AMA: ComicLab podcast

Q.: Tell us about your podcast, ComicLab. How did you first get involved in podcasting?   What's a typical week like for you regarding your current podcast with Dave Kellett — lining up guests, coordinating recording times, and promoting the webcast beyond your Evil Inc/Drive audiences? How is your current weekly schedule for recording podcasts similar/different from your old shows?  What metrics do you use when deciding to begin or end one of your old podcasts? Who handles lining up sponsors?

A. ComicLab is a passion project for me. As you might have gathered by now, I enjoy sharing what I've learned about cartooning and comics. I teach two classes at The University of the Arts, I've written three how-to books, and I created a website, Webcomics.com, for sharing that knowledge. I often post tutorials and tips on my social-media platforms — Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Reddit.

When I first got into comics as a professional (well... semi-pro), it was 2000. The older generation of cartoonists resented people like me who used the Internet to publish comics. To them, we were the reason newspapers were beginning to fail — and newspaper syndication was how they earned a living. From our point of view, the Web was a pathway to a future without gatekeepers like publishers and syndicates.

(My ComicLab co-host Dave Kellett created a feature-length documentary about this period called Stripped, which is well worth watching.)

As a result, the older generation was not eager to share their knowledge with people from my generation. They feared and resented us. The early days of the Internet were punctuated with epic "Print vs. Web" flame wars in message boards and forums. Heady days, indeed!

So when I got to a point in my career where I could start to share some of the things I have learned along the way, I was overjoyed to do so. I wanted the next generation to have what my generation didn't have — advice, tutorials, knowledge, and, most of all, encouragement. They certainly aren't obligated to follow it to the letter. Things get exhilarating when they take that knowledge in new and unforeseen directions! But it's there for them to use however they see fit. (And even ignore if they want.) Either way, I wanted them to have it better than we did.

Origin story

One of my how-to books, How to Make Webcomics, was co-written with three friends — Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, and Dave Kellett. We launched a podcast, Webcomics Weekly, to promote the book in 2008. It was very popular. If Patreon and Kickstarter had been around, we'd probably still be doing the show today. However, podcast monetization was still in the distant future, and all four of us were busy with our own projects. As a result, the podcast just faded away.

Years later, Scott Kurtz invited me to launch a new show — Surviving Creativity — with his then-business manager, Cory Casoni, and himself. Once again, that show faltered because of commitments to personal projects.

You mentioned using metrics to decide when to end a podcast. It's not as if we decided, "OK, that's it. We're done with this podcast." It was more like, "Maybe we'll record a show next week." And then the next week turns into the week after that. And that turns into maybe sometime next month. And so on.

During this time, Dave Kellett asked me if I wanted to start a new podcast with him. I said no because I was still planning to restart Surviving Creativity. Six months later, he asked again. "We'd have so much fun!" he said. And again, I said no. This went on for a year and a half until finally, I said, "Fuck it. Surviving is never coming back. Let's start a new show!"

The following week, unaware of my plans with Kellett... Scott and Cory emailed to say they were restarting Surviving. This time, for real. And sure enough, in January 2018, I was committed to two different weekly podcasts about making comics! Once again, Surviving petered out. But I've been recording two episodes of ComicLab every week since our launch. We're closing in on 600 shows by the end of the year.

Typical week

We record the show — in front of our livestream audience — every Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. PT / 11:30 a.m. ET. We record the Patreon-exclusive Pro Tips episodes later that same day. Often, we'll record interviews later in the week based on the schedule of our guests. The interviews and Pro Tips recordings are rarely livestreamed.

We have our recording process down to a science. We turn the microphones on, talk for about an hour, and turn the microphones off. We'll send editing notes to our audio editor, but the show that goes out to the public is very close to the one we record during that session. Our recording software includes a video feed, so the conversation has no dead pauses. When I'm getting ready to end a sentence, I point to him so he's prepared to start talking. And vice versa. The result is a brisk, lively, friendly conversation between two old friends — like NPR's Car Talk, but for cartoons.

Our friendship started over 20 years ago. So dividing up responsibilities is a breeze. Dave books and schedules guests. He also provides editing notes and preps social media clips. I organize show notes, upload the show to its various platforms, and handle income / tax responsibilities. We both schedule social-media posts. He handles the podcast software, and I handle the livestream software. We both approach sponsors. We both handle administration duties on the Comiclab Discord server. It's all very smooth.

In the future

Last November, the Charles M. Schulz Museum flew us out to do a talk on what would have been the 100th birthday of the legendary cartoonist. Doing a live show was a blast; we're eager to do more in 2023. We're pitching a live show to Comic Con International in San Diego, and we've been reaching out to universities and art schools. Our bucket list is being invited to the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France and any comic-related event in Tokyo.