Artist Feature: Peter of Rock, Paper, Cynic

Dinosaurs, Game of Thrones and turtles, oh my!

The thrill and excitement for the GCE family at this years Fan Expo in Toronto was only second to having a table next to one of the most engaging people we had the pleasure to meet all weekend. It’s like taking a flight alone and hoping that you sit next to someone cool and not the guy that falls asleep on you and drools on you—well we lucked out and definitely got someone cool!

Our neighbor was Peter and he was there representing his comic Rock, Paper, Cynic. Over the weekend we conversed between customers purchases about everything from how he began in art to films and the convention itself. Now we are more than happy to bring you all an artist feature on him and his work and hope that you’ll stop by to see him at his next conventions and of course check out his work online. We talk inspiration, fan favorites, and Half-Cats.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I think the fairest way to describe myself is as someone with a terrible attention span. Like, embarrassingly short. So while people usually know me as the guy who doodles Rock, Paper, Cynic http://www.rockpapercynic.com/–or maybe they’ve noticed one of my short stories or poems in a magazine or anthology–those are really just symptoms of a this weird condition. where art is my natural defense mechanism against boredom.

What inspires you?

I think I respond to surprise on a really deep level. If you can surprise me with a piece of art or writing, show me something that I didn’t expect, that I couldn’t even have imagined before seeing it for myself, then I actually feel a sense of gratitude, like, “You’ve given me an experience I wouldn’t get to have otherwise. Thanks for that!”

When did you start Rock, Paper, Cynic?

Rock, Paper, Cynic started a long time ago–I mean, I was doodling these comics before I had a website to inflict them on other people. It started off as these ridiculous cartoons jotted in the margins of my class notes in university, and it eventually turned into ridiculous cartoons I published online. Now I lug these ridiculous cartoons around the country to different shows.

But I think Halloween 2008 was when the first comic went up, so I guess that’s the hard date. I have an anniversary coming up!

How did you decide on that name?

The comic actually used to be called The Real Macabre, back when only three people read it (and one of those people was my mother). But “macabre” is one of those words that’s hard to spell and even harder to enunciate when people ask you what your comic is called. I’d sometimes get, “Macaw? Like the bird,” and that’s when I realized it was a terrible name.

So now it’s Rock, Paper, Cynic, which I think speaks to my love of surprise. People are used to the formula of “rock, paper, scissors” to the point that when you replace part of it, it’s like “Ah-ha! I see what you did there.” And that’s kind of what the comic does–sets up one kind of joke and then suddenly runs in another direction. And that direction is often a little cynical. Not necessarily negative, but constructively cynical. Asking unexpected questions and analyzing the weird answers that come out of them.

What is the ‘fan favorite’ of your art?

Oh, gee, it’s probably a tie between the one about Darwin riding a dinosaur through outer space and the one about the fine print in the words of House Stark: “Winter is coming”.

Are there other art forms that interest you that you might branch into?

I’m always so enchanted by animation and video games, but I definitely don’t have the chops to handle the art for that sort of thing. I’m a very crude artist. I shouldn’t be allowed to touch anything more advanced than crayons.

But writing for animation and video games, I think I could do that. I’ve got a pretty good visual vocabulary as a writer, which isn’t to say I’m good at describing how things look, but I can scale back my words to let the visuals tell a story.

Tell us about half cats. 

Well, half-cats (http://www.half-cat.com/) are these rare bipedal cats that haven’t been officially recognized by the world of science–kind of like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. But they are TOTALLY REAL (note the upper-case SERIOUSNESS). I know this because I edited an entire book Half-Cat, A Partial History about them.

The story of the book, like the story of the half-cat, is fraught with partial accounts and half-truths.

One story goes that my cousin was left a book-length manuscript of half-cat research by an eccentric researcher who died unexpectedly in a cliff-related accident, and that he needed me to help him share this precious resource with the world.

The other story goes that my cousin didn’t find a job this summer and instead spent four months making a ridiculous book about bipedal cats. I helped.

I leave it to the reader to determine the truth.

Do you have any upcoming conventions?

Oh, yeah! I’m super excited to be heading out to Halifax for Hal-con in November. Super excited about that. Halifax is where I started working on the comic and it’s where I started writing seriously, so I feel like I’m returning home, creatively speaking. Plus Hal-con was the first show I ever did. I’ll be launching a new charity book of comics (Fearsome Fables 2) that I co-edited with my good friend Jay Paulin of Ink’d Well Comics. Sanya Anwar, who was nominated for a Shuster for her indie comic 1001 (http://www.artbysanya.com/), did the cover. We’re really jazzed about that, and all the phenomenal contributors this year. It’s a wicked volume–our third charity collection as co-editors.

I’m also stoked to unveil Half-Cat: A Partial History at Ottawa Pop Expo in December. It will be the first time I’ll be bringing this book to a show, and it’s going to be a real beaut. The Kickstarter went unexpectedly well, so we managed to upgrade our print run to include clothbound hardcover books with hot-pressed gold covers, gilt edges, and those fancy-pants ribbon bookmarks. We’re talking super-duper classy.

What’s it like being an artist at comic conventions? 

It’s pretty crazy, and every convention is different in terms of the energy at the show and the culture of the panels. Or maybe it’s just me.

I’ve had a few people raise eyebrows at my work because of all the cuss words, but otherwise people are overwhelming supportive. I’m lucky that way. The folks who write long-form comics–complex concepts and extended storylines–they have it hard. You only have a few seconds to sell someone on your concept before they wander off, so pitching your work is really tricky.

Because most of my jokes are self-contained single-panel gags, I don’t really have to explain them. People point out a poster to their friends and laugh, and I just let them know, “Hey, there’s like, hundreds more of those online for free. Feel free to check it out if it seems like your thing.” And some people do.

It’s actually kind of exhilarating, having access to people’s responses. When I write comics online, it fills like sending my work into a black hole. There’s usually some kind online reaction, but it’s hard to tell what people really think. I start doubting myself. Heck, I doubt myself all the time. I get in a rut where I think, “This isn’t funny. You’re not funny. You should stop writing.” At conventions, it’s easier to be brave. You have people laughing with you. You have immediate feedback. That’s a more powerful hit than any “like” button.

Where can we find you online?

Well the comics live at Rock, Paper, Cynic, but I’m mostly available through Twitter as @rockpapercynic. I’m really grateful for feedback, so I try to be available there.

My most recent stuff can be found either in Half-Cat: A Partial History (link above) or in the charity anthology, Fearsome Fables II (link above). I have my own story in the antho, one that Suze Shore (http://suzeart.tumblr.com/) illustrated. She’s mad-talented. One of my favourite artists.

I’ll have both books with me in Ottawa, and I’m really excited to see how people respond to them.