What are the origins of Ubu Bubu?

Ubu Bubu the comic was an idea formed while i was in the middle of what comic book artists affectionately call ‘tv development hell’. I was working full time at a tv network developing my show, and it was insanely stressful, demoralising and hard to switch off from, and it never went anywhere anyway. But on the long tube journeys home I started to get inspired on other ideas, the main one being Ubu Bubu. I wanted to get back to comics, I hadn’t released any for well over a year. My idea was to do a comic about a cute cat who holds an evil daemon inside him, and to draw it in a sweeping Watterson-style brushwork. To make it cute, and simple, and nasty. The idea consumed me and became incredibly exciting, making those endless tube journeys home time to think and plan.

Are cats evil?

Yes. They have that quiet satisfaction in them, that mocking sneer. It’s weird how many cats have cropped up in my work, since I never actually owned one. Well I had one, as a kid, but it ran away. And the only other one I went near after that I tried to bury my face in its belly, for which I was promptly lacerated and clawed. I think maybe that’s the trauma that has shaped my cat-based career.

Where you apprehensive putting out this type of book
after Bear?

Not really, no, I was more grateful that my publisher SLG still had the faith in me, and that there still seemed to be an audience for what I do. Obviously I expected the reviews to say ‘it’s not as good as Bear, innit?’, but mercifully nobody has compared it to Bear yet. It’s not intended as a follow-up, Ubu Bubu is a different entity in its own right, but obviously the look and vein of humour is carrying on from where Bear left off. It’s great to be back there.

Have you always written and drawn your own work?

Yes, bizarrely. Even when I was working for children’s comics, they would let me write and draw essentially what I chose, which is an incredibly responsibility to give someone who releases comic books about cat sick and dancing turds. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to find good editors who believe in what I do, and I totally believe in repaying that by producing the best work I can. I’d find drawing someone else’s work a bit boring to be honest. if you’re going to draw something, you should be writing what you’re drawing, they’re branches of the same tree.

What kind of work schedule are you on?

It’s a stupid one. Up to the age of about 24 I barely did any work other than the occasional freelance job, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had alot of time on my hands and I could be spending all that time drawing and improving what I do. Since that curious brain snap I’ve been working 7 days a week almost constantly for the last 5 years, I love getting up at 6am and doing 14 hour days. It makes me feel like I’ve achieved something. But in reality it’s a stupid attitude, it makes me unable to relax for more than a day without feeling guilty that I should be working, and it’s brought me close to burn out a coupla times. But the fact is I’m still so excited by what I do, it makes me want to be doing it constantly. I don’t ALWAYS manage 7 days a week now, but I’m happiest when I do. Big loser that I am.

Who were your major influences when you were younger
(comics or otherwise) and just what was the motivating factor that made
you decide to break into the industry?

When I was very young I was addicted to the main British children’s comics of the time, things like Whizzer and Chips, Buster, Dandy. There was also a comic called Oink, which was insanely subversive and violent, but a mainstream children’s comic all the same. That was a revelation to me. And of course the strip cartoons like Calvin and Hobbes, and Garfield. they were both big for me. Then I kinda dropped comics till I was at college, when I found Deadline, and by association Tank Girl. And from there, SLG’s Milk and Cheese. By this time I was doing alot of my own comics, but these titles REALLY showed me what could be done in comics and made me evolve my own stuff a lot further.

I’m not sure there was any particular motivating factor for getting in the industry other than I believed I had some good work that deserved to be
published. But I’ve been sending countless work to publishers for years and years and not got anywhere, so I’m well used to not getting anywhere.

Any new projects coming up you can tell us about?

Well there’s three issues left of Ubu Bubu coming out this year. Also, in March, is my one-shot ‘Bohda Te’, which I’m really excited about. then in May book one of the anthology I’ve been working on called Fat Chunk is released, which features over 80 artists in one tidy little book. Then in November book two comes out. And there’s a book based on my ‘Space Raoul’ comics coming out at some point too. It’s a real buzz to be doing comics again, I’m looking forward to this year. Also, for children’s comics, I’m doing a spell as the Desperate Dan artist in the Dandy, I think that starts in March. And i’m working on something which should be some of my best work for a new children’s comic coming out in a month or two, but i think that’s secret. All the news on what I’m doing is regularly updated at my journals, which can be found by following the links at www.fumboo.com.

If you could be doing anything else anywhere else what would it be?

I’d be a monkey. I’d be head patrol monkey. You know when the monkeys all have a big monkey fight in the jungle and there’s always one that runs about just kicking in trees for the sake of making noise? I’ll be that monkey. I never liked trees. Only as a monkey can I vent my frustrations. I’ve said monkey alot. Monkey.

What was the first thing you drew and where is it now?

Something obscene and vulgar, and it’s probably still on the cabinet door in my parent’s old house in Kent. Though, I’m guessing the new owners probably threw it away. It was quite disturbing for someone so young.

How do you deal with the internet and the comics community on it?

It’s fun! Why not? it’s a great way to see if people are digging what you do, or if they hate it. I’ve seen alot of hate vented towards me and my work, usually by faceless no-marks who have nothing better to do than criticise other people’s creativity, but I’ve seen alot of support for what I do too and needless to say that’s an incredibly humbling feeling. The net’s also a great way to make contact with people, if someone wants to say they like your work it’s only polite to say thank you! Then you find out the people who like your work are actually pretty cool, and you enjoy talking to them.

What are your comedic influences?

When I was a kid it was tv, mainly the Young Ones. I can never state how much that show affected me, truly, I watched it so many times and learnt every word. It was just so great, so stupid, so subversive. Other shows got into my head too, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, all the main 80s bbc comedies, but Young Ones was my mainstay. Comic-wise, I haven’t particularly absorbed much influence from there, because it was always already formed by the tv I had watched.

Did you expect such popularity?

Popularity is a weird thing, some people can think you’re an inspiration and other people can have no interest in you at all, so it’s a very small bubble of popularity. And you have to realise that. It’s obviously wonderful to get appreciation for what you do, and it’s validating to your mental state too. For me the idea that I might have impacted someone’s life, even in such a small way as made them laugh by a comic I drew, is the main thing to be proud of.

Do you have any formal art education or training?

I went to art college for four years, but it didn’t particularly teach me anything. I was fortunate to have head tutors who liked comic books, so they left me to do my own thing, and so I essentially got 4 years to practice drawing comics. I never found art education to be useful in itself, but if it helps you raise awareness of your own game then it’s good.

Which characters do you have the most fun writing? Any future series’ about any of them?

Hmm thats hard, because I’m usually working on a few different things at once. And while they’re obviously different characters, to be treated in different ways, the humour is always the common vein and so I can safely say I enjoy writing all of them because they all amuse me. Space Raoul was particular fun because he was so pompous and inept, and Bear and Looshkin had a unique dynamic that was easy to slip into. At the moment, writing Ubu Bubu is giving me the most freedom, as I’m learning where I want to go with what I do and putting that directly into the comic. So it’s
a learning process, and fun for it.

You involve a lot of goth and chav-bating in Bear - it could be said that Bear is a bit of a cultural document of suburban life, a snapshot of British life in a time period, perhaps like Hot Fuzz. Any thoughts?

Ha ha I wouldn’t try and make Bear anything more than it is. Alot of people have tried to use highbrow words to describe it, to intellectualise it. But, flattering though that obviously is, it was never intended to be either well-formed wit or any comment on society. It was just the things that amused me, put down into a comic, with some slapping and bloodshed to help oil the wheels. I’m incredibly proud of Bear, and I’ll defend it against anyone who dismisses it as puerile, but I know that it was always supposed to be a fun comic you could pick up and put down when you fancied, without having learnt too much. Except for how to threaten a stuffed bear with a ladle. You can learn that. Anything more, unlearn it, it wasn’t there