Gordon McAlpin (Multiplex Comic) Interview (June 2008)

How long have you been doing web comics?

The first Stripped Books went up over at Bookslut.com in October, 2004, and did a new installment of that every couple of month, until the following July, when I moved it over to its own site (StrippedBooks.com).

I wanted to update the site more regularly than just once every two months, though, so I started making Multiplex as a weekly "back-up" feature (dusting off an old idea for a Flash animated series I never got anywhere with), but then Multiplex's readership kind of took off. I came out with a couple more Stripped Books over the next few months,
but then kind of retired it to concentrate on Multiplex instead, because that's where the majority of my readers were.

What advantages do you see from putting your comics online as opposed to doing it on paper, photocopying, and then distributing from there?

You can reach a wider audience for less of a financial investment. Of course, you stand to make a bit less money from it, too, I think, unless you have a really huge readership, because ad revenue rates are pretty crap.

For Multipex, I like that I don't need to think about space; if I need eight panels to do an idea, I make it eight panels. I don't need to try to squish down my idea into whatever little tiny box a newspaper has given me. Obviously, I want to keep things concise as much as
possible, but I would rather do a big idea as one long strip than break it up into multiple strips with a bunch of artificial stopping points added in.

Another advantage is that you can take an idea and put it online in far less time than in print; I've watched a movie or read some movie news and posted a strip about it in less than twelve hours before. It allows me to keep the strip more timely. And, because I'm often working pretty fast like that, it's also good that I can revise strips after they've gone up.

Do you think working with computers offers more creative freedom than working with pen and paper?

Oh, I don't know. You can do comics with pen and paper, with photos, paintings, woodcuts, vector illustrations… None of these techniques are really better or worse than another -- they're just different.

Even when I work "traditionally," I still use the computer a lot: for doing layouts, a lot of retouching, lettering (usually), coloring…

I just try to think of an art style that fits the idea best. If I had the time, I would love to do a children's story using photographs of sculpted figurines -- but, of course, I have rent to pay, and nobody's throwing book deals at me.

Did you always plan to do a print collection of Multiplex?

No. At first, I kind of thought of Multiplex as this stupid little thing I did on the side, and it probably shows in those early strips. I really thought that Stripped Books -- a non-fiction comic adaptation author appearances into comics form -- would be more popular than the infantile antics of a bunch of kids working at a movie theater. I am... incredibly naive sometimes...

It wasn't until Multiplex started getting way more readers than Stripped Books that I realized I would probably want to collect it someday.

And... someday... I might actually DO that print collection. I just need to find the time to work on it.

Do you think you would be able to transition into a more traditional, newspaper format type comic?

Not a four-panel strip like Garfield, no. I like swear words way too much. And the other sorts of comics I like to do -- non-fiction stuff like Stripped Books -- simply can't fit in that tiny little format.

I would love to do a longer comic, for an alternative weekly or something, but I've never had any desire to be locked into the regular newspaper style format. There are plenty of people who do great work in that format, of course, but I would not be one of them.

Do you have any advice that you would give to people starting up their own comics?

Make a schedule and stick to it. That's the cardinal rule. If you say your comic is weekly and occasionally come out with more strips than that, your readers will love you, but if you say your comic is twice a week and you blow half your deadlines, your readers will hate you -- even if you're doing the exact same number of comics in either scenario.