We reached out to Cody, the artist behind the series, and asked him some questions about his work. He shared with us how he initially got interested in creating comics: “You know what, you really have my parents to blame. They were always incredibly supportive and encouraging. So much so that as a kid I actually believed them when they told me I was good at drawing. Turns out, they were mostly just being nice but hey, practice makes perfect. After about 20 years or so of practicing by drawing SpongeBob, Pokémon and the Teen Titans, I think I actually started to finally live up to their praise. And once I got good enough, I graduated from drawing other people’s ideas and moved on to my own. Robots with buff arms, aliens, dungeons and dragons characters, and so on. It was only a matter of time before I put them all into a comic.”
We were curious what the recurring themes of the ‘Radbot’ comics are. We learned that: “I almost don’t want to share this because it kinda feels like a magician revealing their secret, but there’s definitely a bit of a formula to a good amount of my comics and it’s really simple. I basically just invent a scenario where someone can misinterpret something. It’s really just a matter of subverting expectations. Like, here’s an idea I had the other day. A person asks to borrow a dictionary and is handed a book filled with a bunch of d**ks. A d**k-tionary. Humor ensues. Hey, they can’t all be wieners.”
Lastly, Drake added: “Oh, and puns. Lots of puns. Highest form of humor.”
The artist also shared with us some insights into his creative process. He spoke more about how he comes up with ideas for his new comics: “It’s actually very rare that I spend time trying to come up with ideas. I’m probably at my least funny when I’m trying to be funny. I pretty much just keep my ears peeled for dumb funny stuff that crops up in conversations with my friends. We’re a pretty silly bunch so it doesn’t take that long to dig up some gold.”
Cody also mentioned some of his influences from the world of comedy: “I feel like my humor is 80% SpongeBob and 20% wishing I was as funny and clever as Andrew Hussie. Not Homestuck era Hussie, I’m talking Problem Sleuth. Huge fan.”
The creator of the series was kind enough to explain what, according to him, makes humor an effective medium for storytelling: “You know what, I think there’s a lot of great ways to tell a story. I’m actually a huge movie buff and a more than avid reader and it’s very rare that I seek out humorous stories. Most of my favorite stories are actually very serious and often quite beautiful. Which is not at all how I would describe my comics.
I’ve always wanted to create stories of my own and for whatever reason, I always just naturally gravitated towards humor. I love creating things. I’ve made dnd podcasts, short films, tried my hand at writing books, and am currently in the process of making a game and they have all always been incredibly silly and funny. I guess that’s just my comfort zone. Maybe at the end of the day, I just like to make people laugh and smile.”
