@hungryclone: So to begin what is your name?
@gmcalpin: Gordon McAlpin.
@hungryclone: And Gordon what do you do for a living?
@gmcalpin: I'm a freelance digital artist, which basically means I do whatever people ask me to do with the Adobe Creative suite.
@hungryclone: You live in Chicago correct?
@gmcalpin: Yep.
@hungryclone: Did you go to art school or any trade school?
@gmcalpin: I got an Art degree (and an English degree) from Bradley University. It's a liberal arts college.
@hungryclone: I see. Now here's a bit of a leap: how did you get the idea for Multiplex?
@gmcalpin: I was hanging out with my friend Kurt and I mentioned how I wanted to draw comics but didn't have any ideas. He said, "Hey, you should do a comic strip about a movie theater." and I said, "nah, that'd be stupid." Then a few years later, I started doing one.
@hungryclone: On the artistic style of Multiplex: what prompted you to choose that particular style?
@gmcalpin: I just like vector illustration. I thought it would be faster than drawing by hand, once I'd built up enough of a library of characters and backgrounds. I was wrong. Vector illustration is (in many ways) a lot slower than hand drawing.
@hungryclone: Can you give a brief layman's description as to how? The casual observer would assume that it's all cut and paste.
@gmcalpin: You gotta draw it first in order to cut and paste it! Uhhh, it's tough to really sum it up.
@hungryclone: That's fine you don't have to go into the details.
@gmcalpin: I draw it with Illustrator, either with a mouse or a tablet. Depending on what I need to draw. So I thumbnail a strip as normal and then start dropping in characters or backgrounds I already have. But when you change the "camera angle" a lot, you start dealing with a lot of characters and backgrounds. And you have to modify each panel so that the characters are "acting."
@hungryclone: You do get a lot of implied motion with the position of your characters.
@gmcalpin: Yeah, I've figured out a few tricks with that.
@hungryclone: I've noticed that, like most comic artists, your technique has improved. Did you ever have an issue when you started working with different angles? Specifically different views from within the theater?
@gmcalpin: I have issues all the time. When I first started using 45º angles on things (particularly backgrounds), it was tough to figure out how to do that. I can't just do normal perspective all the time because it takes forever and often it makes that background impossible to reuse. So I do things sort of like I'm planning to use it for animation. I use one point perspective instead of three, most of the time.
@hungryclone: The setting is rather linear though. The hallways, the entryway and the concessions stand. Did this help initially?
@gmcalpin: Yeah, it does. But I would draw it that way by hand most of the time. A lot of cartoonists (and film directors) like to set the camera parallel to the background. It does make the backgrounds easier. But I try to avoid using the same camera angle for a while strip like I used to. The idea was that I was doing a "long take" — keeping the camera still for thirty seconds or a minute.It gets boring to look at, and a full page of that is sort of weird looking. Maybe I'm just succumbing to ADD.
@hungryclone: You seem to have the flow of it down though. It reads kind like a really long newspaper comic strip.
@gmcalpin: Yeah, but God forbid I have the characters leave the movie theater.
@hungryclone: It would be an interesting character development. You did jump to the video store with some of the characters though.
@gmcalpin: And Jason's gone to some classic movie theaters. Each of those takes about 6–8 hours to draw. For one panel.
@hungryclone: In regards to the reusing of camera angles the desk where Jason and Kurt discuss movies is the most prominent. Would you say it's symbolic of anything? You said your friend Kurt was the one who suggested making a comic strip about movies. (Quick side note I really enjoyed the plot thread where Jason and Devina explored older theaters)
@gmcalpin: I always wanted to make that a bigger, more prominent arc, but drawing more theaters takes too long. I have to pay rent! As for the manager's station strips, I don't know about symbolic. Jason is the high-brow movie guy, Kurt is the low-brow movie guy. It's just an easy, canned situation where I can have them talk about movies. Especially new movie news. I could just as easily have them walking down the hall (which I've done) or whatever, but I like having Kurt sitting down where you can't see half his face. It makes you pay attention to his eyes.
@hungryclone: I would imagine it's easy to make your own thoughts about movies known via those scenes.
@gmcalpin: Yeah, but it's too easy.
@hungryclone: Would you say most of the characters developed as a result of stories and background evolving or would you say that most of them are based on or influenced by people you know or knew?
@gmcalpin: All the characters are based on me. Kurt is inspired by the real Kurt a little bit (And Whitey is also based on Kurt) but really, they're all just my split personalities banging up against each other. I don't directly pattern any characters off a single person.
@hungryclone: That's rather interesting. Does your psychiatrist know this? : P
@gmcalpin: The strip is my shrink.
@hungryclone: That, I think is a little more interesting then having "you" and Kurt just sitting at a desk talking back and forth.
@gmcalpin: Right. People always assume Jason is me, and he's the most like me of any of them, sure — but he's not me. I've said he's sort of me 10, 15 years ago. A little more chip-on-his-shoulder, a little more opinionated… But I mean, come on, I beat up on Jason more than any other character. He's not a Mary Sue.
@hungryclone: It is usually hard to not assume the main character in a comic isn't based someway on the writer. I could name a handful of webcomic artists that are very much like they’re main character or vice versa.
@gmcalpin: Especially when the main character is half Filipino like the cartoonist. :)
@hungryclone: I was just about to ask that.
@gmcalpin: Jason is a lot me. But he's not me. He expresses opinions about movies I haven't seen. And that's fair, because it's fiction. If it were a movie review, that would be bullshit. But what's important in Multiplex isn't WHAT the characters say about a movie — it's HOW they're talking about a movie. It's about how we talk about movies, not just commenting on movies. And that's a form of commentary, in and of itself.
@hungryclone: Do you research the movies that you haven't seen then?
@gmcalpin: Oh of course. I either watch them, or I read a lot of reviews or internet comments and kind of synthesize them into what I think this character would think about a movie.
@hungryclone: That's true the more high-brow commentary seems to be influenced by social commentary as well as philosophical standpoints.
@gmcalpin: And the more low-brow commentary seems to be influenced by my dick, and my bowel movements. Heh. Like I said, I have a split personality. If I had to be high brow and serious all the time, I would hate the strip after a while. If I could only do gag strippy humor, I would get just as bored. So I do both.
@hungryclone: It's a pleasant mix. It allows the readers not to get bored as well.
@gmcalpin: Hopefully!
@hungryclone: Do you see Multiplex making it to a cartoon or a movie in the future?
@gmcalpin: I would love to do an animated series.
Either a TV one, or an internet one, perhaps would work better. You can be more timely, more risqué (South Park notwithstanding).
@hungryclone: As a movie fanatic do you have any dreams of who would do voice acting?
@gmcalpin: A movie… I wouldn't say no, but I think you need a bigger story than the character-driving stuff I like to do.
@hungryclone: I think it would get a little cliche though if you had an overarching plot like the theater was going to close down.
@gmcalpin: Not really. I would want to do Jason, but Dante Basco (who did Zuko in the Avatar cartoon) could probably do him well, too, if I HAD to use an actor.
@hungryclone: It'd feel a little too much like those cartoon to movie things.
@gmcalpin: I love clichés, though. Don't think I won't be doing that plot someday.
@hungryclone: What about the Futurama movie formats?
@gmcalpin: Multiplex is a movie comic in every conceivable way. I like to up-end movie clichés left and right. Futurama's movies are just three episodes arcs, right? I don't really know. I haven't seen any of them. I don't watch a lot of TV… (I've seen Futurama, of course, and it' great. Just not the newer stuff.)
@hungryclone: By that I mean the last 2. Where the movie is really 3 sections smashed together but still connected with a single theme *Said at the same time* Ha ha exactly.
@gmcalpin: Yeah, you could do that. I'm not sure if I would want to go a little more absurd in something like a cartoon. I want to do some non-canon side stories sooner or later.
@hungryclone: Any hints for the readers on those?
@gmcalpin: Ummm Not yet. I don't like to talk up things that may never happen.
@hungryclone: Good rule to have.
@gmcalpin: I have one 22-page (or so), hand-drawn comic mapped out, though, and I'm hoping to find time to do that. And it is decidedly non-canon. It's like I'm doing a guest strip for my own comic.
@hungryclone: In my mind's eye I see the last panel of anything non-canon with Jason and Kurt watching it as a movie then commenting on how one loves it and the other hates it. I'm sure we're all looking forward to seeing that.
@gmcalpin: My original idea for Multiplex was to do it as an animated short, but I never actually learned Flash. Still don't know it. The plot did have a movie-within-a-movie thing, but it just felt lame, having them watch a movie that wasn't real. You can't comment on it, because it's fake. Any "criticism" is empty.
@hungryclone: That's a valid point but you don't think that since it's your own work you wouldn't be able to criticize it from within the work itself?
@gmcalpin: Yeah, but it'd be lame, because whatever they say, it's because I set it up that way.
@hungryclone: True.
@gmcalpin: They can't really rip on a movie, because if it's bad, it's because I made it bad. Intentionally. (The movie-within-a-movie was a mash-up of Fantastic Planet and Fantastic Four, by the way)
@hungryclone: Haha. Fantastic Planet Four? I hope we haven't strayed too far from the topic. I know you said you wanted to focus on the comic mainly.
@gmcalpin: Voyage to Planet Four, I think it was called. Nah, this is cool. I've never told that to any interviewer, because they never got me down that road.
@hungryclone: Well I'm glad I'm doing a somewhat decent job.
@gmcalpin: Keep it going!
@hungryclone: In any case is there anything you'd like to mention about the comic specifically? Plugs and the like?
@gmcalpin: Oh, that's too wide open. I can't think under pressure like that.
@hungryclone: Haha. Fair enough. I think this has been pretty in depth enough. I've enjoyed going over some of the questions I've had about the specifics of Multiplex. Do you have anything for the readers? Final word? Don't do drugs. Eat your veggies etc.
@gmcalpin: Eat your veggies. But… uh… well, let's just say that when I said all the characters are based on me, that includes Lizzie Stoner.
@hungryclone: Haha. Gotcha. Well it's been fun. Keep up the great work and we're all looking forward to the plot twists and craziness that you'll throw at us in the future.
@gmcalpin: Thanks. Yeah, it was fun.
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