ROFLCON III brought us many a delightful meme and comic culture fodder. Following the map in our choose-your-own-adventure guide, we found our way to the webcomic panel with Richard Stevens of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic and Sam Brown of Exploding Dog. The Q & A got bizarre (as only a self referential Internet conference can get), so I asked Richard to talk to us about the comic market, webcomics, toasters, pixel kittens and more.

Richard — thank you so much for joining us. Are you, in fact, a robot?
I identify as a robot, so I do believe you are supposed to give me the option of a robot bathroom due to the fact that we’re both in Massachusetts.

Sam Brown and R Stevens from ROFLCON informationPhone cam

We usually talk about comics that flop around your hand. While it is true that you can hold an iPad or laptop in your hand, your work does not start out with the intention of being printed. How have digital comic strips grown with you and your style?
I don’t really see a difference between paper and electronic comics as far as the writing and art goes. I don’t think that anyone who focuses on that divide is going to enjoy the next ten or twenty years.

If anything, I think we’re going to see comic books move closer to the webcomics model: Frequent updates published electronically, followed by more expensive permanent copies for the bookshelf.

Working digitally allows you to rapidly iterate ideas as if you were living some kind of high-concept Grant Morrison X-Men ruining secret laboratory so that only the strongest survive, break free, and imprint themselves on paper.

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