of the time to make any money. On top of the comics, which, as I’m sure you suspect, make absolutely no money. It gets  a schizophrenic. Today I just signed up to do some more comics from Marvel. I just signed up to do a piece called Marv-X The Robot Man. And also I’m doing an illustration for The New York Times. So yeah, it can get a little confusing.

Is magazine illustration your primary source of income?

Illustration has kind of withered. It’s difficult because I don’t feel like it’s there any more, and I don’t feel like pursuing it because I don’t enjoy most illustration anymore. It’s not in good shape. The illustration industry is in bad shape, and I don’t feel like it’s going to get any better. My main source of income, oddly enough, is comics. Not my comics, though—comics for other people. I’m doing comics for the Lemony Snicket books in their paperback form, but I don’t think they’ll ever be printed.

Is the illustration work you do outside of your comics easily recognizable for those familiar with your stuff?

I don’t know—I think not, because Graham Linehan, who I’ve been friendly with for years now—he’s been very supportive. He gave me a lovely blurb for the back of my book, and has been very enthusiastic about my comics—I did the illustration for his avatar for Twitter and his Website. He did actually reproduce an illustration that I did for The New Yorker for a Jack Handy piece and didn’t realize that it was me.

How long did it take to develop the style for Thrizzle?

Years of suffering.

Are you still trying to figure out where to go with it?

I don’t feel like I’ve arrived where I’m going, yet, and I feel like it’s really difficult these days, because essentially you have to build your own thing and define yourself. There just aren’t the structures in place that there were, like 20 or 30 years ago to try to present yourself as an artist.

In terms of the venues?

Yeah, and I think print just doesn’t have the relevance that it did, years ago. And there are more aritists every day. I’m competing against artists that I idolized when I was 10-years-old. And also the way people perceive who you are and what you’re doing—that’s become as important as the work itself.

If living in New York and supporting a family weren’t an issue, what would you be spending your time working on?

I’d be doing much more elborate comics, probably. That’s the terrible irony. The stuff that people love the most that I do is my comics, and they’re the ones I really have to use my own time to do, and I don’t know if I’ll ever really make money from comics, directly. It’s really frustrating, because sometimes I really don’t have the time to do the work that people really like of mine. I’m doing other things to pay the bills, because I have to.

Are you interested in doing longer comic pieces?

Yeah, definitely. I’ve been thinking of doing a graphic novel, for want of a better term—doing something sustained. I would love nothing more than to sit and draw and do the best work that I’m capable of. So that’s my ideal and that’s what I’m struggling towards.

It seems, perhaps, like it could be born out of the series that you’re doing, because you often return to the same characters.

Sure, yeah, or the same ideas and themes.

Would a longer work be similar, in terms of themes?

No. I’m sure there would be some new aspects at that point. There would have to be to make any sense. Otherwise it’s just Shaggy Dog—it can be entertaining, but it doesn’t really hold together. I like challenges, and I like new things, so it does appeal to me.

But definitely something in the comedic vein?

I mean, I think it would have to be, right?

You can always do the turn for the serious book.

Yeah…that doesn’t really appeal to me. I think what’s important for me when I do comics is doing something that I feel is springing out of the comic form. There’s a lot of this graphic novel stuff lately that gets attention because it’s dealing with themes that people are concerned with, but it’s not necessarily comics that needed to be comics. I think the artist I feel closest with is Tony Millionaire, because he really lives in those comics. He could never be anything else.

And your work reflects a certain sense of appreciation for the pulpy stuff, as well.

And that stuff has its own built in goofiness, and I think I respond to that.

[Concluded in Part Three]

–Brian Heater

Last Sunday night, Michael Kupperman followed in the hallowed footsteps of Tony Millionaire with the premier of Snake ‘n Bacon, a 12-minute-long adaptation of the cartoonist’s perennial favorite onomatopoeiac duo for Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim comedy block.

The show is a mix of animation written and directed by Kupperman and live action bits penned by two Daily Show vets and starring James Urbaniak, Andy Blitz, Kristen Schaal, and Bill Hader. Despite the impressive comedic pedigrees, however, it seems we’re unlikely to see any more of the show in its current incarnation—at least not on Cartoon Network.

Kupperman, however, has plenty more to be excited about, including the recently released fifth issue of the absurdly comic series Tales Designed to Thrizzle for Fantagraphics, a peculiar and perpetually hilarious mélange of cartoon sketch comedy and pulpy aesthetic sensibilities. The previous four issues are also set for release as a collected hardcover edition in late-July.

We caught up with Kupperman during his daily hour of freedom.

Is now a good time?

I’m getting my hour or so freedom for the day, because I work at night and get what sleep I can during the day. Taking care of a baby is an involved thing—so I don’t get out too much these days.

You work at night—are you one of those 2 AM sort of artists?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, that’s part of my philosophy. I think you should turn your weaknesses into strengths, and I’ve always had terrible insomnia. When I had real jobs, they were always late. So I’m working at nights, though it is tough to get away with. It’s still when I prefer to work, though.

Do your hours affect your output at all? Do you find that you have a different sensibility at 2 AM than you do at, say two PM?

Yeah, probably, that extra little added bit of craziness can at 2 AM.

Which probably serves your work a bit better than others.

Yeah, I guess so. My work is what it is, definitely. It’s not like everyone’s.

Where you surprised to hear that someone was interesting in optioning it for a TV show?

Well, the way it went  was that there were these two guys, Scott Jacobson and Rich Blomquist had the idea to make Snake n Bacon into a TV show. They first came to me and when ahead with the process and got a deal to make it.

It seems like you’ve got a fairly strong involvement with it. You’re listed as the lead writer for the show.

Well, yeah. The way it breaks down is this: the animated material is all taken from Snake n Bacon, the book—just slightly rearranged. For that I had complete control, because if you want something done right, do it yourself. And the live action parts, those are written by Scott and Rich. So those are really theirs.

Are you interested in writing more original work for the show?

Oh, sure. I’m open for anything. I’ve been trying really hard since we finished the pilot to get something else off the ground. It’s a challenge, but I really enjoyed working on it. And I do every inch of that animation. I didn’t know if I could, but I did—even the mouths.

Is that all done on Flash?

I believe its After Effects. Basically it’s me doing the drawing and then John Kuramoto did the animation. He’s the same person who animates Chris Ware for This American Life and he worked on American Splendor. He’s just really really great. He’s an amazing guy to work with.

How long do the layouts take for a single episode?

That was kind of a stop-start process, but actually, not that long. I think I did most of the work for that in about two, two-and-a-half months.

For just that episode?

Yeah. I don’t think there are going to be anymore, unless Adult Swim changes their mind.

They didn’t pick up the pilot?

Yeah. They don’t seem as excited as they might have been.

There’s a pretty solid cast and lineup of writers.

Yeah, I was surprised myself. I thought at least if they didn’t like the show, they want to do something else. But I don’t know. Dealing with them has been a little…crazy. I don’t want to slam them—at least not publicly [laughs]. It’s a little strange. Dealing with these big companies is just a bit weird. They can be very reasonable, and then suddenly you don’t know where you are.

I’ve heard a lot of horror stories from a lot of networks, but it seems like, for the most part, Adult Swim is—I don’t know if “kinder” is the word—at least a little easier to work with than some of the major networks.

Yeah, yeah. But that’s the way it goes. I am talking to another major network. It’s just the lawyers negotiating the contracts stage. It should be happening, but you never know. I’m waiting on that right now.

Now you have this great, very professional-looking demo reel.

Exactly. That was my attitude, and I think that’s got to be your attitude all the time—just do the best you can, and if this doesn’t work, then it’ll show someone else what you can do.

The pilot had its big premier last Sunday. We’re you satisfied with the final product?

You know—huh. The live action was a little rough. That wasn’t under my control. Scott and Richard are great, and I don’t want to slam them or anything, but I thought that it was a little rough and could have been improved—especially the live action. But on the whole, I’m very happy with it, yeah. I’m very proud of it.

Did it not keep with the vibe of the comic?

Well, if the animation didn’t, that’s really my fault. But no, I think it did. It’s just in terms of its presentation and what the network would really be interested in. again, it’s hard to tell. You just never know.

[Continued in Part Two]

–Brian Heater