Bored Panda reached out to Dave once again to delve into his creative process, influences, and experience in the field of comics! He shared insights on his inspirations, process, dream collaborations, handling feedback, and well, his ongoing journey in honing his skills.
In the first question regarding modern influences, Contra mentioned not drawing “much inspiration directly from other comic artists recently. I’ve been re-reading some books by Bret Easton Ellis, mainly American Psycho. I have an old copy of that book with about 50 pages that have dog-ears and highlighted sentences. There is a wonderful sickness to that book which somehow inspires me. I feel like I need to ingest violence through movies or books to stop myself from acting out animalistic urges externally."
Discussing his creative process, the artist revealed a sense of disorganization, stating, “my way of doing things has pretty much fallen apart. I don’t really have a system in place that works; I just wait for inspiration or something to trigger an idea, and then always have my phone handy to make quick notes to work on later. Not too long ago, I did a very large dose of magic mushrooms, and since then, I have been a bit destabilized. I would love to do more graphic/dark stuff in my comics, but it seems that Instagram is way too sensitive and prone to censorship, so there isn’t much point, really."
When asked about potential collaborations, Dave mentioned having done “the odd collaboration here or there on Insta, but not much more than that. What would my DREAM collaboration look like? I dunno - I would love to go to North America and get locked into a log cabin with 4 or 5 other writers/artists, with snow storms outside, and nothing but dry biscuits, whiskey, and drugs to fuel us for 2 weeks. Just see what we end up with at the other end of it. Maybe a stack of illegible doodles, or maybe a work of genius. Either way, it would be fun.”
Concerning feedback, Contra acknowledged valuing positive comments, sometimes finding them to be his primary motivation. He shared that messages indicating his comics have positively impacted someone’s day or outlook are “really rewarding.” When it came to negative feedback, the artist had some extra thoughts to share, "as for bad feedback - I’ve learned to be OK with it - especially some of the feedback I get on Reddit. There’s a lot of basement-dwelling neckbeards out there, sitting at their computers and spitting out hate while they gulp down their 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. In the end, who gives a shit what they think, right? They don’t really matter."
In the last interview, we already touched on Dave's drawing skills so this time we delved a little further. The artist admitted to seeking improvement but found limited options in Australia, "Yeah, this is something I have actually looked into, because at this point it’s a bit of a joke that I still can’t draw properly. But most of the drawing courses I can find in Australia are online only. I’m not interested in doing that. There are in-class courses too, but all seem to be life-drawing courses. I have no interest in that, despite the promise of naked people."
