Drunken Fools Interview – Part 1

Antoine Gagnon takes the hot seat to answer questions about his humour webcomic ‘The Drunken Fools!‘

Q1: What is ‘The Drunken Fools’ about?

A1: The Drunken Fools is a webcomic where sobriety is overrated.

It all started with four friends in their mid-thirties, refusing to give up their college years of partying and boozing. But, it doesn’t end there for these guys. One of them, Spike, has been assigned a very Guardian Angel called Stubby to right his ways… it just happens to be a very powerful skunk.

Boozing jokes with a bit of fantasy… fiction or reality?

Q2: What’s so funny about being drunk?

A2: Dunno, don’t remember!

Q3: Are you an off the wagon, on the sauce, fully paid up member of the Blackout Brigade and perminent resident at the Hooch Hotel or what?
[Translation: Are you a boozer or does you inspiration come from another sauce… erm, source?]

A3: I am actually a member of the Former Kidnapped Kids League (FKKL). Our group is a bunch of people who suffered kidnapping and tortured by the Trolololo Song; these tortures were done by a group of Warriors mounted on Electrical Zippers. After a riot we finally escaped and since then we are asking for retaliation. Rumor says these warriors are being funded by the Bobana Corporation.

[Translation: They say we always write what we know best. In fact, one of the character, Billy, was based on me while the three others (Spike, Steve & Regis) were based on real life friends. So you could say I was a boozer back in the days and funny enough, getting older and reducing the amount of alcohol are making me rethink what I want to write about while trying to keep the “Drunken Fools” brand.]

Note: While writing the first part of my answer, I actually just got an idea for a potential chapter. Damn I love creativity!

Q4: So you’ve had a rethink? What have you rethunk?

A4: Well, it’s complicated (at least in my head) and a bit long. I started to draw only in September 2008 and the Drunken Fools was my first comic ever. Instead of drawing in the dark, I decided to launch the webcomic right away. I never had a plan at the beginning, the characters were me and my friends and the original chapter was a true story (a bit exaggerated). But I had zero writing experience, same with drawing. I was drawing as the idea was popping in my head.

Then I brought the Guardian Angel idea where an entity would be protecting Spike (the real drunk of the guys) but at this point, I wasn’t sure if that guardian angel would be real or a simple drunken hallucination. Then after the guardian appeared i different forms (a coffee mug, a pink elephant, etc..) I decided to run a contest to give an official name to that “angel”. Kurt Sasso (TGTmedia.com) participated and came up with Stubby the skunk. But he didn’t just provided a name, he actually provided a background story (Special Powers, Parallel Universe, etc…).

And then all Hell broke loose and Chapter 6 came where Spike became The Incredible Drunk (Hulk parody). Kurt started to write with me and I even have a 60 pages script in development right now (for like 2 years) on Stubby’s life in his own universe.

After Chapter 6, we (Kurt and I) went for a normal Drunken and Hockey story, without Stubby but I quickly realized I would be missing the “Fantasy portion” of the comic and then, decided to stop for a while and try to redefine what I wanted to do. It came as far as letting the Drunken Fools go completely.

That was back in October (great way to celebrate a 3 years anniversary…). Since then I did a Drunk Heroes series (single pages parodying our favorite Super Heroes) and I’ve been enjoying other geek stuff other than making a comic.

I’ve been more in a writing mode for the past two months. With numerous projects (comics) and ideas not related to the Drunken Fools until very recently, when I had a dream with a great idea where I could bring back The Drunken Fools and the Fantasy to their world. Actually, it may go as far as Sci-Fi, History, etc… But this time, I want to do it properly. I want to plan ahead, write, read, re-read, review, re-review, etc… I don’t want to write a page an draw it anymore. Does that make sense? I may not publish any drawing until 6 months, I don’t know. I am drawing in the background, but I’m mostly writing nowadays.

But the key thing is: after asking myself what I wanted to do, I finally found it, and The Drunken Fools will be coming back, but their life will change drastically. I want to add drama to it as well. And the brilliant idea I had will allow me to explore different genre within the same comic and I would even be able to incorporate some ideas I had that may have not been related to the Drunken Fools originally.

And now I think I have said too much already, next thing I’ll know, you’ll be asking for spoilers!

Q5: Eh-heh! Spoilers?

A5: You will have to do better than that if you want me to release any information such as a main character dying!

..

DOH!

CLICK FOR PART 2 OF THIS DRUNKEN FOOLS INTERVIEW