BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO
As some PULSE readers might know, PULSE contributor Luke Foster is also a comedian and loves funny comics. Now, he's trying to put his money where his mouth is and prove he can make comics just as hysterical as the ones he examined in his Make With The Funny Comics column. Foster told us a little about Moon Freight 3. He said, "This series takes place in a time in our future when humans have colonized the solar system, but have not gone farther than that out into space. There are no aliens, no interstellar starships, none of the things you normally see in science fiction. So really, I'm using science fiction as a backdrop and/or a vehicle for jokes without having to get into the heavier aspects of the genre, much like 'Battlestar Galactica' uses science fiction as a setting for what is, essentially, a war drama."


THE PULSE: We'll start at the beginning funny man, what is "Moon Freight 3?"

LUKE FOSTER: "Moon Freight 3" is my first actual comic, but I've been working around the peripheries of the comic book industry for a while now. I got my start here at the Pulse writing "Make With the Funny Comics," a weekly look at humorous comic books and comic strips in which I told people why the comics were funny and why they should read them. I'm also a member of the Nine Panel Nerds podcast, a weekly round table discussion of comic books and pop culture. I also try to do at least one short review or news piece a week for the Geek Syndicate web site, the official site of the Geek Syndicate podcast.

"Moon Freight 3" is a comedy/science fiction comic strip. It launched on Aug. 18, 2008, and updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the Web site http://moonfreight3.comicgenesis.com

"Moon Freight 3" is the story of Larry Forrest and Bolts, a guy in his early twenties and a robot who work on a cargo inspection station orbiting Mars, almost like another moon. Moon Freight stations orbit any planet or large moon where humans have colonies. They don't always get a lot of traffic, though, so the guys – particularly Larry – have to come up with different ways of staving off the boredom that comes with having a dull job. Larry is smart and well educated, but like many people his age, he got stuck in a job he really didn't want but really needed right after college and was never able to leave. The dull monotony of his job has left him almost perpetually bored, very uninspired, a TV addict, and a bit cynical. Bolts has tons of knowledge programmed into him but very little worldly experience, so he has an air of innocence to him. Larry and Bolts are best friends and balance each other. Larry is happy to educate Bolts, in either words or deeds, on all the things you can't learn in a textbook, and Bolts keeps Larry away from the brink of becoming a total lifeless blob of apathy and bitterness.

Larry and Bolts' boss, Eleanor Norvegicus-Smythe, is the main supporting character. She doesn't appear all the time, but does so more frequently than anyone who isn't Larry or Bolts. She's stuffy, officious, looks down on people she thinks are of a lower class than her, and is a sentient brown rat. All rats are self-aware in this comic. I explained how that happened in a story a few weeks ago.

THE PULSE: How did you come up with the idea for Moon Freight 3? How long have you been working on the ideas behind this series?

FOSTER: I first got the idea for "Moon Freight 3" in 2005. I wrote a bunch of scripts and tried to get a friend of mine to draw it, but unfortunately that never went anywhere. The idea never went away, though, and earlier this year I decided to just draw it myself. When I was a kid my goal for years was to become a cartoonist, but eventually gave up on that when I realized I wasn't a very good artist. So this year I picked up a pencil for the first time in a very long time and started drawing cartoons again. It took me a good couple of months to get back into the swing of things, and once I did I started drawing strips. But even after I did that I realized just how much I had to learn, things I couldn't learn until I started drawing actual comic strips. Which is why the art quality varies so greatly even in the short amount of time I've been doing the comic. And believe me, I'm still learning every day.

I don't remember the exact details of how the idea for this comic came about, but I do remember that, at the time, I was watching a lot of "Red Dwarf" on DVD (which I still do from time to time). I was watching one of the behind-the-scenes documentaries, and someone – I believe it was series co-creator Doug Naylor – said the key to making "Red Dwarf" a successful sitcom was to make sure the comedy was more prominent than the science fiction.

At the same time – I think – the other beginning idea of this strip began to germinate. I started thinking about how potentially humorous it would be to be one of the millions of guys in the background of a sci-fi movie or TV show. What would it be like to be an ordinary guy in space? To not be a great champion, or a destined hero, or the greatest starship captain in the universe? There's a lot more comedy to be had from an ordinary guy than from someone who's already better than everyone else.

The idea evolved somewhat from there, especially once I started seriously focusing on it this year. A lot of people my age seem to get stuck at a point where they have jobs they don't like, or don't inspire them, or were never what they planned to do with their lives. They're still trying to figure out how to achieve their goals or what they really want to do with their lives while doing the things they have to do to pay their bills. This may be incredibly cynical of me, but I can very easily see that not changing in the future, so when I'm writing this comic I try to imagine what it would be like to have that life, only in a world where robots and spaceships and clones are as common as the telephone.

I also occasionally use the strip to make jokes about pop culture, particularly TV and music, but I try to pick older stuff because it's already withstood the test of time. If I made a reference to a TV show or band that's here today and gone tomorrow, it could date the strip really quickly.

THE PULSE: Why, over other ideas you might have had, did you choose to develop "Moon Freight 3?"


FOSTER: Like I said, this was just an idea that stuck with me for three years. I've come up with ideas for other web comics, but those have all been consigned to the folders on my computer that I never open anymore.

THE PULSE: What were some of the biggest challenges to coming up with a way to make your idea unique and fresh within the confines of existing comic standards?

FOSTER: Well, with science fiction, so many ideas have been done to death or done better that you have to really pick unusual areas or ways to look at things to make them seem like something new. Luckily, this comic is also heavily comedic, so I can get away with things other people might not be able to do. But at the same time, since it's a sci-fi comedy, I can do a few wackier things that you might not be able to get away with in a more "traditional" comic.

This series takes place in a time in our future when humans have colonized the solar system, but have not gone farther than that out into space. There are no aliens, no interstellar starships, none of the things you normally see in science fiction. So really, I'm using science fiction as a backdrop and/or a vehicle for jokes without having to get into the heavier aspects of the genre, much like "Battlestar Galactica" uses science fiction as a setting for what is, essentially, a war drama.

Yes, I did just compare my comic to one of the finest shows ever produced for television. No, my head really isn't that big.

THE PULSE: Who or what influenced you the most as you were fleshing out each of your leads? Were any based on real people you know or celebrities? How did you incorporate the funny here?

FOSTER: While "Red Dwarf" was certainly an influence, I am consciously trying to make sure "Moon Freight 3" doesn't mimic that or any other science fiction comedies I like. For example, while Larry is far from a perfect guy, he doesn't have the extreme flaws that the characters from "Red Dwarf" have. Lister was such a disgusting slob it's amazing anyone would go near him and Rimmer was incredibly uptight, for example, and the crew of the Dwarf were all incredibly unqualified to be space heroes. Larry is supposed to embody the everyman, up to and including his plain-sounding name.

I also am a fan of other science fiction comedies like "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," and I appreciate their senses of humor, but again, I try really hard to make sure it doesn't look like I'm trying to lift things straight from them because it would be so easy for me to do. I guess you could say they influence me to be funny while being entirely unlike them. Would that make them anti-influences? Un-influences? I'm not even sure those are words.

I do read a lot of comic strips and web comics. I love "Get Fuzzy," "Pearls Before Swine," "Lio," and "Monty." On the web, I'm a big fan of "PVP," "Girls With Slingshots," "Penny Arcade," "Schlock Mercenary," "8-Bit Theater," "Striptease," and "Punch an' Pie." And I'm an incredibly huge fan of Kristofer Straub's body of work. He's doing three concurrent web comics right now: "Starslip Crisis," "Chainsawsuit," and "F Chords." The man is, seriously, a cartooning genius.

Larry, Bolts, and Eleanor aren't based on any particular people, but were instead originally based on character archetypes. To answer a question I'm sure is on many people's minds, I want to point out that Larry is not supposed to be a thinly veiled version of myself. I know our names sound kind of the same, but trust me when I say that was an accident. I was just trying to find an ordinary-sounding name for my lead character, and I abandoned his original name, Larry Rivers, when I discovere that was the name of an actual famous person from the 1920s. I changed "Rivers" to "Forrest" because they both sound like they come from nature. So yeah, two different people. Okay, he and I are both madly in love with Natalie Portman, but that's the only thing we have in common.

I started off working under the rough guideline that Larry would be the bored and slightly lazy one while Bolts would be the responsible one. They only started getting fleshed out as I realized they needed more differences in their personalities. Thus, Bolts has become a bit more wide-eyed and a bit less emotional than he was in early stories, although Larry is still how I envisioned him.

Eleanor is actually a replacement character for another guy I had created to be Larry and Bolts' boss. You always need an authority figure for your heroes to butt heads with, but the tough-as-nails military guy I originally had was really a one-note character and I was bored with him almost instantly. So one day while brainstorming I remembered a throwaway joke I wrote about rats being self-aware, and Eleanor sprang fully formed almost instantaneously. I love her so much more than her predecessor because she has so much more depth. There's just something funny to me about a talking rat acting like a snob. And besides, rats are way easier to draw.


THE PULSE: What are some of the biggest challenges to creating sympathetic characters, not just in the writing but also in their portrayal on the printed page?

FOSTER: Well, it's very easy to write characters that are completely likable and perfect in every way, but where's the fun in that? Comedy is about flaws, so if your characters don't have flaws they're not going to be very funny or interesting. But at the same time, you don't want to make them completely idiotic or a total jerk, because then you'll turn people off completely. The trick, I think, is to give them redeeming qualities that, even if they don't shine through every day, if you weighed them against their flaws, their good points would win out. Also, if a character is in a bad situation through no fault of their own, you can sympathize with their plight because we've all been there. Larry, for example, may be lazy and cranky and act like a jerk sometimes, but it's because he's stuck in a job he knows he's better than. Plus, he's got a sense of liberalism and a strong moral core that really shine through when it needs to, like when his friends are being treated badly.

THE PULSE: How would you describe "Moon Freight 3" to the non-traditional comics fan?

FOSTER: The tagline I seem to have adopted for this strip is "Larry. Bolts. Just a couple of guys. In space." That's a simple way of explaining everything I said in detail above.

THE PULSE: What are your goals with your webcomic? Are you looking at this as a stepping stone to something else ...?

FOSTER: My main goal was to have a comic of my own out there for people to read, so just having a comic out there at all means I've accomplished one of my goals. Beyond that I want to entertain people as I build an audience. I know I'm one of like three jillion web cartoonists out there, so believe me, I appreciate each and every person who thinks I'm funny enough or entertaining enough to take time out of their day to visit my site.

As far as long-term goals, it would be the coolest thing in the world to actually become a comic book writer. If I can improve my craft enough to one day write something for one of the Big Four publishers, great. But "Moon Freight 3" is my baby, and making it the best comic I can is my main priority.

THE PULSE: What did you find the most creatively freeing about working on "Moon Freight 3?"

FOSTER: First of all, since it's creator-owned, I can do whatever I want within the restrictions of the format, medium, and my sometimes-limited abilities as an artist. And as I'm sure many writer/artists will tell you, it's incredibly satisfying to have the ideas you have in your head get put on the page as close to how you envisioned it as possible without having to go through too many filters. Plus, I know any ideas I like I can keep, any ideas I don't like I can toss, and any ideas that I once thought were cool but later realize are crap I can toss midstream without wasting anyone's time or inconveniencing anyone but myself.

I also appreciate the discipline that comes with being the one guy behind this. It's up to me and me alone to set deadlines for myself and make sure I stick to them. Plus, I succeed and fail on my own merits. If I don't succeed, I know it's my fault and it's up to me to see what I'm doing wrong and fix it. But if I do, I can stand proudly by my work and know I'm not stealing credit from anyone else.

THE PULSE: How tough is it to get people notice "Moon Freight 3" on the web? Especially if you don't have an unlimited or even limited budget?

FOSTER: It's tricky, certainly. I definitely fall into the "limited budget" category, in that I have no budget for advertising, so I have to rely on word-of-mouth. I've plugged the comic to my friends, in my Livejournal, on Facebook, on my podcast and on a number of forums I go to, and the reader numbers have been ticking up slowly but steadily since I started. It's really just a matter of getting out to as many places as possible and spreading the word, and hoping your friends and readers tell their friends, too. It doesn't hurt to keep mentioning it to the people you know, but you run the risk of turning into "that guy," the guy who only talks to his friends when he wants them to do something for him. So unless you like spending your weekends alone, you've got to make sure you avoid that trap.

THE PULSE: How do you think talking about funny comics in your PULSE articles Make With The Funny Comics helped you create better comics?

FOSTER: Having to read a lot of funny comics really made me focus on why things are funny, not just that they are. While it helps from a technical perspective, it also cemented the fact that there are many, many ways to be funny, so the best way to do it is to find my own way of making people laugh.

THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on?

FOSTER: Mostly just the writing and podcasting I talked about at the beginning, for now. I do some occasional one-off comics, but I'm trying to focus on making "Moon Freight 3" the best comic strip I can right now. I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month last year that I'm in the process of self-publishing. That should be available for sale soon.
I also wrote most of a four-issue comic book mini-series last year, but it had a lot of the flaws that come with someone's first attempt at writing a comic book, so I'm planning on hacking apart most of it and rewriting it in a way I think is a lot better. But that's a project for farther down the road. I'm hoping as my storytelling improves with "Moon Freight 3," I'll be able to refine that mini-series and shop it around someday.

PULSE readers can learn more about this series here:
http://moonfreight3.comicgenesis.com