Over the last few posts, Bored Panda has been capturing the essence of Dave Contra's journey through a series of interviews, offering a glimpse into the mind of a comic artist whose work blurs the line between humor and existential musing.
Reflecting on his path back to comics, Contra shared, “I actually wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid... Then many years later as an adult, Covid hit and I had lockdown time and needed something to keep me busy - a creative project. So I finally picked up the old dream, and after the lockdown finished I just kept going.”
Expressing frustration and admiration, he noted, “The problem with my art style is I don’t feel like it's evolving enough... I am constantly looking at other comic artists on Instagram and trying to mimic their styles, but I can’t! I think my favorite drawing style at the moment is @beetlemoses. His stuff is just ‘a chef’s kiss’.”
Describing his approach to character creation, Contra said, “A lot of my characters are based on people I see in the street, or on public transport. I will notice them because of how they look, and then in my head, I give them a story, a personality, etc. As weird as it sounds, I can get ideas from things as simple as watching a middle-aged guy licking the froth off his coffee cup lid on the ferry.”
Dave values the connection his work fosters with his audience, stating, “Definitely the most rewarding thing is getting emails or DMs from people telling me one of my comics affected them.” On the future, he mused, “People will always love comics, but I’m not sure it will always be humans creating them... But I imagine in the near future we’ll be ingesting comics by AI - and for some reason, I imagine AI having an extremely dark sense of humor.”
Reflecting on the significance of his art journey, the artist offered, “Well, I'm the kind of person who always needs a project, otherwise I start to get really anxious... I feel like I need to create something that addresses the absurdity of life to actually feel a little better about it.”
