Hello! Welcome to the first installment of Gutter Stars!

My name is Samuel Isaac Dealey. You can call me Ike.

I've been on DA since 2007 and am primarily a webcomic author. Because DA has been so good to me, I'd like to pay forward some of the success I've had here by helping some other webcomic artists get more exposure. Sometimes really great artists go essentially unnoticed because, lets face it, we're not all great self-marketers. If we were, then wouldn't we be sales people?

Gutter Stars is a series of interviews with dedicated webcomic authors who I think deserve a bit more exposure than they're getting. The idea for the name "Gutter Stars" came to me while I was thinking about comics. What do comics have? They have panels and gutters... and then I remembered this quote from Oscar Wilde.


If you'd like to see more interviews with other webcomic authors, please favorite and share this article in your blogs or journals!

So here we go with our first interview with *AngitheLost!

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? What are your interests?

Hello! My real name is Jackie; I'm from the North Shore in Massachusetts. Aside from the obvious visual art interests, I like a ton of other arts: reading, music, movies, video games, tabletop roleplaying, science, history, the human struggle and Uno. Yes, Uno. It's pretty much the only card game I'm good at.

Ike: I'm really nostalgic about tabletop roleplaying... I haven't really been able to get into or stay in a local rp group in lot of years and I miss it... but that's all because of my Asperger Syndrome and doing a lot of moving around the country chasing jobs, which is neither here nor there... lets get back to you.

Tell us about your webcomic. What's the theme (if any)? How long have you been publishing it? Is there anything else we should know?

My current comic is Kay and P. Kay is the main female protagonist, a sort of free-spirit college-aged girl with an interest in music and the arts. She's very strong willed but easy going, and generally has a good idea of what she wants in life and where she's going. Her counterpart is her best friend P, who is much more emotional and dramatic. He just happens to be a skeleton that she found in her closet when she was a young girl, and no one else seems to see him but her. You can imagine that makes things... a little difficult for her, but with Kay's strong personality she makes the best of any situation. We're a little over five issues into the series, but you can read the whole thing on my website (www.kayandp.com) and get your own copies of the issues to read in hand!


Ike: Great characterizations!


How do you hone your craft? Is there a particular technique you use to improve your comic-making skills?

It's really about constant practice. I'm literally at my desk working 8-10 hours a day on art, even if it's not directly for the comic. I can say I did a lot of art pre-college, but most of the real muddling of art got done in college. I took a ton of classes, worked my butt off and worked even harder when I got out. Having a career in art is fun and rewarding, but it is no cake walk! I think the best way to really improve yourself beyond a skill level however, is to expose yourself to just about everything. I pick up and read a fair share of comics, but I also read books on science and history, watch documentaries, read the news, and generally just try to absorb as much as possible. Your artistic mind is like a sponge, and it can only give back to you an amalgamation of what you put into it – therefore, if you only feed it one thing, you won't get much of a variance of ideas back out.

Ike: I think that's great advice! I know for myself that I'm able to produce a lot more material for comics because I dabble in a wide variety of places like the Daily Show, Public Radio and Wikipedia.



How would you define "critique"? How do you feel about receiving critiques? Giving them?

Critique is an important but difficult thing in the art world. It needs to be fair, free of opinion and honest. I think it's almost impossible for your closest friends to give you an honest critique unless you are sure you can take the critique objectively and they aren't afraid of hurting your feelings. There is also a heavy difference between “opinion” and “critique”. It's important to remember that when giving or receiving critique. When I critique I always give a frank and honest appraisal of what I'm looking at. Honestly, it's more important that the artist knows the truth rather than constantly being pat on the back. That said, take in consideration the skill level of the person you are critiquing. You certainly wouldn't tell a young artist that they are awful in every way – just try and steer them to be a little bit better and they will get there eventually.

Ike: Yeah, I think of critique as being an art form in itself and I always try and frame my criticisms as "here's what I think you want to work on" instead of "this is bad". That way I think there's a better chance of the artist receiving it positively and taking action. Simply saying simply "this is bad" doesn't really suggest to them that "you can improve it". And then I'll follow it up with more specific advice if I have any. 

For me, critique is something that is the most helpful very early in the stage of an idea, and then at degrees as the piece goes on. When I'm coming up with a concept, I'll try to run it past a couple people and see what they think of it. That's when you have the most freedom to change an idea. When a piece is complete, an artist can be very hesitant to give up on some loving piece of their art regardless if it will make the overall product better. It's important to keep looking at your art as time goes on however, and ask for help should you get stuck or need a fresh eye to take a look at it. When you're done with something, always take criticisms with grace – even if you don't want to fix what you've done already, remember it for next time. Making a mistake isn't the end of the world.

Ike: Also very good advice. I like to go back and redo an old piece at least once a year and see how I can improve on the original. The art is always an evolution, always getting better. Also I had another comic artist note me recently asking me for some joke-writing advice, which I was happy to give... but then it turned out at the end of the conversation that he'd already drawn the whole strip and decided not to take the advice because it would have meant redrawing the strip. So yeah, if you think you might need help, it's good to ask for it sooner than later. 



What's your basic worldview? Do you believe people are basically good or evil? Do you subscribe to a particular religious or secular ideology? Hell is other people? Original Sin? Rastafarian? Flying Spaghetti Monster? etc... (no wrong answers here)

Oh jeez what a question! I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. I believe the world has an amazing potential to be good, but currently out of apathy and laziness is not doing so well. I try to have an open mind about people and their views, but I don't excuse bad actions either. Good and evil are such relative terms that have been warped by society I can't even imagine how they apply to real people in the real world. I just try to take everything as it comes at me, analyze it and deal with it the best I can. Religion? I don't really subscribe to anything in particular, but I don't look down on it either. I just know how I feel and don't need anyone else telling me how I should feel.

Ike: I would actually disagree with the "not doing so well" part, but that's a pretty long / complicated conversation, so I don't want to get into it in the midst of your interview.



What hardships have you overcome in your life?

I can't say I've had a hard life – not after looking at the lives of some really hard-up folks; but I think everyone has hard times in life no matter if they come from the ghetto or the suburb. I've found as time goes on, it's not about what happened to you, but how you come back from that, and use it to improve yourself.

Ike: Very true... I used to suffer from severe depression, but haven't had a relapse in the last ... 3 years at least... I honestly am not sure when my last episode was... but I took action to deal with my problems -- I found the right books and I read them and I did the exercises in them and I managed to grow to become an optimist and am really a whole new person!

How do you define "art"?

Oh lord. This question – the question every artist dreads answering! It's a hard one because it's highly subjective, so I'll give you my opinion on the matter (that was my disclaimer, so I don't want flame mail!).

Art is defined by me as something that has no other purpose than to convey a thought or emotion or idea. A painting has no practical purpose – it looks nice, or makes us feel something, or tells us something. That is an art. (Craft is an offshoot of art, but I'm not getting involved in that great debate today, thank you!) However, if it doesn't at least accomplish at least one of those goals, it's not art. I think video games are getting there, but they are still in what is basically their infancy in art. It'll take some more time before they can become recognized as a serious piece of art.

Ike: That's interesting... In terms of art mediums I kind of think of video games as being in a similar place in their evolution as Movies and TV.

Movies, music, books, visual art – these are all the staples of what “art” is. They share ideas, communicate to other beings and give us a sense of expression. What is good and bad within that spectrum can be analyzed ad infinitum but it's another one of those subjective areas that starts arguments over dinner.



What advice would you give to other artists?

Draw all the time and absorb everything. Take a sketchbook with you everywhere and record what you see, hear and learn. Make tons of art, make tons of mistakes, burn it all, cry, start over and keep going. Never stop moving in a given direction, even if you hit a wall. Eventually, that wall will come down. You've only lost if you've turned your back on it.

Ike:

Are there any special projects you'd like to mention? Upcoming art projects? Groups? Charities? etc.

Well I'm always doing something new. I work in art as a profession so I can't always show what I'm doing all the time, but you can keep up with me on my website [link] or Facebook if you're into that [link]

Kay and P will be at Boston Comic Con for sure this April, and I'd like to hit up M.I.C.E. and Granite State Comic Con as well. I generally try to go to cons where I can couch-surf or commute, so if you know any others I should know about, let me know!

I would like to mention a project my friend Dan Clarke is doing, it's called the Wayfarer Project [link] , where he and five others will be making a five hundred mile journey in medieval period gear from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Edinburgh, Scotland to raise funds for the fight against cancer. I think it's a super neat project, and it's a great way to incorporate something you feel passionate about with something you really love. If you'd like, please check them out and show some love.

Ike: That does sound like a really neat project!

Is there anything you'd like to say that hasn't been covered in the previous questions?

Whelp, I think I gave my whole mantra so far, but I'd also like to say that I'm always open to questions, giving critique or advice on a personal basis, or commissions if you are so inclined. I'm also taking professional illustration jobs at the moment, so if you've got a project and you think my work might be right for it, don't hesitate to contact me! It's been a real pleasure answering all these questions, and I'm thankful to both Ike for offering me the opportunity, and for you reading this if you've made it all the way through! Thanks again!

Ike: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! I'm sure folks will be excited to read more of Kay and P, it's a really fun story!

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That's it for our first installment of Gutter Stars. Send me a note if you have suggestions for interview questions or if you know of any webcomic authors you think might benefit from an interview (or if you are a webcomic author and would like an interview). My goal is to help webcomic authors get more exposure, so although I won't outright refuse any suggestions, priority will be given to artist who are getting less traffic than I am and who've shown dedication by having a good body of work in their webcomic. The only hard rule is they have to publish at least some of their comic to DA so that I can feature their strips or pages in the interview.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to favorite!
And I hope you'll join us next time to meet another great webcomic artist!