The artist who lives in Seattle, Washington started drawing these dark humor comics about a year ago out of boredom. "I scoured my old cartoon drawings (mostly drawn during class lectures) for comic ideas at first," said Dogmo. When asked how he comes up with drawing ideas for new comics, he said: “I often come up with them as I’m sketching - sometimes I’ll just draw the first panel, and try to come up with a plot twist afterwards.”
“My art style is based on simple characters that are easy to draw and not off-putting. The colors were meant to help readers identify and recognize my work, but I don’t know how well that’s worked out,” said the artist. Dogmodog's drawing style is clean and simple, but his sense of humor is most certainly not. Dark or black humor is described as a humorous way of looking at or treating something that is serious or sad. It isn't for everybody as one can get offended, but some people find it quite entertaining. He creates comics with dark twists, but still somehow manages to keep it relatable. "I get a lot of comments that my characters look like ghosts!” - said the artist, whose comics take an average of 3 hours to complete, including the initial sketch and digital finalizing.
His comics are about social media, internet security, weird and silly social interactions. The artist pokes fun at smokers and also investigates the secret life of inanimate objects. He also draws weird thoughts that we all get sometimes and comedic situations that are strangely relatable. “When I started off, I made 2 rules for myself: (1) each comic should at least TRY to be funny, and (2) No meta or autobiographical comics.”
The author mentions that he started creating again because he was getting older, perhaps it's because of the quarter-life crisis. Everyone's heard about the mid-life crisis, but the quarter-life crisis is less known but just as important. An official definition of the term is a crisis that may be experienced in one's twenties, involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life. Unfortunately, many people experience such a period in their life when they lose direction and don't know where their life is going, it's important in those times to find some sort of hobby or something that keeps your mind away from negative thoughts.
Here are some statistics based on the research carried out by First Direct bank and psychologist Dr. Oliver Robinson. "Nearly 60% of 25 to 30-year-olds report financial difficulties are the main cause of a crisis, 31% say being in a wrong relationship lacking in romance can cause a crisis, 40% of millennials in a crisis blame this on their current living situation, that could be renting or living with parents". As you can see a high percentage of young people report having experienced a quarter-life crisis themselves.
The artist also says that it's hard to live in a world where you need to work 40 hours a week and have to be socially presentable almost all the time. Not to mention, have a bunch of responsibilities! These comics are a helpful creative outlet for him and help him combat boredom. Probably, a lot of people can relate to this. It's hard to be part of society sometimes, but our hobbies and time spent to ourselves help us survive the responsibilities we have.
