Michael Patrick is the cartoonist behind the recently started comic
Gary and Agnes, one of the best and most underappreiated webstrips out there in my opinion. He was involved in underground and small press publishing throughout the Nineties, before starting Timmy and Ratchet in early 2002. Both of his comics plus other treats can be found on Michaelpatrick.net.I recently got the chance to interview Michael on the
#talkaboutcomics IRC channnel. Below is an edited transcript.What kind of comics did you read as a child?
I read whatever I could get my hands on
Men in tights?
Mad was probably my first favorite. And all of the rip-offs of Mad: Crazy, Cracked, etc. I watched a lot of cartoons and read comic strips and collections a lot, but didn't really get into collecting comic books until I was twelve or thirteen.
Did you draw a lot yourself? Comics or otherwise?
I drew constantly. Not that you can tell.
Nah, you're good.
My brother started me drawing when I was in my preschool years. Mostly dinosaurs and monsters.
When did you start thinking of making comics?
Hmmm... Probably junior high school. I would come up with ideas week after week and abandon them all just as quickly. (This was a trend that continued into adult life.) Mostly rip-offs of what I was reading. Like most kids who love comics.
When did you start making comics ‘for real’, then? Meaning that you intended them to be published? When did it become serious, so to speak?
When I was in high school some friends and I were doing a zine called Urban Lunchmeat (named after my friends band.) That was 1988-89. We carried it on after high school for a couple years. That was when one of my friends came up with a character: "Hypneeto". It was a comic about a hypnotist who had adventures that were ripped off from Black Adder. I handled some of the writing on that.
After that, I convinced some friends that we could do a small press anthology. We did various stories over the course of about four issues in the early 90s under the name of If/When Press. The title meant, "We'll produce the next issue if and when we get around to it.
Timmy and Ratchet was an idea I wanted to do in print since 1998. Originally, I pictured it as a time-travel related series. Ratchet looked more like C3P0, but Timmy hasn't really changed. I wanted to do historical science fiction stories. I later decided to change it into more of a space opera/mystery thing. But I hope to add the time travel elements in to it in the future. If I ever have time to finish the introductory story I'm working on now.
And then you discovered the web?
Sort of. I new about the web since... 1994. But I didn't even consider online comics until I met Charlie Parker (of Argon Zark) at the SPX in 1998
He was the first high-profile webtoonist.
The first thing you did for the web was a new version of Rabbit and Boy, correct?
That's true. Except I never finished it. That was when I was first learning how to use html and flash
When was that?
I think early 2000. No... Maybe it was late 2000, early 2001.
And when did you start Timmy and Ratchet?
A little over a year ago. I just decided - this is what I want to do... I'll draw it all in flash so that the art will look cleaner and more polished than my previous stuff. And I'll post it on the web and instant fame and fortune will be mine.
And Gary and Agnes was just some months ago? Was that an old idea too?
No. I started Gary and Agnes in December. I got frustrated with Timmy and Ratchet. It takes me so long to do a page and I have such a big story to tell and I felt like it was going nowhere, getting zero response. I love doing that comic, but it's very difficult for me.
They're very different from each other.
One day I decided to do something that I could spit out quickly. Build up a backlog of work. I laid out a blank template of panels (6 on a page), printed out about 50 pages worth, and bound them together. I decided that I would draw whatever came into my head and make it into a comic. The first ten pages or so hit the trash. Then (on the train to work which is where I write almost all of my Gary and Agnes comics,) I wrote the polter-goose gag. Basically it was me telling the joke and being frustrated that no one found it as funny as I did.
When I got home from work that night I laid my ground rules (most if not all of which have been broken.) The comic would be in black and white with little or no gray. The characters would change as little as possible form panel to panel. Moving only enough to get the joke across. Gary and Agnes were originally going to be the only characters in the story. There essentially wouldn't be a story, just these two talking heads and their incessant dialogue. I got sick of that really fast. Since then they've evolved a little. But I've only been doing this for a few months; the characters have a long ways to go.
So, Gary is really you in a sense? I kind of thought that as I read it too.
Yes and no. Agnes is me too. Gary is my wishy-washy whiney me. Agnes is my sarcastic me. Agnes is the part of me that hates everything. Her main joy is in defusing everyone's fun. Agnes sometimes gets her dialogue from my wife. Gary is easier to write.
Gary has a more developed personality. So far. I would say he's been the main protagonist?
Probably. It's hard for me to sympathize with Agnes, so it's probably hard for readers as well. She's a bitch.
I have more fun writing her, though.
Do you know where you're going with the story at all?
I thought I knew but the characters are taking over. I was planning on having Agnes seriously try to kill her evil clone, but having them do so didn't seem to fit.
That one really made you think "He’s no idea where he’s going."
You seem to be changing Agnes personality - before the characters and situations have been quite established.
That's true. But the characters are in a lot of ways like real people They don't behave in exactly the same way day after day. They contradict themselves. Agnes is programmed to hate Gary (programmed by me) but she keeps trying to write her own story. Gary is a lot easier. He just goes with it.
It's awfully pretentious of me referring to my characters like real people
Nah.
The vending machine's relationship to Gary mirrors his relationship with Agnes.
The vending machine was meant as a throwaway gag but he/she/it kept coming back.
That's kind of the main theme of the strip [unrequited love].
There are a lot of unrequited... or not nearly requited feelings going on. Although, I don't know how many more of the "Machine loves Gary" strips I'll do. I may lose that thread entirely
Having ordinary people, like friends, as supporting cast would have been a change of tone. The thief is as non-real as the vending machine.
It's not a slice-of-life strip. It’s very... abstract if that makes sense.
Once again, the Robber was a throwaway gag character. But then for the cell phone strip I needed someone. I decided to use him instead of draw a new character... it made the strip feel more pure.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
I think so. I don't think I could do a straight slice-of-life. I tried in the past.
Very... not so much a meta-strip (though you have that element) but one with its own logic to the same extent as a meta-strip.
Meta-strip is a new term for me. Like BOASAS?
Ah, now I know how to put it. They very much live in a comic strip, and not in the real world.
I even tried a "fourth wall breaking" strip in the beginning.
Like 1+0. Or Sam's strip.
Sorry, I've never read either of those. Is Sam the person who does the strip? Or do you mean Sam Henderson?
That's what I meant more or less. Fourth wall.
I decided to ease up on that sort of thing
Sam's strip was by Mort Walker. ANYWAY. We're getting off-topic...
I don't mind if the characters know that they are in a comic strip, but I don't want them to constantly be letting the reader in on it. Of course, I just did that sort of thing on Wednesdays.
(Here’s 1+0 by the way:
http://oneoverzero.keenspace.com/ One of my favorite webcomics.)What are your influences, if you have any?
Everything. My wife keeps telling me to say "her".
I don't buy as many print comics as I used too. Cerebus, Usagi [Yojimbo], Akiko, Bone. Thieves and Kings.
What are your all time favorites, then?
I read more online stuff now. I've recently become enamoured with Pogo. Everything about it: from the dialogue to the illustrations.
Gary and Agnes reminds me a little of Peanuts. Superficially anyway.
Yes. I loved old Peanuts. 50s and 60s. To quote Joe Matt (I think) it started to suck after they brought in Woodstock.
Unrequited love, harsh world, minimalist yet very expressive art... And the protagonist is bald.
When I read the reprints in the paper, they look like the same strips they were doing in the last few years
All time favorites?
All time favorites?
Cartoonists, comics.
The same as everyone else, probably. Windsor McCay, Herriman. I looove Popeye. Segar. I wet my pants over the Fleischer cartoons.
All classic comic strips.
Yes. Something about that style. I always wanted to do something like Popeye where a cast of oddballs sail around the world and have wacky adventures. (I have a character called Ike Armstrong and his buddy Henry the Ape. Never been used, just sitting in a sketchbook.)
Crumb is great. I really, really love the stuff I've seen from CHARLES Crumb. He was a genius. Insane, but genius. Some of my favorite living cartoonists... Jordan Crane, Megan Kelso. I love Highwater Books. I think that Ivan Brunetti is awesome. Once again... he's like a post-modern Schulz
How do you draw?
The actual comics are all drawn in Flash. I used to draw on paper, scan and then trace into flash, but more and more I draw in flash directly. Sometimes I'll colorize in PhotoShop (like the ‘Three men in a tub' drawing in my portfolio). For Timmy and Ratchet I started doing 3-d Backgrounds. I'm still learning the software. I use Vue-D'Esprit for all of the natural stuff (sort of like Bryce, which of course I have never used.) I hope to get better at the 3d backgrounds. As it stands I'm about 15% of where I want it to be.
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
I hope that by then I find a way to make enough money at comics to justify doing them in the first place. My wife and I have this running joke where in the future I'll be saying to our (not yet existent) kids, "Daddy's in his studio". And they reply, "Mom, Dad's in the closet again". For the near future... I hope to get enough strips done for a decent print collection. I don't know if that can actually make money, but I'd still love to do it. I know enough now about printing that I didn't know back when I was doing small press comics.
Gary and Agnes?
Yes, Gary and Agnes. Although I'd have to leave out some of the web-specific stuff. I hope to get Timmy and Ratchet on track within the year
Well, I wish you all the luck because that strip [Gary and Agnes] is at times brilliant. I mean truly brilliant.
Thanks. When I do a strip, I never have any clue if it's one that will be well received... or mocked as... well, crap.
(Oh! When mentioning my influences, I forgot to mention Buttercup Festival. I just discovered it a few weeks ago. It is truly the most brilliant strip on the Internet. It is everything that Gary and Agnes wishes it was.)
And has it? How succesful have you been, in terms of readership and accolades and what not?
I get about 30-50 hits per day. Not very high traffic. Of course, I have no clear answer as to how long it takes for a strip to take off. Most popular strips out there are by folks in their teens/early twenties. They usually start out as utter crap and evolve quickly
How successful are you by your own standards then? Are you pleased with the work?
Well, not much more than I was before doing this. I'm pleased with the work and very pleased with the handful of people that really like it. I can't complain. I haven't received any 'hate mail', don't know if I ever will. That's the true mark of success in my book, how many people care enough to tell you that you suck. So far, just my wife. I pick on her. She hates comics and is therefore my best and worst critic.
I'm telling you, you're really, really good. You have the potential for greatness.
Wow. Thanks. (I knew it all along.) (Now I must return to false modesty.)
Are we ready for questions from the "peanut gallery?" Is there a "peanut gallery"?
I was gonna say, that's a good note to end it on.
Good cuz I gotta pee.
Nut.
Ó
2003 David Weman