BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO Nadia is a motorcycle courier trying to make ends meet, whose real world crosses over with a fantasy "otherworld" in Ramon Perez's Transmission X webcomic, Kukuburi. Perez told THE PULSE, "In Kukuburi, there are no limitations, no rules. It’s a place for my imagination to run wild and unfettered and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do."
THE PULSE: If I were reading about your life story, what would some of the highlights of your creative career include?
RAMÓN PEREZ: I’ve been freelancing as an artist in various genres for about 13 years. I first made my name by working on rpg’s and ccg’s. In which time I had the pleasure of working on such great series as RIFTS, STAR WARS, D&D, IN NOMINE, LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS and MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS amongst many others. While I still dabble in gaming illustration from time to time, I’ve moved on to working in children’s books, editorial illustration and comics, which has always been my first love. So much so in fact that through Palladium Books, the creators of RIFTS rpg, I wrote and illustrated the serialized comic MACHINATIONS OF DOOM back in 1999 which has recently been collected into one nice graphic novel.
My fledgling comic career has been a bit sporadic. A few of my early projects included pencilling Marvel’s HULK: GAMMA GAMES, inking THE INCREDIBLES movie adaptation for Dark Horse and doing the art on SPELLGAME, for the now defunct Speakeasy Comics. My most recent stand out project was illustrating DEGRASSI: EXTRA CREDIT V2 written by J. TORRES, which was great fun. Especially the fringe benefits of meeting the actors from the series and visiting the sets. It was a nice little behind the scenes peek into the production of a TV show.
Currently, aside from my regular installments of BUTTERNUTSQUASH and KUKUBURI, I’m pencilling and inking an upcoming Wildcat arc written by B. Clay Moore for DC’s JSA: CLASSIFIEDS.
THE PULSE: What made you want to be a part of Transmission-X? How was this different from other webcomics collectives?
PEREZ: Actually I’m one of the founding fathers of TX. It began with a handful of us sitting around and talking about how we wanted to get our ideas out there, especially to the general public. The original inception was the idea of an anthology magazine. But after some quick thought the low overhead and wider visibility of the web made that avenue much more appealing.
The reason I never launched with the premiere of TX was that I was just too busy creating the site and interfaces for all the members, that the time I allowed for the creation of KUKUBURI became non-existent.
Being part of DAYFREE PRESS, another webcomics collective, with BUTTERNUTSQUASH I can say the main differences that sets TRANSMISSION-X aside from other collectives is that we all share a studio together, or at least see each other on a regular basis. So there’s a real friendship and camaraderie in the collective that I think many other web groups don’t have because their members are usually dispersed all over the continent or the world. This group dynamic also allows us to run out story ideas and concepts by each other to receive immediate feedback and critiques.
THE PULSE: How did you come up with Kukuburi? What inspired this story?
PEREZ: The first inklings for KUKUBURI first percolated to the surface of my mind at the 2005 TCAF. I was sitting beside Matt Forsythe (creator of Ojingogo) and was inspired by all the doodles he was doing for his fans. Little oddities straight out of his imagination. No holds barred.
Later that summer while I was at the 2005 MoCCA Festival sharing table space with Chip Zdarsky, who was in our studio at the time, I began sketching out strange little things inspired by Matt’s doodles from earlier in the summer. I then began to sketch out the main character, Nadia, which I made a girl cause, well, I like drawing girls and I just don’t seem to do it enough! Before I knew it characters were forming and their stories around them.
THE PULSE: Why did you want to use a motorcycle courier? We've seen a few of them in comics lately ... what sets yours apart?
PEREZ: I can’t really say what sets Nadia apart from these other characters as I’m unfamiliar with who they are. With Nadia, I wanted to create the everyday girl going through her life, doing her joe job to make ends meet. She has aspirations but is stuck in the grind of the real world, having to pay her bills and debt never really able to get ahead but always looking for the big break. The opportunity to better and more exciting things. So when this opportunity, as strange as it may be, finally occurs, is it something she really wants?
The three main reasons I made her a motorcycle courier was because first off I love scooters, the classic Vespas in particular, and I really wanted to draw one! The secondary reason is that I think the maze of a city’s streets and her winding her way through them on her scooter is a great microcosm for the rat race that life can become. The final reason is living in a big city I get everywhere on my bike and can translate my adventures to her. I’ve had some close calls (I will admit I push the envelope when riding through traffic) and accidents where a car has plowed into me and sent me careening through the air!
THE PULSE: Who, if anyone, did you base her on?
PEREZ: The inspiration for Nadia came from a few different sources, some of which I can mention others which I can’t. I think as an artist one draws what one likes and, well, I’ve always had this penchant for that slightly punky skater girl look. Girls with a stronger sense of individual style. Personality wise, she has a little bit of my own attitudes, as well as an amalgam of some girls I’ve dated in the past. Any other elements are my little secret.
THE PULSE: What were some of the challenges of coming up with her "dream world" that would set it apart from some other places of that sort?
PEREZ: I think the dream world, or fantasy landscape, is a scenario that’s been done so many times that it’s really difficult to come up with something new. I mean some of the elements I’ve thrown in already such as flying whales and floating islands are a bit of a cliché. But when creating this otherworld in KUKUBURI I wasn’t setting out to create something new, I was rather creating a blank canvas where I could throw any idea I had and it would work, because here there were no rules. So if I suddenly get the inclination to draw a one legged migglenag that breathes fire and talks in riddles I can, because in KUKUBURI there are no limitations, no rules. It’s a place for my imagination to run wild and unfettered and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.
THE PULSE: Who or what is influencing your art the most in these strips?
PEREZ: I wanted the art in KUKUBURI to have a more modern cartoon feel, to achieve this I changed the way I ink the work. Whereas in most of my art I ink using a brush, with KUKUBURI I’m using tech-pens to give the lines a dead weight almost vector art feel. Choices such as the word balloon being solid white with out an outline, or the panels having rounded corners are deliberate to push the modern feel. Also, with my layouts I’m attempting to push the perspective and panel view points a bit more than in your standard comic strips.
Inspiration wise, aside from Matt Forsythe whom I mentioned earlier, I would say I'm drawing on artists like Sean ‘Cheeks’ Galloway and my good bud J.Bone. Both of these guys have a brilliant use and economy of line and have really pushed style and shape in their art, exactly the things I’m trying to achieve in KUKUBURI.
THE PULSE: How is working on a webcomic different from working on traditional print comic books?
PEREZ: To be honest I tackle both in quite the same way. I think a good comic whether it be in print or on the web has to hook you into coming back for more. You have to keep the readers interest constantly. Admittedly this is a little more daunting in a webcomic than in print, as print can be a little more forgiving as you have, as in a pamphlet comic, 22 pages to hook the reader. With the web every installment, which most commonly is one page, you have to have a strong enough hook to bring the reader back the following week.
THE PULSE: How is working on Kukuburi different from what you did with Butternutsquash?
PEREZ: Well Butternutsquash is alive and well, so it’s a “do” rather than a “did.” That said, with BUTTERNUTSQUASH, Rob and I are doing a newspaper punch-line style strip. While the development of the characters are important the overall progression of a story is secondary. Though we do try to have over-arching story lines (as with the current one where Rob has been in a coma) the punch-line gag is what we are trying to achieve at the end of the day.
With KUKUBURI, my goal is the overall story. I want the readers to grow and empathize with Nadia as she goes through her day to day and at the same time deals with this otherworld and the ramifications it will bring. I am also attempting to create a musical flow, a sense of rhythm and beats, through KUKUBURI.
The more obvious difference between the two is that BUTTERNUTSQUASH is a somewhat autobiographical comic whereas KUKUBURI is straight up fiction. Rob and I have always said that 90% of the content is truth, and 10% embellishment. Which seems to concern people a little.
THE PULSE: What have been some of the challenges to sticking with your schedule for Kukuburi? How far ahead are you in the series?
PEREZ: Having done BUTTERNUTSQUASH as a weekly updated strip for the past four years I have learned the importance of sticking to a schedule. There have been numerous times in the past when BUTTERNUTSQUASH fell by the wayside where we were unable to update for weeks or months do to personal life or financial obligations, and we lost readers because of it. The web is a very fickle place. So this is something I’m desperately trying to avoid happening again with either comic.
In a perfect world I try to keep a buffer of a few weeks, though sometimes life gets in the way and suddenly that buffer has disappeared and you’re up late drawing the following days update. As I lost my buffer on both KUKUBURI and BUTTERNUTSQUASH due to a rigorous convention and work schedule this past summer, I am currently in the process of illustrating the next half dozen updates and rebuilding that safety zone. Script wise I have plotted about 6 months ahead.
THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on?
PEREZ: As I mentioned above I’m currently working on a Wildcat arc for DC’s JSA: Classified which should be premiering in early 2008. Other small editorial work aside, which I’m also constantly working on interspersed throughout larger projects, the only other personal project of mine that is getting my attention is a pulp noir tale set in the post-war era of the late 1940s. More on that another day...
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