Aaron Neathery’s postapocalyptic daily strip Endtown launches this week on Modern Tales. Aaron was kind enough to tell me a little about the strip and his cartooning career.

Shaenon Garrity: How did you get started as a cartoonist?

Aaron Neathery: It was never really a conscious decision. As a kid, I never made a distinction between cartooning and just plain drawing. I was in high school before I realized that people who can draw aren’t also necessarily adept at cartooning and that some otherwise excellent artists can’t draw a cartoon mouse to save their lives (and vice versa). I simply never stopped drawing and eventually people started calling me a cartoonist…among other things.

SG: What are some of your artistic influences?

AN: As a cartoonist? Herge’, Walt Kelly, Chester Gould, Tezuka, Segar, Herriman, Schulz, and Franquin. Franquin deserves to be better known over here, especially for his incredible ability to depict comic action. His Spirou books are all worth tracking down even if you can’t read French. Beautiful, expressive artwork and staging. A broader list of influences would also have to include Joseph Heller, Terry Gilliam, Jacques Tati, Buster Keaton, Zero Mostel, Kafka, and Kurt Vonnegut.

SG: The daily strip format can be demanding. What attracts you to drawing comic strips?

AN: It’s a powerful multidisciplinary medium. You have to be an artist, a writer, an actor, and a director. You also have to be a little schizo and enjoy playing god. That’s me all over.

SG: What was the inspiration for Endtown?

AN: I wanted a setting that would give me greater latitude for improvisation and this post-apocalypse backdrop made the most sense to me in allowing me that kind of freedom. The characters are rebuilding their world just just as I’m building it through them. Once I had that idea in mind, the pieces started to fall into place.

SG: Endtown features characters from your previous strips. What’s your intention in bringing them together?

AN: Every strip I’ve ever drawn has featured some overarching element from some other strip. I’ve never had the need, or perhaps the ability, to view each of them as independent of each other because they occupy the same space in my mind. Rather, they’re like separate chapters of some mock epic that’ll take my entire life to get off my chest. Some of the Endtown cast have been knocking around in my head since high school, and a few since grade school. Others, like Professor Mallard, were created for projects that left the ground and have been looking for work ever since. Pulling these characters together and shoving them all into the same box is intended to inspire new situations.

SG: What can we expect from Endtown in these first few months?

AN: You’ll get to know something of the world of the strip and meet some of the cast. But as I don’t like to set any story in stone and like to improvise at the drawing board, even I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen.

SG: How long do you plan to continue Endtown?

AN: Who knows? I’d love to run it for a decade or more. Reader response will probably play a factor because I’m an attention whore. There’s nothing like feedback to inspire you to keep going and nothing more disheartening than silence.

SG: What else are you working on these days?

AN: I spent the last year and a half flexing some other creative muscles with a one-man radio situation comedy. It’s currently running on a handful of stations around the country. I’ll be making all 23 episodes available as a podcast this fall so that everyone will finally have a chance to hear it. There’s also a graphic novel that’s about half-finished at 100 pages.

SG: Any final words?

AN: Yes.

See Aaron Neathery’s other projects
or
Read Endtown now!

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