"I'm 25 and a software engineer in Colorado, US, with a Bachelor's of Science in computer science, though originally I'm from Canada. I started WheatComics in 2017 during my 3rd year of university. So since April, I have been doing it for 4 years!
About 4 and half years ago I got a tablet and just went for it! The artwork from back then is really bad, ha ha! Not that what I make now is all that amazing either, but it's gotten better with practice. I just figured I had to start somewhere and the only way to get better was to try. Anyways, I started only posting on Facebook, but I thought it would be nice to try and spread out a bit so I started posting on other sites and made my website over the course of the next few months. And the rest is what you see now! I make a comic once a week. Mostly for my own entertainment, but I'm always happy if someone else gets a chuckle out of it.”
"The first step is writing ideas down. I have a very large backlog of ideas of anything I thought might be remotely funny. Anything from one word I think might be a funny topic, like lobsters, to a fully fleshed-out comic idea. Most ideas are terrible, but I go for quantity over quality at this step. I also write down my dreams since they can get weird and can inspire when I least expect it! I also visit my parents each week and come up with ideas with my Dad, which has turned into a good bonding experience. Then I only have the time to make one comic each week, so on Saturday morning I look back through my idea list and look for an idea to strike me. Or occasionally I'll think of something on the spot, especially if that week lines up with some sort of current event or holiday I want to make a joke about. Picking an idea usually takes about an hour. Once I've settled on an idea, I then usually spend around an hour or two thinking about it and fleshing it out in my head. Usually while eating lunch or having a shower or something. During that time I'm deciding how many panels I want, what lines and drawings go in each, what pacing I want, etc."
"My comics that are just a barrage of puns, the idea in my notes is sometimes only one pun on a topic, and then I spend that brainstorming time coming up with the rest. After that, I look up reference material for things that are harder to draw. People, machines, landmarks, anything that isn't a stick figure, haha. Then comes the actual drawing part. I use a Wacom drawing tablet and Adobe Animate. I originally used Animate because I wanted to animate! I still do sometimes, but not very often since it's hard and time-consuming! But my drawings are simple enough that I usually just draw the lines all in one go, and go over and color things in. Sometimes I just do grayscale if I'm being lazy, though. On occasion, if the drawing is more complicated, I'll make use of multiple layers and other techniques unique to drawing software, but not all that often. I also like to write the text by hand, since I think my handwriting is kinda goofy-looking and sets the tone better than using typed text. After all that, I just export images for the whole comic and each individual panel and get posting!"
"The hardest part is probably the brainstorming after I've picked an idea. It's always fun, but sometimes it can take a very long time and I need time to figure out certain details. I say it's hard, but it's really never too important. Usually just for minor details and hidden jokes that I care about, but don't always intend other people to notice, except for my dad! My first priority is to entertain myself, so plenty of my comics I don't always think will do well or be popular to a wider audience, but so long as I had fun making it or made myself laugh, I'm satisfied.
The easiest part is probably the colouring. Mostly because the drawings aren't too involved, and I do the colours last, so by that point in the creative process, I've got a pretty solid idea of what I want so I don't need to think about the colour all that much."
"My first inspirations as a kid were The Far Side and Dilbert. And also the poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein. When I started my comic, I was more inspired by YouTube animators, like Jaiden Animations and TheOdd1sOut. Recently, with comics, I'm inspired more by Shen, mrlovenstein, Nathan W Pyle, Cyanide and Happiness, and others."
He also had a few nuggets of wisdom for those who would like to try their hand at creating comics: "The best advice in my opinion is to just start. In a nutshell, anyways. My comic is much better than when it started. I'm not saying I'm a master artist or anything, but my drawings now are waaaay better than my first ones. I also only started out posting on Facebook, and spread out to other sites over time. You have to start somewhere, and it's OK if it's bad at the start! The first step to being OK at something is being bad at something! Just have to keep at it. That being said, I didn't necessarily go in with no plan, as I did buy my drawing tablet mainly for this purpose, and had been writing down ideas already for months before making my first comic."
The question about his favorite artists caught him off balance for a moment: "Oof, I follow a LOT of artists and have no idea what to mention. I love seeing a variety of styles to see what I can improve upon and what I might enjoy trying myself. Off the top of my head, artists I really look up to are Soeda Ippei, ippei_painter on Twitter. Their art is amazing, but they still can make goofy jokes with it too, which I enjoy. Another is jupachi18, they have an adorable style I adore. It looks like a simple cell-shaded style, but has great detail in every corner of a piece!"
If you want more comics with silly twists and turns and ridiculous endings, Bored Panda has got you covered. For example, let us introduce you to War and Peas, a very famous web comic that has all you want and more! Zach Cranor, though (yet) not as famous, has a taste for randomness in his comics as well. And last but not least, here are some comics by Channelate, a comic that has mastered the art of silly twists. And if you want to find more, check our comics category which has plenty more to offer!
