Douglas Grillet, a Brisbane-based author, alongside artist Elias Martinez, has carved a niche in the webcomic world with "Not So Wild." Known for its themes of friendship, cuteness, food, and fun, with a layer of sarcasm for adult appeal, Grillet's work is deeply rooted in creating child-safe content. Given the chance, Bored Panda reached out to the two of them with some questions!
Regarding how they divide creative responsibilities, Grillet explained, "I write, and Elias draws. Normally, I create a small script and a set of descriptions of the scene. Elias takes the time to read and make suggestions; as an artist, he has a better understanding of how to visually transmit an idea than I do. So, we have this small conversation all the time: what we want to transmit, like the character is frustrated, annoyed, etc., and how to better show it."
When asked about factors considered to maintain their child-safe commitment, Grillet mentioned, "There is nothing specific; I don't think we have ever come up with an idea and then said, ‘this is not child-safe.’” He recalled a particular instance involving a character playing with a toy gun, where they altered the design to a suction cup gun for appropriateness and to avoid potential negative comments.
Describing a successful collaboration, the author of the comics shared, "Fany sees a snowflake probably for the first time and starts talking to it. It has almost no text, but it's Fany's expression that makes it one of the favorites." This comic strip, with minimal text, showcased the power of visual storytelling and became a favorite due to its expressive art.
On the impact of audience feedback, we were told that, "In the beginning, we had some feedback about the eyes of the characters, and we changed them. But not because we were pressured to, but because we thought they were right. We don't receive much feedback, but if we do, we will listen to it if we think it's reasonable.
For example, also in the beginning, we had some people suggesting that we should include politics in the comic, and we won't do that."
Discussing long-term goals, Grillet revealed, "This is a complicated one. Let's start with the second comic: there is a set of characters, cats to be more specific, that I have been writing about. We have been thinking about creating a second comic with them, but we are still not sure; maybe we will stay as we are for some time.
Then there is a video game. We created a match-3 video game some time ago using the characters from the comic. It wasn't very popular (we didn't want to spend money on ads), but what we received a lot was the comment, “I thought I was going to find comics in the game.” So, we got the idea, why don't we do an interactive comic? A game that people get to play and discover the comic as they do. We already have a working version of the game, but this past year was very hard on everyone, so we won't be launching it for now.
We also want to create a printed version of the comic, and why not? A drawing book, but of course, we don't have a budget to publish it on our own, so we are thinking about Amazon KDP print on demand. We are still not sure if it's doable."
