[Heroic Music] ♪ ♪ >> Hello and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terence Dollard, a Professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is cartoonist Brian Anderson.

Brian, welcome to Comic Culture.

>> Hi, thank you for having me.

>> Brian, we are here to talk about your two new books.

We have Sophie Jurassic Park and Sophie Frankenstein's Hound.

And these are characters based on your syndicated comic script Dog Eat Doug.

So how do you go from being a syndicated cartoonist to turning those characters into a series of books for younger readers?

>> It was actually a difficult choice.

I had always wanted to be syndicated and when I got syndicated, I knew the realities of newspaper syndication.

So I always had plans of expanding Sophie into more mediums, kind of following in Snoopy's path.

And then I got sidelined with writing other children's books and stuff.

But then basically, there was a change of the syndicate and things kind of went downhill.

I was confronted with a choice.

I could either quit the strip or fight them in court.

And I didn't like either option.

So I created a third option, which was I just sat down, drew up a plan of what I'd always imagined for Sophie.

Doing children's books, graphic novels, and animation, and branching out, and doing it on my own.

And just kind of leaving that world behind and taking the jump.

So it was tremendously scary.

It was a hard choice, but it was one of those situations where you don't like the two choices you're presented with, you create a third.

But I'd always wanted to do it.

And one of the inspirations was I would get fan mail from kids.

And it dawned on me, most of these kids that were sending me letters and stuff and the comics they had drawn, they had never even seen a newspaper.

So they were introduced to it either by their grandparents or parents, but they were seeing the e-books I was putting out on my own at the comic strip.

And it just dawned on me the newspaper strip wasn't a way to reach these readers.

I knew parents and grandparents loved my characters from the strip.

So I said, if I did a series of graphic novels, one, these kids would love it.

My readers, they would love it.

But I knew there'd be jokes and humor in there for the parents as well.

So it all just kind of came together.

One of those things you kind of hit a rock bottom, but it turned out pretty well.

I'm obviously not of the younger generation.

For me, those newspaper strips were so important because it was that gateway into-- well, in many ways, it was the gateway into reading.

But for me, it was that gateway into comics in general.

And I've told the story many times.

But I'd be a kid.

My mom would bring me a sandwich.

I'd sit and read the funny pages in the New York Daily News or Newsday and see what Dagwood or Snoopy were up to.

So as you are taking the strip from-- I guess originally it was a web strip, and then you go the syndicated route.

How do you make that journey?

Because it's a big pivot to be somebody who might be doing the strip on their own to getting the syndicate to say, this is great.

We can put this in X number of newspapers.

>> I was working on two other strips that other syndicates were interested in.

And I didn't like either strip.

Because you're looking at a 10-year contract minimum.

And I couldn't see myself doing either of those strips for 10 years.

And I was kind of bummed.

And then one day, we had just gotten Sophie.

And I just took a break from the drawing table and just was playing with her.

And literally, the entire idea for Dog Eat Doug popped into my head.

Sophie was obviously her.

But then I made up the baby.

We didn't have my son at the time.

Over the next week, I drew up 100 strips, launched them online as a web comic.

And then the next thing you know, the syndicate called.

And they wanted to sign it.

So it was literally one of those lightning bulb moments.

And it's all literally thanks to Sophie.

Sophie is or was a real pet.

And I used to, with my cat Luke, I would have conversations.

And he would go on adventures.

At least that's what we would say.

So as you are doing something like that and you get that inspiration, how do you sort of find the style that is going to suit your vision of your pet, but also be something that is accessible to readers?

It's tricky.

What happens is what I tell young writers, too, is whatever you're writing, it's the Hemingway saying, all first drafts are garbage.

So throw it out.

So with a strip or anything you're writing, the initial stuff you're going to write, the initial jokes, the initial strips, write 30, write 60, and then throw them out.

It's very similar to how comedians work.

It's going to take you a while for the characters to come alive.

So those first few strips, those are the easy jokes, the low hanging fruit.

You have to kind of wait till you've drawn them and let them play in scenarios till they come alive.

And now it's-- then it's just you sitting back, coming up with an idea, throwing a certain toy in front of them or a certain situation, and then just watching what they do.

But that just takes time developing the characters.

So by the time-- I've been doing the strip for almost 15 years when I decided to do the books.

It was very easy because these characters were so alive.

The trickiest part was a new format, not four panels.

You have to make it funny or heartfelt, but then you're on to the next one.

It was very hard to do a through.

Now all of a sudden I can have a whole through line through the whole book.

So luckily, because the characters were already alive, that was easy.

The hard part was adjusting to the new format.

>> And it is that graphic novel format which is really becoming more respectable.

And I know that for a lot of younger readers, this is that gateway for them to become serious readers.

And I've spoken with other guests in the past about how sometimes the Scholastic Book Fair, they'll say you can only buy a few books like this compared to the much larger number of real books.

But these are books with good stories that are engaging to readers.

It has all the same elements that you would want, but with a very inviting illustrated style.

So you broke this book up into-- broke the books up into chapters which are self-contained but have that through line that you were talking about.

So as you were developing the story, is this something where you have the overall idea and then you break it up?

Or is it something where maybe you've got one small part and it evolves?

>> I have a four book arc.

Sophie's developing just like any kid would.

So she's going through the same stages.

So each book moves to another stage.

So like example, in this fourth book that I'm drawing right now, I'm writing right now, it's about realizing that there's this whole big, scary world out there.

And in Sophie's terms, that's the world outside the fence of her yard.

So in the first book, it's just her learning to develop with a baby coming into the house where she's not the only child and gets all the attention.

The second book is dealing more with the foster animals and understanding how to work together as a family, as a pack.

Third book deals with her thinking she's an alpha and trying to understand what that means, being in charge.

And now in the fourth book, now she's kind of thought she's got the whole home thing figured out.

But then is that really just like when you're a kid?

Oh, the world's huge and scary and big.

So I use that as a framework.

And then you take the silliness of the characters and you see how that'll fit.

So the cats are always using quantum physics to try to take over the world.

So how does that fit with Sophie's arc?

How do you know?

So she has to overcome her own fears and shortcomings to try to work with the cats and stop them and then deal with other issues.

So yeah, you just kind of present these scenarios and see how it fits with her character and where she's at developmentally.

And then you let her react to it.

So you're not forcing the joke into the story.

You're just kind of saying, in this fourth book, she's scared of the outside world.

So she decides, I don't need to go outside.

I can stay inside.

We have story time with mom and dad, so we can go anywhere in the world and it's perfectly safe.

Then she falls into the book world where there's this plot twist to her, trying to take over and rewrite all these stories.

So you see how she reacts to that.

And that gives you the opportunity to let her, she's going to be her.

And then as a writer, I get to have fun playing with little pop culture things, throwing in Harry Potter or things that I like.

So they're just there.

They're alive.

They're real.

So I'm really just kind of creating these scenarios and then just watching how they react to them and seeing where it goes.

>> I was reading, I guess it was, gosh, I'm going to get the title wrong.

And that's why I'm, this is, you know, I'm a professional because I always check the title on the show live.

Frankenstein's Hound.

You employ what I'm going to call the Mr. Magoo.

I'm not sure if you remember this.

Mr. Magoo had a series where he would reenact classic novels and he would have the same actors and you would see them beforehand in the theater before they would present this story.

Let's say it's Oliver Twist and you would meet all the actors talking about the characters they're going to play.

And then they would play these characters.

Then at the end, they would do sort of like a bow.

You're doing this same sort of thing where you have your characters taking on different roles.

So I'm thinking of the one where it's, I guess, an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, where the characters, other than Sophie, are these different characters that we would see in Alice in Wonderland.

So are you thinking of this as like a great way to, like, I always wanted to see what Doug would look like if he were a caterpillar or something like that.

Or is it just something that, you know, it just struck you at that moment and you started to draw?

>> Yeah, with that, I mean, I'm obsessed with Alice in Wonderland.

So any chance I get to work it into the strip, I would do it.

And I'm also, yeah, obsessed with pop culture stuff.

So there's always references to things I like, Doctor Who, Dark Crystal.

With the graphic novels, it gave me an opportunity to not just put in a little Easter egg for something, but I can actually take those stories that I like, Alice in Wonderland, Indiana Jones, and play with it with the characters.

And then having Alice in Wonderland is all about the confusion and the complete, you know, illogical world of growing up.

And it fits perfectly with Sophie's journey.

So it was literally just her going through Alice in Wonderland where nothing makes sense anymore.

And then, yeah, you have fun with, of course the cats are the Mad Hatters.

And then it made sense to make Doug the Caterpillar, which is just funny.

So it wasn't really too deep.

And then having Annie, the giant staffy, as the bunny rabbit.

So you get to have fun, but at the same time, you get to take those same themes and apply them to the story.

And then just let the characters have fun with it.

>> You mentioned before that this is a slightly different format for you.

You're going from three or four panels a day to a page that could have six, eight, perhaps nine panels on them.

Are you employing the same strategy that Siegel and Schuster did when they did the first issue of Superman, where they would take the four panels, a newspaper strip and put them together into a page?

Or are you saying this is an opportunity for me to experiment and really stretch out?

So I'm going to be as wild as I can on a full sheet of paper.

>> The first book, you'll see the rhythm of the comic strip, more so at the beginning.

There's more of the setup, the short setup and a joke, a short setup and a joke.

As it goes along, you can see how I was adapting to the medium because now I didn't have the same rhythms.

I still want to have you turn the page as opposed to waiting for the next strip.

So I still kind of use those techniques, but I don't have to worry about, ooh, I have to get this.

This has to be funny today, and I have to continue the story tomorrow.

So there has to be something here.

You have a lot more room, not just physically for the drawings and the artwork, which is obviously very freeing.

You have more room for the characters to develop and to play.

So you can get more into the intricacies of their personalities and let that come out more.

So you can have more of an up and down.

So you can have those ups and you can have the downs, which is, you know, when I started, I do a lot of dog fostering and all the animals in the books are real.

So my cats, the dogs, everything's real.

So when I started bringing in the foster dogs to strip, it was very tricky to do that.

You didn't have room to kind of show what you were trying to, the message you were trying to put out there.

Whereas now I can have a whole chapter based on one foster dog, and I can show, you know, there's obviously, the trick is some of their backstories are very horrific.

So how do you present that to a younger audience?

The parents are not worried about, they would be fine, but, you know, with Luna, one of the, she has a chapter in the upcoming book three, and she was a severe case, really, really sad case.

She couldn't be near human beings.

I mean, she totally went comatose.

I mean, it was bad.

So how do you present that without being too heavy to, and that's where the characters come in.

So you introduce this dog with severe problems, and you can show that in kind of a funny way.

And then having Sophie, with her limited knowledge of the world, thinking she knows everything, oh, I know how to do it.

We become the canine crusader.

I'm a superhero, you're gonna be a superhero.

You'll be fine.

And it goes horrifically wrong.

You figure out these ways.

I always let Sophie, you know, be her, and then it goes off the rails.

But the theme there, the message is still there.

But the graphic novels give you so much more room to be able to do that, as opposed to a comic strip.

>> Again, I'm thinking about the process of creating a graphic novel.

It is time-consuming.

I'm assuming that a page would take you longer than working on a daily strip would.

And I'm wondering if you are employing the technology of perhaps something like a Procreate or a Clip Studio, or if you're still dabbling or using the tools of Bristol Board and India Ink.

>> My preference is always going to be dip pens and brushes.

And all my first drafts, whether it be a novel or comic, all start off in a notebook, handwritten, hand-sketched.

But yeah, the realities of getting these books done on time, yeah, I'm using technology to ink them and to finish them.

But I basically, you know, I have, it's right here.

Everything starts off in a notebook.

So the first draft is all handwritten, hand-sketched out.

And then from there, I take that, and then I'm editing as I go.

So when I start penciling in the computer, I'm taking my sketches and I'm now, oh, I can make this better.

I can sharpen this, I can do this.

So you're getting another editing step before you're actually inking anything.

So I would love to be able to do these by hand, and have the original pages and everything.

It's just the reality of the deadline, there's no way.

>> Now, how do you avoid the temptation of the eternal undo?

I mean, you can work on a panel, and it's not quite right, I'm gonna undo, I'm gonna do this, maybe I'll try it.

And you can just work it and rework it and rework it to the point where you're not getting anything done.

Whereas traditional tools, that pencil and paper, and that ink and that brush, there's only so much you can do before you've gotta crumple up the page and say, you know what, I'm taking too much time.

Let me just make this work and move on.

So how do you avoid the temptation of being too perfect?

>> That's really hard because it never, the reality is, I would, if you let me, I would sit down and redo those first two books you have right there.

I would look at those and go, we gotta redo 'em, start over.

Don't put 'em out, just go back and start over.

So what you have to do is, over time, is you rely on the discipline and the skillset.

So you shut off the mental and you really focus on the skillset of drawing.

So what I, a lot of times, do is, if you're going, especially drawing for a long time, things get stiff, they don't look right, and that's where you really fall into that cycle of erase, erase, redo, erase.

You get back to the basics, you get back to the simple things of drawing that one simple center line, getting the flow.

You know, don't care about, it doesn't, there's no detail on the page, you can't really tell what's going on, but you have this nice line, you have this nice flow to it, this nice action line, and that's it.

And what I like to do, Bernie writes in level of detail on every page, yeah, that's my preference, but you also have to then have that reality of, it's just not gonna happen.

And also, at the end of the day, you look at it as, does it improve the story?

Does it make the reader care more about the characters because you didn't put in all this detail or didn't do this pose right?

And you go, no, no, that's just this perfectionist brain that's kind of messing with you.

So at the end of the day, you shut off the artist's brain and look at it as a reader and going, is this gonna be entertaining?

Are they gonna fall in love with these characters and wanna go on the journey?

That's where you're trying to get to.

So you basically have to stay focused on the goal, which is really kind of having the readers, it's the first time picking up the book, you want them to fall in love with the characters.

So yeah, I try not to beat myself up too much.

I look back at some of the pages and go, oy, what happened there?

But yeah, it's basically an ongoing struggle and a balance.

>> Steve Rude posted something on social media recently, and he was talking about detail is oftentimes the enemy of clarity and good storytelling because you focus so much on what's going on that the eye can't make out what it's supposed to be paying attention to.

And it seems like you're facing the same sort of struggle in your work as well, which is sometimes I don't need to have the entire kitchen laid out, I just need to have the food dish and the dog scrambling to get traction on the tile floor.

So, the other question is, you are putting the words into people's mouths as well as the action on the page.

So how do you balance the artist with the person who's going to be putting the text on the page and make sure that both work and that you are equally giving the weight to one job and as much as the other?

>> Nine times out of 10, it comes down to reduction.

So I tend to overwrite everything because it always comes out better when you take away.

Shave it down, always be cutting it down.

It's something you learn, that's why I study comedians so much because they'll formulate a joke, they'll tell it on a stage and then realize, oh, I can take this out, I can take, once you see it, now you realize I don't need that line, I don't need that line.

So nine times out of 10, you're reducing what you have.

You realize you have all this dialogue and it's not doing anything to make the joke funny.

And a lot of times you can make things funny without any words at all, which is always kind of the goal.

And then the other thing I watch out for is when you overwrite the dialogue, you don't want on the nose dialogue, things that you're saying that the characters already know, that you're just saying for the reader's benefit.

The goal is that the reader, you don't need to explain anything to the reader, they're way too smart for that.

You are stripping it down to its bare essential.

So whatever you're trying to get across, whether it's supposed to be a heartfelt moment, there's supposed to be some sadness, or it's supposed to be a funny moment, you're usually stripping things away, simplifying, and then it's easier to see once you've kind of written a bunch of stuff and you realize, oh, then you take a break, go back, read it and go, don't need that, don't need that.

So you're always paring it down.

And that comes from, again, realizing the first thing you write is gonna be junk, you're gonna throw it out.

So that's what I always tell kids too, don't worry about it.

That's the fun part.

It can be terrible, the drawings can be terrible.

That's why I love showing them my sketches, they can't even tell what it is.

Because then later you're gonna go back to it, then you're gonna see, your brain's gonna keep working on it when you're not even thinking about it.

And then take a break, go back, and then you're gonna be able to see what works, what doesn't work, and you just pull it out.

>> You know, you made a really good point, and I think a lot of people, I've mentioned this before, that our society has turned art into a commodity.

Instead of an expression, unless Simon Cowell says that you're a good singer, you shouldn't sing.

And I think a lot of people say, I can't even draw a stick figure, and they give up because they don't understand that there's just, there's a joy in creating, even if only you can see what that picture is, there's a joy in getting that emotion out on the page, that thought out of the page, the fact that it frees your mind to do so many other things.

So, you know, as you, the professional artist who does this work day in and day out, how do you sort of make sure that you're still having fun doing this?

Because after a while, it does become hours sitting in front of the computer doing the work.

How do you keep the joy in it?

>> At the end of the day, it's really, once you've done it long enough, the characters surprise you because you don't see the punchline coming.

And every time you sit down to write, even if you have an ending in mind, that's not always gonna be the ending.

So every day, it's not, it's not, it's always a journey of discovery because even you can be as meticulous as you want plotting your story, it's just, it's not gonna go that way because if the characters are truly alive, if they're truly connecting with the readers, they're gonna do what they want and you have to deal with it, you know?

And if you try to force them into what you've already plotted out, you know, down to the little, every little detail, it's gonna come off as fake and boring.

That's why a lot of people don't, they turn off movies.

They can't finish a book 'cause they try to force their characters into the ending they want and it generally comes off as preachy and people will see right through it, you know?

So it comes down, that's what keeps it fresh is because you're being genuine and you're always trying to let the characters be real.

And that means you could have had the greatest storyline that you are absolutely in love with and then you realize halfway through, that's out the window and now you don't know where you're going and you just, you gotta let it happen and see what, you know?

So it's as much of a mystery to me as to the first time reader.

>> You talk about letting it go, just kind of following it, I guess, almost chasing the muse a little bit when it reveals itself to you.

So, you know, you've got a certain number of pages that you have to do for your book in order for it to, you know, have enough for the publisher, have enough for the audience, but not be too much that it's war and peace.

So how do you track down and reduce it so that following that muse doesn't take you down, you know, a road to throw three rings into a fire pit or something?

>> The first book was very experimental figuring it out.

There was a lot of yanking out entire chapters and putting in a new chapter.

And then for the second book and especially the third book, I just basically, I knew Sophie's developmentally where she was starting and where she was ending.

This is, she's gonna learn at the beginning of the book, she thinks she knows it all, has all the answers, she's in charge.

During the course of the book, she's gonna realize she has no control over this.

She doesn't know what she's doing.

And no matter how much she says, this is how it's gonna go, it's not gonna go that way.

But by the end of the book, she's gonna learn, she's gonna understand that if she relies on Doug and Annie and the other characters, they can get to where they wanna go.

So then I use that framework to map out a set number of chapters, usually 12.

So I know roughly how many pages each chapter will be.

And then I just start mapping out ideas for that chapter.

So to give you an example in book four, I know book four starts off with a homage to "Game of Thrones".

So it's Sophie being afraid of the outside world.

So it starts off with her on the ice wall and these creatures coming over the ice wall.

And it ends with her just running inside the house.

So it goes from the fantasy world to inside, everything's chasing her, she's terrified.

That gives me the starting point.

And from there, it's gonna be about her getting exposed to the outside world.

So she has to go to, now she's terrified, but she has to go to the dog park.

And that goes horribly wrong because she runs into the dog mafia.

So it's like an homage to The Godfather.

And then later on, one of the foster dogs that comes in, who was a real foster dog of mine named Sausage, he's basically in the witness protection program from the dog mafia.

And what happens is that combined with the cats now trying to take over the world again, she realizes if I can't find a way to get over my fear of the outside world, then everything's gonna fall apart and I've gotta do this.

So that's, and then you just let it go from there.

>> Well, Brian, they are telling me that we are out of time.

I wanna thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

If the folks at home wanted to find out more about you, where can they find you on the web?

>> I'm on brianhendersonwriter.com, which is also dogeatdoug.com.

You can find me there and it's dogeatdougcomics on Instagram.

>> Again, Brian, thank you so much for taking time out to talk with me today.

It's been a fun half hour and thank you everyone at home for watching Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

(Heroic Music) ♪ ♪ [Snore] - Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, giving broadcasting majors professional experience and onscreen credit before they graduate.