Nerdgasms.net just posted their really cool interview with Cory Matthews, EWG Client, TnC Creator and Writer - and collaborator! Check it out, learn more about the comic and the mind behind it and share/ like etc! Thanks Nerdgasms for the great interview, for the shoutouts and to cory for the shoutouts as well. Look forward to more TnC comic strips to come!
Nerdgasms.net did an interview with our friend and comic creator Cory Matthews about his creation: T n C Comics.
Nerdgasms: So you do TnC comics which is based on you, Cory,
and your wife, Tia. Do you want to tell us a little about the comic
itself?
Cory: Sure it’s basically started out with just a single strip of me
teasing my wife about packing her bags for vacation and just going way
overboard and packing like thirteen bags for a one week vacation … I
knew an artist, Eryck Webb of Eryck Webb Graphics who I had commissioned
artwork from before and I asked him if he would be interested in doing
the strip. He took it on and made fun of Tia with it and I showed around
to a bunch of family and friends everybody enjoyed it. They all thought
it was funny and so they all asked me when is the next one? When is the
next one. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, so when it seemed
like enough people liked it I decided I’m gonna try to do more and TnC
comics was made.
Since you started, what has been the response you’ve gotten?
Pretty much every everybody likes it. The best part is when people
are like “oh. That sounds like me my wife” or friends that go that
totally sounds like something you would do to Tia. Yo everyone likes it.
It seems like the fan favorite is Colby everybody likes it when Colby
makes a guest appearance … overall for all everyone really likes it a
lot like
What was Tia’s first reaction when you showed her the first strip that Eryck drew?
When she first saw it, she was like “that’s cute” That was pretty
much the end of it. She didn’t like the fact that she was the butt of
the joke in the first comic. But when once I did some more and hammered
out some scripts and Eryck did the artwork, she saw I was the bumbling
goofball of the comic strip, she liked it a lot more.
What about your kids? They are starting to make appearances. Were they hesitant to be in it at first?
I’m the adult. So I didn’t really give them a choice. I just did
it. Ciara thought it was cute and she really liked it when I started
including her bearded dragon, Steve. She asked me to print out a copy of
the strip to hang up on her wall. She’s pretty proud of Steve being in
it. My son just turned 20 and he moved back home. So he’s being
included in the strip and he’s included in the latest issue. Slowly
we’re getting everyone back in it. Basically it’s going to focus on the
4 of us and our nephew Colby.
How long does it take you to write a script? Do you bank a bunch of them?
It’s hard because I always feel like I have these great ideas. But
the great ideas always seem to hit at like 11:30 at night when you’re
laying in bed trying to go to sleep. They never hit you at like 4 in the
afternoon. Last week, I think I did eleven scripts and this week I’ve
been sorta flabbergasted and I haven’t done anything. The good thing is I
sorta just type them up and save them and ship 4 scripts a month to
Eryck. He does 4 strips at a time so that gives me enough time to
figure out some more. Plus they kinda write themselves. Yesterday,
everyone was gone from the house except for me. I thought that’s what I
wanted until I was alone then I was bored. Something like that
translates pretty easy to a 3 or 4 panel comic strip.
In one of the latest editions, your character complains about “based on a true story”. Is that a nod to your comic strip?
No. It’s actually something that really really irks me. At the
beginning of every television show or movie, they say “based on a true
story” but they never really tell you what it means. How much of it is a
true story? All of it but they changed the name of the character for
privacy issues? Or is it that the story happened in a small town in
Pennsylvania and that’s the only part that’s true and everything else is
made up. It just drives me nuts. It’s one of those things that makes
me scratch my head sometimes.
It’s like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It says based on a
true story, but the only true part was there was a killer that wore
people’s faces. It wasn’t with a chainsaw, there wasn’t a whole family
of crazies. It wasn’t even in Texas.
Exactly. But it’s “based on a true story”. Haha. Then you have
“loosely based on a true story”, that’s just making things up. Why even
bother saying it’s based on a true story? People give me weird looks
when I go off on those tangents. But it’s one of the things I think
about.
I feel your pain. I have a strong physics background, so
movies like Mission Impossible drive me nuts. I’ll yell “GRRRR THAT
CAN’T HAPPEN!” and everyone thinks I’m nuts.
Tia says the same thing. She says I ruin movies when I say things
like “ya know, I don’t know why the right side of that car is all mashed
up. He was getting rammed on the left hand side. The left hand side
should have been messed up.” And she’ll just tell me to shut up and
enjoy the movie. One of the funnier ones is the movie Troy with Brad
Pitt. I guess there’s a plane flying by in a shot. Good job editing
that.
With TnC comics, what’s your ultimate goal with the strip?
Ideally, I’d like to get it printed. The whole idea of it was to
pass something down to the grandkids when Tia and I got old. “look!
Grandma and grandpa were in the comics!” But the positivity I’ve gotten
from it has been so overwhelming, so I’ll take it as far along as I
can. I’m not looking to make any money on it. I’m not going to be Bill
Watterson [creator of Calvin & Hobbes] or Jim Davis [creator of
Garfield] or anything. If I can get some books made and people actually
want them, I’d be willing to do any of that. I’m working on a
kickstarter to hopefully cover some of the financials of getting a book
made.
With Eryck Webb doing the artwork for the strips, how long
does it take him to do the 4 stories for the month and get them to you?
It takes him about a week. He’s got other projects going on as well.
It basically comes down to me sending him the 4 scripts and he sends me
back a rough draft. I ask him for any changes I need, which is pretty
seldom. He and I are on the same page for the most part. So it goes
really smoothly. He sends me the rough draft. I’ll OK them. And a few
days later, he sends me the final copy. Then I have the hardest job of
all. I have to hang on to them for a month without showing people.
Then hand them out every Friday like candy.
Since you’ve started doing the strip, have you noticed the audience growing and growing?
Ya know. I do it for me. But at the same time its nice to know that
people enjoy it. They say not to worry about it and just do it because
you like to do it. But everyone wants to be accepted and everyone wants
to be known for being good at something. So every week I get a few new
likes on Facebook. And just this month, my friend Scott has helped me
set up TnCcomics.com We’ve got those two venues going, we have twitter,
deviantart, and I also post on different forums. So I try to get it
out there. I like it and everyone else seems to like it. So I want as
many people as possible to see it.
I like it because it keeps the G-rating and unlike a lot of
comics in the newspaper, it’s still funny. Having a wife that is not
part of geek culture, I read it and say “this could be my wife and me”
The G-rating, I do that because I want everyone to be able to enjoy
it and read it. I don’t want to alienate anyone. I wish I could go more
than a G-rating because I have a whole lot of material I could talk
about. But I think it might ruin the innocence of the comic strip. You
can’t get into serious topics or adult conversation and then come back
with Colby playing with a bearded dragon. That’s two different things
and two different areas. I try to keep it fun and innocent and go from
there.
What does your family think about the comic? Do they find it funny?
Yeah. My brother is usually the first one I hear from every week. He
always says “I can totally see you doing that”. And my sister-in-law
will tell me “I’d me mad if I was Tia. There’s no way Clayton would get
away with that.” Everybody seems to like it. The only complaints I’ve
heard was in the beginning when I was doing the coloring. Some people
said the coloring looked a little plain. Then Eryck took over the
coloring chore with TnC #10. So I guess I fixed the only complaint.
For this years San Diego Comic Con, they gave you a professional badge.
SUCKERS!
Ha. How did that make you feel when you got that notice?
Actually I was proud. It was almost like having another baby. Like I
said, I was doing it for fun. And my friend Walden Wong, who inks for
Marvel right now, was like “you can go, you’re a professional now”. I
just make comic strips on the internet, that shouldn’t matter. But he
said it does, and he believed in me enough to file all my paperwork and
make me flyers to pass out at San Diego Comic Con. He did all that. And
I got the thing that said congratulations you’ve been accepted as a
professional at SDCC, I thought it was pretty cool. I can’t wait to get
the badge that says “Cory Matthews” and has TnC Comics underneath. I’ll
probably frame it because I’m a goofball like that. I figure if I can
get into comic con, I can get in everywhere now.
With newspapers dying off and the comic strips moving online,
has that been helpful because of more outlets or harder because of
competition?
It works both ways. In one way its easier because there’s a lot of
people that have submitted to have their comic syndicated and be told
they’re not good enough. There’s a lot of talented people out there.
So they have a bigger outlet to get their comics seen. And with all of
these print-on-demand outlets, it makes it easier for people to get
their stories out there. And there’s a lot of great stories that I’ve
found that I would never have found if I was just looking in the
newspapers. It’s really sad because I enjoy getting the Sunday paper and
reading my comics. That’s something I grew up with, getting the Sunday
paper and reading the comics. Now that newspapers are slowly dying out,
that’s sad. But now there’s more options out there. Where before you
could only find a comic you like in the paper, now you can find a comic
you like anywhere on the internet.
What’s been the best moment of doing the comic so far?
This. This is pretty cool. This, getting my comic con badge. Just
knowing there’s other people out there that are doing it and are willing
to help. Its been like a brotherhood. There’s websites I’ve gone to
like webcomicalliance.com and justthefirstframe.com and they’re there to
help people. It’s not cutthroat. They’re not trying to shove you out
of the way to get their comic more out there. There’s so much room that
they get their comics out there, then scoot over a little bit and let
you put your ideas on the table too. So finding out you’re not alone is
pretty cool. Finding out you don’t have to be super successful to be
successful. If that makes sense.
It’s kind of cool with the geek culture. Most people help
each other out. I see that with my site. Bigger sites helping me out
and giving me suggestions.
That’s what’s nice. People make it seem that if you’re a geek or a
nerd, you’re a shut in. You live in your mom’s basement and play on the
internet and play video games and have all of this seclusion. Except
it’s almost totally the opposite. Through the internet, I’ve been able
to branch out and made friends with people all the way to Virginia
[editor note: Cory lives in the Northwest US] who do web comics. Chris
Flick [capesnbabes.com] is one of them. He’s 3 time zones away and he
still doesn’t care that I bother him for ideas or tips or to pick his
brain. So I’ve been able to make friends that I would never have been
able to make before if I hadn’t been nerdy enough to spend time on the
internet.
Is there anything you want to add?
I wouldn’t change anything. I got a great artist in Eryck Webb.
I’ve got terrific people willing to help in Byron Wilkins, Chris Flick,
Dawn from webcomicsalliance. I’m just having a blast. I can’t believe
that a one-strip comic that I was going to use to just tease my wife
with is something that I’m being interviewed about and considered a
professional at San Diego Comic Con for. It’s the Superbowl of Comic
Conventions.
Through you, I got to work with Eryck Webb. If you’re on the
site, he did the logo and the little character that he dubbed
Nerdgasmo. That was all done by Eryck. For me, he was fantastic to work
with. Through a couple emails, he had an amazing grasp of what I was
looking for. He send over 8 samples and through a composite of them
all, he knew exactly what I wanted and did a fantastic job.
That’s what I love about Eryck. It’s not like “here’s your work now
go away”. He makes himself available through email and he web streams
artwork. So some nights I sit back and watch the live stream. It’s
awesome to be able to watch the artwork being done from a blank piece of
paper, to a sketch to pencil lines to color to lettering. And you see
it all come together. To me at least, that’s really entertaining.
That’s part of the reason I went with him. It wasn’t just a job, but
something he really enjoys doing. That’s what I was looking for,
somebody that would enjoy doing it too. So I enjoy working with him.
He doesn’t make it a black box. It’s not like “here’s your work”. He involves you through the whole process.
He has been so helpful because he has his own comic. He does a web
comic he puts out called Jumping Boy. Me being new at it, I get emails
from him saying “are you sure you want to do it like this? It might be
better this way” and he’s right. So we go that way. It goes back to
what I was saying. In web comics, everybody helps everybody. It makes
it fun. It’s not stressful. It’s fun.
Being friends aside, it’s a really good comic that I look forward to.
Yeah. Every Friday. I haven’t missed one yet. In May, I think, it will be one year and we haven’t missed one Friday.
You even took the comic version of you on vacation with you.
Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Eryck was nice enough
to draw Tia and I in vacation clothes and I printed it out and did a
little cut out and brought it with us to the Caribbean. So we got TnC
in Honduras in some Mayan ruins. I thought it was something fun to do.
No matter where we go, TnC is coming with us.
Any final words?
Thank you for the interview. Thank you to Eryck Webb for being a
great artist. Thank you to all the people who have helped me so far.
Thank you to all the people who will help me when my Kickstarter project
goes up. I figure after that 30 days of the kickstarter project
everyone is going to hate me for bombarding them.