Creator short profile:
– Name: Ben Hutchings.
– Location: Brunswick, Melbourne.
– Creative style: Absurdist humour comics.
– Website/s:
Website – hutcho.net
Tales from the Pub – fromthepub.wordpress.com
Tootleg Boy – tootlegboy.wordpress.com
Squishface Comic Studio – squishfacestudio.com
– Bragging rights(Featured work/collaborations): My main titles include Lesson Master: Master of Lessons, Handball Heaven and my life’s anthology You Stink & I Don’t, all of which are published by Milk Shadow Books. They also publish a newspaper sized adventure comic called Walking to Japan. Self published stuff includes a 3 issue series called Glenjamin with poster artist Glenn Smith, and 4 issues of a 3cm tall comic called Comics of Smallness, both of which are hard to find now. – I also do a weekly colour comic strip for Picture magazine is called Tales from The Pub. This is a strip based on anecdotes submitted by readers. I have just finished my 371st episode! – I also write puerile computerised songs as Tootleg Boy, and have made about 400 songs. – I run a comic artist’s studio in Brunswick called Squishface Studio along with other cartoonists Scarlette Baccini, David Blumenstein, Sarah Howell, Ive Sorucuk, Marta Tesoro and Patrick Alexander. I’m currently finishing a draft of a 100 page children’s graphic novel.

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Creator continued profile. Let’s get a tiny bit personal:

– What are your goals as a creator?: To make comics that people want to show their friends because they’re great and funny.

– If you could collaborate with anybody, who would it be and why?: Working with Glenn was so satisfying and fun, and I hope to have the time to do some comics with him again. I would love to find a great colourer who would enjoy colouring my black and white stuff.

– Where there any defining moments in your life that have influenced your creative style?: Applying to join studios and submitting to publishers. Continued rejections forced me to take a very harsh, critical look at my own work for the first time in over a decade! I quit my day job and became a full time illustrator. Within months my lines had become bold, and clean. Switching to felt-tip brush pens was the next huge step upwards.

– If you could have any power from a Comic character, what would it be/why?: Flight of course! Super strength is great but only good for when there are muggers which in real life doesn’t happen that much. Being able to win in a fight would ultimately be an unsatisfying power in life. X-Ray vision would not be as good for perving as you think because you’d get the skeleton as well as the rude bits which would make it all medical. But being able to fly I don’t think you’d ever get sick of it. If you ever got bored at a party you could just shoot off into the air, vertically. You could also do a joke when you got to the top of an escalator where you kept going upwards.

– Favourite Comic artist of all time/why?: All my favourite comics are written and drawn by one person! So how about Herge? You start reading at any page of any Tintin book and you’re hooked. They look and feel so good to read.

– What do you prefer to snack on when creating a masterpiece?: I love spicy Bhuja mix with its dried peas and sultanas and bits. But anything that is there, I will concentrate on eating the entire thing before it is completely gone. So it’s better not to have any snacks.

– Has anything strange ever happened to you? If so, what?: My grandma once called me Sarah.

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– Power Girl and Zatanna ask you out on the same night, which do you chose and why?:
I don’t know these characters so I have to go by looks. Zatanna dresses like a steampunk nerd with all top hats and little bows, and as a performer is probably quite loud and longs for attention. And if she tried a card trick, I’d be out of there. Power Girl on the other hand has a cute bob and a muscly amazonian figure. I’d be trying not to stare at her cleavage all night, but that’s half the fun of a date. Plus because she is tall she wouldn’t see my double chin as much.

– Do you prefer sweet or savoury?: I have a sweet tooth, and can eat a whole pack of lollies followed by a fanta, followed by ice cream and so on until I feel really sick like a 4 year old, it’s really disgusting.

– Likes: Driving directly towards the sun when it’s setting and you can’t see anything, but it looks awesome.

– Dislikes: When you order a pie off the menu and it comes in a porcelain pot, so the only pastry is on the top, so they cheat you of the whole point of a pie which is the awesome pastry around the sides and bottom. It’s making me angry to even type this.

– Favourite joke: Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field.

– Any thank you’s/shoutouts?: Just a shoutout: BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!!

 

 

Thank you to Ben for his interview – Ness 🙂

 

 

 

 

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