Bored Panda reached out to James, the author behind the "But A Jape" comics. First, we asked the artist if he had any life-changing influences that might have helped him with his art and art style in general when it comes to his comics.
"Perry Bible Fellowship probably most represents my ideal form of comic-based humor—both the writing of the jokes and the art accompanying them serve to make each comic more than the sum of its parts. The jokes are simple, but executed elegantly with no extraneous dialogue or overly complex visuals. And speaking of the visuals, Nicholas Gurewitch’s ability to employ different art styles to complement different types of jokes is another skill I aspire to emulate—though I wouldn’t say I’ve developed this skill quite as well as I would like. Making myself release two comics a week tends to limit my ability to experiment too much with my art style when a simpler one ensures I can finish more at a time.
SMBC is another major influence in terms of how I approach humor. In fact, it may have influenced me more than I thought, since I often receive comments of, 'I thought this was SMBC until I read the author’s name.' To be honest, I’m still unclear as to where exactly the overlap in our comics is, but it’s given me a bit of a complex where, after finishing up every comic, I stop to think to myself, 'Does this look like SMBC?' or 'SMBC didn’t do this joke already, did it?'"
"Hark! A Vagrant is another one of my favorite webcomics that I’m consciously aware has influenced my work. My title, But a Jape, is even partly inspired by it, what with being a rather anachronistic phrase. Earlier on, I actually planned on having a lot more literature and history-based humor for But a Jape, much like Hark! A Vagrant, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Also, those types of comics tend not to gain as much traction as some of my others. Not that I’ll stop making them, though.
There are definitely more influences I could go through, but then I’d be here for days."
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time, not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked James how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
"This is hard to say, because I like to have a lot of variety with my comics—some are short with simple artwork while others are longer and more complex. The shortest time I’ve taken to write a comic was about 1.5 hours, while the longest has taken me over a couple of weeks. But for, let’s say, one of the standard 4-panel types where I already have a clear image of how it looks and what the text says? Those average me around 3 hours, start to finish. That is, if I’m disciplined enough that day to sit still and work the entire time."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask the artist about his ideas for the comics.
"I’ve always been the kind of guy who just makes amusing observations to himself and then turns to tell them to the nearest person willing to listen. Sometimes it’s observing a pattern I’ve noticed in a lot of stories or just an awkward interaction I’ve had with another person. Eventually, I got the idea to try it out for stand-up comedy and began taking notes on my phone any time I came up with something I could stretch out into a bit. When I began writing comics, I did the same thing but rewrote them to work in a visual medium. In fact, a number of my comics are recycled from my short-lived stand-up days. Not a lot of them, though, the stand-up days were very short-lived. If I ever do get back into stand-up, I might just recycle some of my comic's material."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist if he had to deal with it as well.
"Not yet, at least, not while I’m still making the work I want to make. I learned a long time ago that I absolutely hate making art that other people want me to make - when I used to make art for school, I would always hit a point where I thought, 'I’m bored of this now, I want to make something else,' but my teacher would say, 'This isn’t finished, you still need to do X, Y, and Z!'
At this point in time, I’ve still got a lot of funny ideas and stories I want to share, so I’m not worried about forcing myself to make something I don’t want to. And also, the only person actually forcing me to make my comics is me, so I would hope if I ever do feel burned out, I would have the self-control to give myself a break when I need to."
People's reactions can be quite amusing at times, so we couldn't hold ourselves back and just had the ask the artist about how people reacted to his work.
"I typically feel awkward bringing up my work to others in person; it would feel like I’m fishing for compliments. And even then, I don’t think my friends would tell me if they didn't like one of my comics, so I wouldn’t expect people I know to tell me anything other than, 'I liked it,' or 'It was funny.'
But strangers on the internet seem to enjoy them, if likes and upvotes are to be believed. Sometimes my comics will initiate some thoughtful discussion in the comments, which I think is nice since I do sprinkle in some social commentary every now and then. Mostly likes and lols, though."
The creative process is not easy, but there are many enjoyable parts to it as shared by "But A Jape".
"It doesn’t happen every time, but when I put the finishing touches on a comic and think, 'Wait, am I done?' then look at the entire thing and think, 'Wow, that actually looks like how I pictured it!' While I’m creating, I’m always second guessing myself and wondering if my lines look wonky or if the colors aren’t quite right or if the joke’s even that funny in the first place—and you can always find imperfections in anything when you scrutinize it enough. But even if there are minor imperfections, when you stand back and take the work in as a whole: 'Hey, this actually looks like something one of those professional funny guys on the internet could have made!'"
We also asked about the inspiration behind Jame's Instagram account where he uploads his work.
"I have never been a social media kinda guy. I have a Facebook, but I really just glance at status updates from people I barely knew from high school and college, then move on. Even on internet forums and Reddit, I’ve never been one to participate in conversations, I would just lurk and watch everyone else interacting with each other. So when I started making comics, I really didn’t know what I was supposed to do to publicize them. But from what I could tell, if you’re an artist, you post on Instagram, so I figured that was what I had to do."
Digital art and art, in general, is not easy and requires a lot of patience, time, resources, and in most cases even money, therefore we wanted to know how the talented comic artist started his own path in digital art.
"During my school days, I was the kind of kid who would doodle cartoons and anime in his notebooks, which was my earliest practice with art. Eventually, one of my middle school art teachers was impressed enough with me that she recommended I sign up for an advanced art program in high school—the kind of program where kids who absolutely knew they wanted to become artists would learn all the fundamentals. I hated it, learned I never want to make art that other people tell me to make, and dropped it after two years. But I do credit them for laying a foundation of artistic principles for me to build from later on.
Other than doodling in my notebooks, I never really pursued art seriously since then. After university, I ended up in an office job that had a good amount of down time during the day, so I would occupy myself by doodling on Post-It Notes. My coworkers tended to decorate their desks with pictures of friends and family, which wasn’t my style, so I decided to decorate my space with my Post-It doodles. Eventually, this sparked enough of my creativity that I wasn’t satisfied with 3x3 Post-Its as my canvas anymore and I considered going back to making art more seriously again."
"But, contrary to the stereotype of artists, I actually really hate mess and clutter. One of my least favorite parts of my school art projects was the mess of papers, graphite, pastel dust, paint, and so on that would be left after working. So I didn’t want to buy a bunch of notebooks or pencils or paints that would take up space in my room - instead I bought a drawing tablet, so all of my work would be kept nice and orderly within my computer.
I started off drawing a few private illustrations of various characters from stories that had been bubbling in my brain for the past couple of decades, but I never kept consistent with making it a habit. When the pandemic lockdowns started and I realized I needed some sort of regularity in my life to maintain my sanity, I decided a comic would be the best way to practice my comedy, writing, and art skills all at once. So here we are."
