Once again Bored Panda reached out to Ryan Pagelow but this time with even more questions! First, we asked the artist if he had any major influences in his life that might've helped him to develop and refine his style.
"I follow all kinds of different artists, but in the webcomics world, some of my favorites are: Nicholas Gurewitch of Perry Bible Fellowship, Reza Farazmand of Poorly Drawn Lines, Sarah Andersen of Sarah’s Scribbles, Shen of Blue Chair, Adam Ellis, Ruben Bolling of Tom the Dancing Bug and Gemma Correll, to name a few."
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Ryan how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
"It takes me about 3-4 hours to create a fully finished comic if you include the time it takes to write a comic idea too, since I usually have to write a couple of ideas before there’s one good enough to draw for real."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask Pagelow about his ideas for the comics.
"I try to sit down and write for about an hour every day. It’s like a daily meditation. Since my comic is essentially wordless, I sketch out the comic panels with a regular pencil and paper. I start with one panel and then see what happens from there. It’s rare for me to randomly get a bolt of inspiration of a fully fleshed out comic outside of when I’m sitting down and specifically thinking of ideas. But it does occasionally happen, and I’ll try to write it down on a scrap piece of paper or on my phone."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how he dealt with that as well.
"I have felt burned out with other comics after a couple years. But I’ve created a surreal world for Buni where almost anything can happen, so I don’t feel as hemmed in as I did when I created comic strips before that only had a handful of characters in a narrowly defined world."
We also asked Ryan about how people reacted to his work.
"I’m always surprised when people like and share my comics because I’m just trying to make what I think is funny. Sometimes my comics are dark. Sometimes they’re cute. Sometimes they’re sad-funny. And sometimes they’re just weird. Last week one of my comics had more than 34,000 shares on Facebook, which was great. But I always wonder, why did that particular comic go viral? Occasionally the algorithm shines down on you."
The creative process is not easy, but there are always some enjoyable parts about it.
"My favorite part of creating a comic is inking because all the hard work is done. At that point I’m just drawing over my pencil lines so I can zone out and focus on an audiobook I’m listening to or a podcast. But coming up with an idea that I like is fun too."
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
"I had been on Instagram when it first started, posting personal photos, but I kind of stopped using it for years. Then when I saw that people were starting to post art and comics on Instagram, I created a separate account for my comics. It’s a great platform for visual art."
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked Ryan about that too.
"I was a journalist for a number of years, then became a photojournalist and videographer for newspapers. I still have a full-time day job working as a photographer and videographer for a university. I had drawn comics on paper for years before switching to drawing on a tablet in 2017."
