Long John

Making comics is difficult work. It’s not manual labor (well, I guess it kind of is)––but, for people like me, I am often psychologically drained when working through scenes. One of the best ways to counter-act this is to talk to people––almost anybody––about the process and the minutiae of what is being worked on. Of course, a great way to counter-act this is to share “war stories” (so to speak) as well as talk shop with other comickers. I recently recorded one of those talks (at the bottom of this post) with friend and fresh-on-the-comicking scene, Jason Tudor.

Jason Tudor is a friend that goes back to my Eben07 days––he was an early fan and supporter of the comic and we kind of hit it off as the years went on. I came to know him best from the excellent pop-culture podcast of which he is the MC––moderating discussions with fellow co-hosts, Keith Houin and Michael Wistock––called The Science Fiction Show, and which he still spearheads despite difficulties in getting schedules to sync up between the hosts (it is literally an international and bicoastal show with the hosts spread across continents).

More recently, Jason has teamed with his Science Fiction Show co-host, Keith Houin, to create his own webcomic a lifetime in the making. Vorpal is the culmination of a life-long dream and his desire to challenge himself. Vorpal is a science fiction/space opera/espionage-action comic about the eponymous assassin. Jason is jumping into this endeavor feet first, into the deep end. Neither he nor Keith have created comics before, and Jason is making the daring move (dare I say similar to how I entered into the game back in 2007) of learning in front of an audience.

Anyway, I felt it would be a boon to webcomicking archival efforts to snag a talk with Jason and try to cover as many different angles in an effort to take a snapshot of a creator at the start of his story. Jason’s a great speaker and it was a really fun to participate in as well as listen to (I created no fewer than three edits of this, so I’ve heard it a lot and still enjoy it). There are still a lot of topics we didn’t cover, so expect more from Jason in the future. With Vorpal, I’m really looking forward to watching Jason’s talents––and the comic itself––grow over time.

NOTE: This is the full talk that was abbreviated for time on my podcast, For All Intents and Purposes, which I co-host with Andrew Asplund (the episode in which the truncated interview appears is here). This cut is much longer with a lot more content, topics, and blemishes of editing.

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