@ChazDude - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index

Q: How did you get interested in creating art?

I've been using a pen and pencil since around the age of six, mostly doodling whatever media young me may have consumed (Bionicle, in particular), but it was really only after discovering Newgrounds around 2010/11 and observing all these other user-created animations and comics that my interest in drawing really took off in any serious sense.

Like many others, Madness was one such series. Outside of NG, I had for a good few years at least been a fan of the Worms games too. Back in early 2013 (possibly very late 2012) I suddenly had an idea to develop my own OCs (before that term was in widespread parlance) and naturally, I kinda meshed those two art styles (Madness bodies, worm eyes) into what I came up with. By March '13, Dave and Carl were born, and from that point in time those two took over my artistic endeavours, and I've never looked back.

Q: Why do you think there’s a misconception that comics can’t be as expressive as animation?

With animation you’ve not only got moving pictures, but also sound, voice acting and all those other fancy things that don’t come with a mere illustration. I’m sure some people have that misconception, but I’m hopeful they’re in the minority.

That said, the advantage of comics is that you’re able to tell a lot more stories in a shorter span of time then have to spend days cobbling together just one scene. If I had all the time and patience (and money) in the world there would’ve been a Dave & Carl animated series long ago. Alas, there are others out there who have far more patience than I do, not that I haven’t dabbled with animation before. Animation is an art form that, irrespective of my skill level with it, will always have my respect.

I’ve got plenty of stories to tell in this universe of mine, and if I find it more efficient to tell ‘em in inanimate form, then that’s how I’ll tell ‘em.

Q: What do you like about Bionicles?

Not just the fact that you can build your own characters and creatures, but also tell your own stories, whether that extends from the actual lore or just using one’s childhood imagination to make your own. I’d already been something of a Lego kid, but around 2008 as my brother became interested in Warhammer, I basically inherited his interest in Bionicle. Sadly it was only a year or two before the line got cancelled, but I still collected a few of the subsequent Hero Factory figures over the next few years.

Quick tangent: a good few years later (late 2010s) I found a basket full of Bionicle parts in a local charity shop (goodwill store, for Americans) for only £10. It was well worth it!

Q: Why do you think Madness Combat resonated with you? What did you learn about internet creative works from watching Madness?

I have an extremely vague memory (probably mid-to-late 2000s) of my brother and I watching the MC series on either NG or Stickpage (RIP). It was around March 2011 while browsing SP that I (re)discovered the series, and something about the brutal violence coupled with the simplistic art style just kinda resonated with me. I had already first found NG the previous year via Escaping the Prison by PuffballsUnited, but Madness is what led me to becoming a regular visitor to the site, coming across other series such as Salad Fingers, Blockhead and Eddsworld. Really, MC was the gateway drug to my Newgrounds career.

All of these and others properly opened my eye to the concept of user-generated content on the web, but Madness has always held a special place in my heart, having even part-inspired my current art style with the ‘bean’ bodies.

Q: What do you like about the Worms games, and what do you think about video games in general?

A third thing my bro passed down to me. Shortly after we got a new PC in 2009 I came across his copy of Worms 2 (under the long-gone Sold Out Software label typically found in UK households back then). In a similar vein to Madness, there’s just something about the combination of a cutesy art style and mindless (albeit less bloody) violence that I just adore. My cousins had a copy of Worms World Party (which is basically Worms Armageddon with a few tweaks), so when we came round to visit, I got properly hooked on the series.

Video Games in general? I mean, who hates video games? Depending on the genre, they can be a great way to escape reality, or explore an entire world from the comfort of your own home, kinda like comics, in a sense!

Q: What is your process for writing and drawing a comic strip?

Before writing, I nail down a basic premise, which could be anything from ‘Dave goes to the shop’ to ‘Potatoman foils one of Volter’s weird and wacky schemes’. I always write comic scripts in Notepad; oftentimes I have up to half a dozen scripts on OneDrive ready and waiting to be illustrated.

When it comes to drawing, first I make a panel layout in PaintdotNET using some templates I have, then I print it out and just draw within those templates. Back when I was starting out with D&C I just drew the panels by hand, but obviously they were nowhere near as smooth.

Having drawn a comic, I put it in the ol’ scanner and open it in PaintdotNET. The typical editing process is Brightness/Contrast > Fine-tuning the panel edges > Basic colouring > Editing the speech bubbles (replacing the handwriting with my own font) > Shading > Adding background (usually clouds/skies/gradients) on a separate layer > Paste the layers in Flash MX 2004 > Trace the bitmap of the main comic layer > Sign it > Done!

(quick tangent: don’t ever use HP printers, they’re the absolute bastard of printers)

Q: What is your process for creating a “10 Things Not To Do In [Blank]”?

The whole thing started after a family holiday to Italy (more precisely Naples with a day trip to Rome) back in 2015. As for the process, it’s mostly a matter of scouring the selected country’s Wikipedia and/or Wikivoyage page for obvious and not-so obvious aspects of their culture/history, sometimes throwing in a recent event or two into the mix, and then putting Dave (and sometimes Carl and other characters) into said country. That’s about it, really.

Countries aside, I have occasionally branched off into non-country 10TNTDIs, but since I still have a bunch of nations queued up to be made fun o- I mean explored, they’re few and far between.

Q: What are some comics that you like, and why?

As a young’un, I was a regular reader of the Beano, and later on many of the Simpsons comics as well. Additionally, my dad came across all five of the Far Side Gallery books, containing most/all of the Gary Larson strips. Even today, there are one or two that I don’t get. It’s been a while since I reread them , but funnily enough, I don’t recall seeing the infamous ‘cow tools’ strip in any of them.

For internet comics, the Cyanide and Happiness animations (some of which were on NG) naturally led me to their website. The Rob comics from the early 2010s are my personal favourite out of all of them. At the time, Explosm.net featured links to other webcomics, and one of the few I found through there was Deathbulge, one of my all time faves. As for why I like them? I simply find them entertaining, especially if they often contain moments that are just so absurd that you can’t stop laughing. This ‘fuck the audience’ one is a good example.

Thanks to Bluesky (and Twitter before it), Jucika and Nancy are among some older strips that I’ve come across and quite enjoy.

Q: What do you think about the Internet?

Like water and electricity, it’s a thing that’s just… there. It’s done plenty of good, and also plenty of bad, but if I went into specifics I’d just be here all day.

It’s certainly good for independent creatives like me to show off their work.

Q: Before COVID, you were a regular at the gym and swimming pool. But after the first lockdown in March 2020, the local leisure center closed. Outdoor exercise was still permitted, so after a few days without the gym or swimming, you decided to go for a run instead. Even after COVID, running remained your only form of exercise. What do you like about running, and where do you like to run?

The freedom of it all is what appeals to me, not to mention it’s free. As for where I run, I typically stick to the same 20-minute-or-so route that goes along the beach and two railway bridges.

Q: How did you get interested in swimming?

It’s a way of exercising your whole body. I’d been in a pool plenty of times, but It wasn’t until the age of 12 that I received a swimming certificate (which I still have somewhere). Part of me still misses the pool, but I find that running is satisfying enough.

Q: What was it like attending the Newgrounds Dublin Meetup 2024?

It was rather surreal for me, a neurodivergent introvert, to get up at 4 AM to make a solo trip to Dublin and back in a single day to meet dozens of other internet people, but I’m glad I went. Everyone was friendly, we exchanged stickers and I got to know plenty of other fellow creative and artistic folk. I used to find social events in general mortifying, but I felt at home.

Q: How did you find out you have an overbite?

I have no recollection, really, but it’s nothing serious. I guess one way of finding out may be showing off just the upper set of teeth while grinning, which is kinda reflected in my art style somewhat.

Q: You're interested in anything to do with trains and railways, especially British ones, and naturally, a lot of your gaming time nowadays is spent in Train Simulator Classic and ETS 2, what are some of your favourite trains? And your favorite train facts?

I’ve always lived within visual range of a railway line, and in my neck of the woods, Class 375 Electrostars and Class 395 Javelins are mostly what passes by. We have family in and around Leeds and my mum has a friend who lives in Edinburgh, so having used the East Coast Main Line many times over the past twenty years or so, the InterCity 225 probably holds the top spot for me, especially from an aesthetic point of view. Sadly, they’ll likely be gone in the next couple of years, but they’ve had a good run, no doubt.

Another favourite are the first-gen Eurostar trains. Nothing really compares to the sound they make at nearly 200 mph, and living not too far away, there were a few times as a boy when my dad and I would drive out to someplace to watch them fly past on the then-recently built High Speed 1 line. Fun times.

One random train fact; the railway line between Canterbury and Whitstable (long since closed and dismantled) is a strong contender for the title of world’s first passenger-carrying railway.

Q: What do you enjoy most about Train simulators?

The ability to explore the world (mostly just the UK) from the comfort of your own home. That and the ability to build your own routes, if you so please. The route building features in Trainz were the easiest to master, whereas those in TSC and MSTS are significantly more technical and daunting. That said, I’ve had a crack at the one in TSC.

Q: Despite not living far from it, you've never set foot in Canterbury Cathedral. Why?

I’ve never been a religious guy, and that’s probably why I’ve never bothered. A few months ago, I happened to visit Westminster Cathedral, which has led to part of me reconsidering.

Q: You're the only member of your immediate family who wasn't born under a Tory government. How does that make you feel?

Doesn’t make me feel anything, really. It’s just one of those random frivolous facts that I have a soft spot for pointing out!

Q: What’s the story behind how, not long ago, you saved a friend's passport application?

Back in February, a longtime online friend of mine had to renew their (non-British) passport at the embassy in London. Given my proximity, their past trauma, and their partner being wheelchair-bound, I was asked to be their emotional support companion. My friend needed their UK e-visa as part of the application process, and when it refused to load on their phone, I let them log in to the government website on my phone, where it thankfully showed up.

We both visited Westminster Cathedral (as mentioned earlier) while waiting for their passport to be processed.

Q: What is it like being on the autistic spectrum, and what advice would you give to people who are autistic on how to navigate a world that throws a lot of curveballs and is honestly awful to autistic people? I know because I have that too.

It’s a double-edged sword.

At one end, there’s the overbearing social awkwardness and isolation, not at all helped by being homeschooled. At the other, you have this uncanny ability to focus on certain minute details and facts that others miss. The latter has come in handy for my creative works, I can say that.

The only bit of advice I think I can offer for my fellow spectrum dwellers is to pay no attention to those who shame you for being on it. I dread to think what those in the United States are going through right now.

- Spider Quest

A few years ago, one of my food bank colleagues (an arachnophobe) tasked me with finding a spider which had been terrorising her. I don't remember whether I found it or not, but it was certainly one of the odder duties I've had there!

Q: Why do you think you are not afraid of spiders?

It’s small spiders I don’t mind at all. Big spiders are pretty uncommon ‘round these parts and I can’t remember the last time I saw one.

Q: Your favorite food and drinks?

Food? If someone presented me with an entire can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles, they’d become a best friend for life.

Drink? Milk. That’s really about it. My bones are certainly thankful.

Q: What do you think about the NG community?

I don’t think any other creative community on the web is so large and varied, yet so cosy and close-knit. Their works and words have been a great guide over the past 12 years, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

Not that the NG community is a hundred percent sunshine and rainbows (is any big community?), but I can’t think of a better place to base my social life.