Mick Beyers started his webcomic Buster Drake in April and has been busy posting updates three days a week. Beyers took some time from his schedule to answer some questions for us.

What are you working on now comics-wise?

So, besides desperately trying to keep up with my web-comic, which isn’t working out as well as I had hoped, I’m working on a ten-page story for an anthology being put together by an online group. I’m also trying to write up a second web-comic, one that I wouldn’t draw.  Buster Drake is more of a learning project, I don’t have any specific goals with it, but this second project is much more of a vanity thing that I’m excited about, and want to say something with.

How’s your comic output been the last year? What’s helped or hindered your output?

Considering that the year before my output was zero, it’s gone up immeasurably.  The three things that have helped the most are, in order of occurrence, not necessarily importance, the last 24-Hour Comic Day, finding the ICCW online community, and the Webcomics Weekly Podcast.

This was my second 24 Hour Comic, and learning from my numerous mistakes the first year, I went into the event with a solid plan of what I wanted to do, and then watched it all fall apart. It taught me that I hate doing backgrounds, and that a full page is way too much real estate for my artistic inclinations.  A strip I can handle.  Its small, compact, and after you do the figure work, there’s not much room left for backgrounds.

ICCW is a social networking site I stumbled upon last September maybe, maybe earlier or later than that, I have no idea.  But it was started by some guy in Kansas City, and about five or six months after he started it up, it’d already put out one anthology, and had a good start on a couple of more.  Being on the site everyday, and constantly chatting with the people there, served as a constant reinforcement to keep drawing.  Left to my own devices, I have no self-motivation.

Through ICCW someone pointed me to Webcomics Weekly, and the podcast has become something of a self-help tape for me.  I’ve listened to all of them, and then I listen to all of them again.  And it was listening to those podcasts on endless repeat that I decided to do something with the Buster Drake strips I had already completed, instead of just letting them gather dust.

Read any good comics, webcomics, or graphic novels lately?

Comicswise, the only thing I’ve been reading in addition to my regular Superman stuff, is Hellboy.  I really dig the mythology of it, and Mignola’s art.  I’ve noticed that the more Hellboy I read, the more black I try to put into my own strip.  And I’m nowhere near as good as Mignola.

How about other media anything good you like lately? (video, music, books, etc.)

Dashiell Hammet has been a recent obsession of mine, and some non-fiction books mainly pertaining to space travel. Hammet’s work is just so easy to read and so devilishly entertaining.  I’ll be sad when I finish his work.  The other thing that’s been peaking my interest lately is games.  I’m not by a nature a gamer, and I don’t really like to game a whole lot, but as a story-telling and entertainment medium, I would love to make a game.  I think it would be an incredibly effective way to add layers to stories and content, and engage readers into the work.  There’s a freeware program (www.blender.org,) that I’ve used on various occasions to create backgrounds and elements for my comics, that also has game creation ability.  I’m slowly but surely delving into that mine, with hopes of making something someday.

What inspired you to start Buster Drake as a webcomic?

I did originally conceive Buster as a Daily strip, and submitted it to the Tribune.  But it was very earlier, and I was understandably rejected.  I reworked it with the intent of submitting it again, but it would be so much work to draw 6 strips a week, I really don’t want to work that hard at it.  And I didn’t just want it to sit there doing nothing.  So between the peer pressure at ICCW and the ‘can-do’ attitude I cultivated from the Webcomics Weekly podcast, I decided, why the hell not?

Last Monday, Harvey Pekar died at the age of 70. A lifetime resident of Cleveland Ohio, his comic career had a couple of significant ties to Columbia Missouri:

• One of Harvey Pekar’s biggest sucesses came with the graphic novel Our Cancer Year, which was illustrated by local comic artist Frank Stack and came out in 1994.
• Pekar visited Columbia in 2003 for a showing of the American Splendor movie. While in town he met Heather Roberson, who he’d later collaborate with for the graphic novel Macedonia.

A recent Washington Post article has a few words from Frank Stack about Pekar’s passing. It was also mentioned by Pete Bland earlier this week, and a LA Times piece on Pekar is in today’s Columbia Tribune.

The Columbia Daily Tribune is currently running a contest to caption a comic by artist John Darkow. The captions must be entered by July 25th, and  the voting for the best caption will take place July 26th to August 8th. They are offering a couple of good prize packages for the Judges Choice and People’s Choice winners of the contest.

The United States Postal Service is releasing a Beetle Bailey stamp nationwide today as part of a series of Sunday Funnies stamps. The other characters getting stamps include Archie, Dennis the Menace, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. This year is the 60th anniversary of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, which has roots in Columbia Mo. because Mort Walker attended college at MU. Walker is celebrating Beetle Bailey’s 60th anniversary with special comic strips, a reader contest, art exhibits, and a commemorative book due in October.

The St. Louis Examiner has a short story by Elizabeth Lang covering different places to find comics in Mid-Missouri.

Gary Lister created an unusual Tiki version of Batman recently. Go check his blog to see the process of creating it.

The anthology features many up and coming cartoonists in its several volumes. If you think your work can pass the Grimalkin Press editors, you can submit a story to HIVE #5 by July 15th. It’s a quarterly anthology, so if you miss the deadline you might be able to submit to the next one.

Ingrid was also recently involved with publishing a zine anthology called i.e. that collects various prose, poetry and comics (including some comics from Chicagoan Jefffery Brown). If you’d like to get your hand on a free copy, you can get in contact with her.

The TRYPS theatre group will perform the play Annie Jr. July 15th – 18th at the Rock Bridge High Schools’ Performing Arts Center. The play is based on the Tribune Media Service comic strip that was cancelled in June after its 85 year run in newspapers. For more Annie related stuff, the Columbia Public Library has four Annie collections you can check out covering the strip from 1924 to 1933.

Here’s a jam from the June midmococo meeting.