Chris Baldwin is one of the legends of webcomics. His comic Bruno, which ran from 1996 until early this year, is one of the longest-running online comics, as well as one of the most beloved and acclaimed. His many other comics include Sheppard and May, Kim in Love, and a series of short comics collected as Water Street. Now his comic strip Little Dee, about a little girl raised by animals in the woods, will be running on Modern Tales. Chris was kind enough to talk to me about comics, comics, and more comics.

Shaenon Garrity: You’ve been drawing webcomics longer than almost anyone. How did you get started?

Chris Baldwin: That statement sounds so funny, but I suppose it’s true. I happened to get online early, in 1996, because I had a friend in the computer biz who had a website and no content. And so i would photocopy my work and snail-mail it to him in California, where he would scan and upload it (I was unable to afford a computer until several years later). But the strip itself, Bruno, began two years prior to going online, running in the UMass, Amherst newspaper. Once Bruno went online, I edited and mostly re-drew those first two years (which in the end only amounted to about a half year of strips).

SG: Did Bruno change significantly between its college-newspaper incarnation and its debut as a webcomic?

CB: Bruno was my first daily comic, and since I didn’t know what i was doing, it began with few constraints. The main differences I can think of are that I broke the fourth wall all the time, included new characters in almost every strip, commented on obscure local university politics, lettered without pencil lines to guide me, and the drawing quality was very inconsistent. By the time I put it online, the strips keel had evened out pretty well and I had decided on the general parameters, and so I ruthlessly boiled down those first strips to match it.

SG: Did you grow up wanting to be a cartoonist?

CB: I grew up knowing I didn’t want to work in an office. I always enjoyed drawing, and I started drawing actual comics when I was maybe 8 years old, making my debut in the newsletter at the tofu factory where both my parents worked. I drew my first comic book, Super Squirrel when I was 12, and had drawn over thirty short comic books before I finished high school (almost all of which sadly got lost in a move at some point).

SG: What made you decide to end Bruno?

CB: The project was no longer inspiring me to create it. Towards the end, even when I felt I was writing and drawing really solid work, it was not bringing me joy. I always knew that Bruno was not going to make my fortune, and so I did it for eleven years purely out of love, or maybe co-dependence. And even though I still adore her and her world, I was not feeling the love in creating it. And so i took about a half a year to slowly draw it to an end, to give her the respect she had earned from me.

SG: Where did you get the inspiration for Little Dee?

CB: I had been drawing a bear and a dog for years on holiday and birthday cards, who i referred to as “stock Bear” and “stock Dog,” and they were loved by me and others. Dee was my favorite character in my syndicate submission, Sheppard and May (and was originally inspired by Samantha Morton’s stellar performance in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown). As I began writing the strip, Vachel appeared out of the ether and glued them together.

SG: That’s actually the way I created my comic Narbonic; I put together three characters from comics I’d drawn in high school and college. Did you have trouble getting the cast to work as a group when you started?

CB: The cast seemed to work together well from the very beginning, but I think that’s because Vachel was the glue that held them together. Whatever personality trait they exhibited, he could be a smart aleck about it. That said, I do think their roles and personalities became better defined with time and have become more directly able to contribute to the humor.

SG: How did you get involved with United Media?

CB: They approached me and said they loved Little Dee. I exclaimed, “me too!” Thus, a happy relationship was born.

SG: Are you working on any other comics right now?

CB: As far as daily strips, I do have concepts and characters developed for a new strip, which I may begin to work on if United Media ultimately decides not to syndicate Little Dee.

I post a monthly short comic on my website, although I am leaving for Alaska to visit my sister and do not think I will be able to complete this month’s installment before I go. I have a concept comic, which will be made up of short vignettes surrounding a protagonist, which I’ll post occasionally as my monthly short comic post until i feel i can somehow stitch them together. I have a 200 page graphic novel, Only Sleeping, which I’ve written and thumbnailed, but after drawing 16 pages, I decided it was good, but not brilliant, and so I pulled it back into the editing and development stage. I have another graphic novel, vaguely plotted, one rough draft written and which I considered inadequate.

And I also do regular submissions directly to MAD, who I’ve been doing work for this past year, mostly under the title “It Only Hurts When I Laugh.”

SG: Are there any of your previous comics you’d like to return to someday?

CB: Bruno immediately comes to mind, but only because it was such a huge part of my life for so long. If I ever did return to Bruno, possibly I’d do a short story rather than going back the dailies, but I’d say the likelihood of me doing so is not great.

I have had ideas rattling around in my head for a sequel to my short comic I Am Hans Krunkel, only because it is a solid story and any thought of doing a sequel is utterly ludicrous, defeats the point of the original, and is therefore amusing. Take for instance, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grimm, a sequel to Henry Fool, a movie which it would be absurd to even consider a sequel to, and I think he took that absurdity to task.

But overall, I feel strongly about moving forward unless specifically inspired by a new idea for an old project.

SG: What are some of your favorite comics?

CB: The usual suspects. For comic strips, my favorites are probably Krazy Kat, Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes, and Narbonic (and I’m not saying that simply because you’re the author). For comic books, maybe Hicksville by Horrocks, Le Petite Monde du Golem by Sfar, Graffiti Kitchen by Campbell, Dear Julia by Biggs.

SG: Any final thoughts?

CB: Just that I’m happy to be on board with Modern Tales alongside so many talented cartoonists. Like i said, i feel strongly about moving forward, and I think this will be good relationship.

Read Little Dee now!

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