The Jimmy Misanthrope Interview

In the first of the ‘Below the Fold’ Interviews, I present:

The Jimmy Misanthrope Interview:

Zombiehamster: So you’re another of these layabouts. Unshaven, reclusive, self-employed comic artist types, eh? Explain yourself for the benefit of those with proper jobs so that they can marvel at the degradation and squalor of your existence. Why do you do it?

Jimmy Mizz: I do it primarily because there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing at this point of my life. I’ve had a number of other jobs over the years, and I’ve hated them all, so I came to the realisation a couple of years ago that illustration and comic work are the only things I really enjoy doing as a profession. I had been doing illustration stuff and working on my comic part time up to that point, and I decided one day to quit my day job and devote my energies to what I really loved to do.
I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices to do what I do, but its working out quite well so far.
Plus it affords me the opportunity to experiment with various permutations of ridiculous facial hair, like the “way cool” sideburns I am currently sporting.

Zombiehamster: So what the bloody hell is an Ancaluvion then?

Jimmy Mizz: Ancaluvion is the name that pixies use to refer to their species in my webcomic Agents Of The Endtimes. They’re 2 to 2.5 inches high on average, and live in a satellite dimension of our own. Ancaluvion is a word I made up many years ago, and when I was formulating ideas for this comic the name just seemed to fit the little pixie characters I was coming up with.

Zombiehamster: Well, I guess that you had better tell us a little bit more about ‘Agents of the Endtimes’ c’mon then, tell us!

Jimmy Mizz: The basic premise of this comic is that the world (i.e. dimension) that we all exist in is surrounded by a number of satellite realms which orbit this one, akin to how moons orbit a planet, but in this case the “moons” are alternate realities of our own. In order for these satellite realms to exist and remain stable, a certain balance of forces in this world must be maintained. This world can exist on its own in an “unbalanced” state, but it’s dimensional moons cannot.

Agents Of The Endtimes follows the exploits of Starla, Fubar and Marnie, three Inter-dimensional Ancaluvion Agents, who travel from their world to ours to regulate the presense of inter-dimensional invaders. In other words, they kill monsters, on a fairly regular basis, to maintain the aformentioned dimensional balance.

I guess you could say Agents Of the Endtimes is a mish-mash of many things that I’m into as a fan of art, writing and film. Its a character driven action/science fiction/romance/horror/black comedy which tends to shift and change through a lot of of different moods and tones, and explores a wide range of themes.

Basically its a dumping ground for my id.

Zombiehamster: You have recently launched your very shiny (albeit porn free) website, how do you think that, in the absence of boobies, this will help the Misanthrope Empire?

Jimmy Mizz: Well, I set this site up with the intention of having somewhere for my current fans to see all my current and future online work via one handy place, rather than it being scattered around the internet as it was in the past. And hopefully this will help attract new fans. I’m doing fairly well on merch sales through the store on my site, which helps my empire by allowing its emperor to get by without having to live in a cardboard box and eat wood and rocks.
Which in turn helps me update AOTE at a consistent weekly rate, rather than going on some wood and rock fuelled rampage, leaving a trail of dead innocents and maimed property in my wake. So everyone wins really.

Also, having my own site frees me from the constraints of other site’s censorship. For example, there are a couple of panels in AOTE that feature story specific nudity. So, my site isn’t totally bereft of bewbage. I used to have AOTE up on photobucket, and I’m amazed I never got busted for the small amount of nudity that’s in the comic, as photobucket does not allow nudity, not even the softcore stuff I have in the comic.

Zombiehamster: Can I help the Misanthrope Empire?

Jimmy Mizz: I think you’re doing rather well in helping by doing this interview with me, and with your continued efforts in helping get my work out there.

Zombiehamster: Will I get a hat?

Jimmy Mizz: Damn straight you’ll get a hat. I’m thinking some kind of helmet with the AOTE logo emblazoned on the front in gold.. And with massive, oversized steel horns coming out of the top. That you could pour lighter fluid on and set on fire at regular intervals. Perhaps we could rig it so it plays a jaunty little tune whenever you set the horns on fire whilst screaming at local schoolkids. See, I think big son. Are you certain you’re capable of handling the sheer eye exploding awesome that is me and my grandiose asininity?

If the firey horn hat doesn’t work out, I dunno, we’ll get you one of those beanies with a little propeller on top or something.

Zombiehamster: Didn’t you almost get killed by one of your own creations, in a roundabout kind of a way? Bet that’s never happened to Dirge.

Jimmy Mizz: A while ago I designed this… horrible little cartoon cow for a milk company. The company has this cow on their milk cartons and on their milk trucks. Anyway, a few months ago I was driving down the road and one of those milk trucks came out of a side road and almost collided with me. After I had eviscerated the driver I had a good chuckle at the situation, this truck with this giant jolly cow on its side almost wiping me out.

Such a thing would probably not happen to Dirge, but if he were to suck on a Lenore doll I guess there’s the offside chance that he could choke to death on it. Actually no, make that a Ragamuffin doll, that would be funnier.

Zombiehamster: Tell me about the weasels.

Jimmy Mizz: I am really fond of weasels. I’m really fond of the word “weasels”. I read a quote from Matt Groening’s Life In Hell years ago, about the nature of romantic love. It went somewhere along the lines of “love is like joyfully sliding down a snowy hill on a toboggan, when suddenly the toboggan flips over, pinning you under it. At night, the ice weasels come.” I thought that was just perfect.

Zombiehamster: On paper, you live the existence of a serial killer; do you think that would be a viable career option if the comics don’t work out?

Jimmy Mizz: Well, I’m male, reclusive, somewhat disaffected and (mainly) white, which most serial killers tend to be. But to make a bona fide career out of it I’d probably have to go down the hitman route. For what are hitmen, but contracted serial killers who get commissioned to off people? Serial killers are just hobbyists really.

Zombiehamster: You’d always have somewhere to hide the bodies. Come to think of it, what would the Jimmy Misanthrope method of corpse disposal be?

Jimmy Mizz: A corpse’s soft tissues are relatively to get rid of by dissolving in acid or a solution of lye, its the bones that are the hardest to dispose of. Its probably easiest to crush the bones up into bits before giving them another go with a dissolving agent. Failing that, just make furniture out of them. Or, if you happen to have access to a lot of pigs, things become far easier.

Zombiehamster: So, when you’re not drawing comics, what tickles your proverbial fancy?

Jimmy Mizz: I tend to watch a lot of movies. I like to read often. The other things I get up to are covered fairly well in the biography section of my site I think.

Zombiehamster: Do you want to touch it? Just a little?

Jimmy Mizz: Yes. I am but a slave to my concupiscentious desires.

Zombiehamster: On that subject, do you still receive a disproportionate amount of hentai fan art? Does that concern you a little as to the nature of your readership?

Jimmy Mizz: I don’t think its disproportionate as such. The vast majority of the fanart I have received has been G-rated.

I try not to dwell too much on the nature of my readership. Judging by the feedback I’ve received over the past few years, my fans are a pretty diverse bunch. There just happens to be a small percentage that have decided it was necessary to send me fan art of a couple of my characters not wearing any clothes. At first I thought it was just plain odd, but I’ve gotten used to it. Its not something I particularly encourage or discourage. Its always nice when people take the time to draw my characters & email the drawings, but I prefer the drawings to not be naked, kthanks.

Zombiehamster: So what started you off drawing comics? Was there a catalyst or particular moment in your life that made you say ‘Yes, I want to draw comics for a living?

Jimmy Mizz: I started learning how to read when I was four, and the first things I started reading were comics. Its a pretty natural progession, going from just looking at the pictures to figuring out what the pictures are saying. The first comic I really got into was Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats, when I was about five. Footrot Flats was a New Zealand daily newspaper comic, about a farmer and his dog. The dog was the main character, and most of the strips revolved around him and his reactions to/opinions of the things that would happen to him and the other characters around him.

Although my work is very disimilar to Ball’s, he’s been a huge influence on me from a very young age. I have a great deal of respect for his work, the man is a fucking genius.

So drawing comics is something I’ve always been interested in, I’ve dabbled in doing them off and on for most of my life, but it wasn’t until I started doing Agents Of the Endtimes that I really started to get serious about doing comics. Nowadays, if I go for any longer than a couple of weeks without drawing something I start feeling really empty, which is a pretty good reason to want to do it as the primary focus in one’s life eh.

Zombiehamster: What soundtracks your working day, music, film, terrified screams, or can you only work in silence?

Jimmy Mizz: Mainly music. I often spend all day listening to music, as music is a very big part of my life. Sometimes I’ll have a film on in the background. This year I’ve been listening to a lot of film scores while I work. Things like Reinhold Heil & Johnny Klimek’s score for Land of the Dead, that’s deliciously creepy. I’m far more influenced by film and music’s emotional effect on me than I am by other comics.
Apart from getting me into the right mood, I also feel I have to have music going in order to mask the screams coming from my basement. So oddly enough terrified screams are quite detrimental to my creative process, as they’re distracting, and I’ll deal with those fuckers down there when I’m good and ready.

Zombiehamster: Approximately how long does an AOTE page take and how much time per day would you spend on your work?

Jimmy Mizz: It varies, depending on how much detail is in a particular page, how much background stuff is in there etc. On average it takes about 2-3 days to do each page, from pencilling to the final touch ups. The pencilling, inking and lettering are the relatively quick and easy part, its the grey toning that takes up the most time. I literally spend hours tinkering with things during the greytoning process, usually tiny little details that nobody but myself is ever gonna notice. So I’m trying to cut down on that obssessive side, as its not very conducive to getting stuff done in a timely fashion.

On average, I spend between 12 to 14 hours working per day, sometimes more, sometimes less. But that’s just because I’m a workaholic.

Of course I spend days working on a page that people can read in under a minute, but there are many subtle (and not so subtle) layers to my comics, which are designed to be picked up on during subsequent readings.
Zombiehamster: Are there any plans in development for releasing a hard copy collected edition of your work, or do you see the future of comics as a purely online medium?

Jimmy Mizz: Oh yes, there will definitely be a dead tree version of AOTE. I’m thinking of collecting parts 1-5 as a trade, once I’ve drawn part 5. I think there will always be a percentage of comic fans (myself included) that like to sit down with a book in their hands rather than reading comics off a monitor. And I’m quite happy to cater to those people.

I think webcomics, by the very nature of them being online… there’s a huge wellspring of creative presentation that people have just started to mine. I’m talking about things like flash comics and such, that would work far better in an online form. But AOTE is set up in such a way that it will work fine in a printed format as well.

Zombiehamster: Should Samuel L Jackson stop making movies, or will you give him another chance?

Jimmy Mizz: I’ve given that man plenty of chances. I used to quite enjoy his performances, until he stopped being Samuel L. Jackson and decided he could get by rather well by just doing Samual L. Jackson impersonations. I think the last movie with him in it that I liked was The Incredibles, and even then he was just doing the voice of an underdeveloped sideman. So I guess whether or not he should continue to act in movies depends on who you’re asking, but seeing as you’re asking me, I shall say a big fat NO.

Zombiehamster: Is it true that you are a racist, but only when it comes to Australians?

Jimmy Mizz: I have a few friends in Australia, and one of my best friends has just moved there a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I’m planning on moving there in the future. So I’m not anti Australians per se, its just a population thing. There are more people in Australia than in New Zealand, so there are proportionally more fatheads in Australia than in NZ. I’ve noticed there’s a more racist streak in Australian culture as well. But of course, any fans and friends of mine in Australia are wonderful people, and exempt from any dislike I may have for their countrymen.

Zombiehamster: You’re not going to let me interview you ever again are you?

Jimmy Mizz: That all depends on whether or not you’re going to give me back my gnomes.

You can visit Jimmy Misanthrope’s website ‘The Vortex Machines‘ and send him perverted fan art by Clicking HERE. This will get him back nicely for all the naked polaroids that he keeps sending me.

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