To learn more about Blobby and Friends, Bored Panda had a chat with Zack, a member of the team behind the comics. "I personally started with toy design and puppets, but was looking for an outlet to let me talk about things I care about," he told us. "To be honest, we didn't expect things to go the way they did and I am full of love and gratitude towards our audience."
Zack describes Blobby as "the magical best friend you always wished you had."
"[Other folks] who appear in the comics are Lily, their human friend (and I really relate to her character a lot, I'm not sure why), Ashley, who is Lily's crush, and Charlie / Punk Kid who can come off as intimidating but is really the most soft and wholesome character we've ever come up with. That's why Charlie is modeling our underwear," Zack said, laughing.
Many online comics stay away from difficult topics. A little pun here, a corny line there, and that's it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this concept. There's certainly an audience for it. I just mean that Blobby and Friends stands out from its competitors. Even though the series looked a lot like that in the beginning, too.
"I don't know if there's one thing that inspired me to start the comics in the way that it exists today. We actually started with something really simple, with funny and cute gags that were more at the surface level. As the account grew, we realized we had an opportunity to use Blobby to speak up about more serious topics," Zack explained.
"Listening to the reactions from our followers also made a huge difference for us. I can speak only for myself but I really feel like I’ve personally grown with this world we've created."
It takes courage and skill to drift away from the classic feel-good vibe and still produce compelling strips. However, Zack and the rest of the team manage to consistently pull it off. And that's because of luck. Rather, dedication to the process. "We always stop to think about what kind of message we're putting out there. Whether people can feel represented or understood or can find joy in our stories," he said.
"We try to do that without being overly wordy or coming off too flippant about it. And it's not easy! Partly because we have only four panels to work with, but also because we feel a lot of responsibility towards our audience."
"I feel that at the end of the day, we are all very emotionally invested in this," Zack added. "Some people find that surprising but it’s true. We have a lot of love for our characters, and I hope we’re able to bring people together through that."
