Interview With Webcartoonist Brad Guigar

If you are into webcomics, then you have probably heard of Brad Guigar. He sat down to talk about Evil Inc., the future of comics on the web and how being NSFW is paying off.

It is safe to say that Brad Guigar has forgotten more about webcomics than most people are ever going to know.

The Philadelphia-based cartoonist is considered a pioneer of webcomics, a mainstay of the medium for over a decade. He has helped write two books about them, gives lectures and has offered a boot camp about creating them.

The buisiness of webcomics has seen massive changes in the last few years, with the advent of Kickstarter and Patreon, so of course Brad Guigar has been right at the forefront. He recently completely revamped and rebooted his comic Evil Inc. and has cultivated a large following for his NSFW strip Evil Inc. After Dark.

Brad Guigar was nice enough to sit down and discuss the changes to the webcomics landscape, how he has adjusted to the changes and the reality of creating webcomics in the age of social media.

Bam! Smack! Pow!: For those unlucky few who may have never heard of you, give us the secret origin of Brad Guigar and Evil Inc.

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Brad Guigar: Mild-mannered Brad Guigar was a kid who grew up knowing that he wanted to be a cartoonist more than anything else. It was his One Thing. But this was the 1990s, and comic-strip publishing was limited to newspapers — and the syndicate that provided those newspapers with content. And the syndicates had rejected several of his submissions. But by the early 2000s, the Internet had crested, and self-publishing took a tremendous leap forward. He posted his first comic strip (Greystone Inn) on Feb. 14, 2000, beginning a journey of posting between 5 and 6 strips a week for the next 15 years.

“Greystone Inn” gave way to “Evil Inc” in 2005, and this year, he has curtailed the 5-strip-a-week schedule in favor of a digital graphic novels that is posted in installments, twice a week.

Along the way there was Courting Disaster, a cartoon that accompanied a newspaper sex-advise column, Phables, a full-page comic about everyday life in Philadelphia (which was nominated for an Eisner Award), The Webcomics Handbook, a digital-self-publishing how-to book for cartoonists, Webcomics.com, and a few podcasts such as Webcomics Weekly and Surviving Creativity.

BSP: You recently overhauled the way you present Evil Inc. on the web, rebooting the entire strip in the process. What led to this decision?

BG: It was a pretty amazing convergence of several factors last year.

First… around late 2014 / early 2015, practically everybody and their mothers installed an ad blocker on their browser. So in January 2015, I opened the year making less than half of what I made in January 2014. And it just got worse from there on in.

I used to run ads from three different ad networks. The monthly check from one of those networks used to pay my mortgage. Now, it barely covers the electric bill. And the other two are pizza-and-beer-money small.

Next… I noticed some other cartoonists were offering NSFW versions of their comic strips exclusively for readers who were subscribing to this content through Patreon.com.

Now, I had already started a Patreon campaign for Evil Inc, and it had plateaued at a few hundred bucks for about seven months. When I pitched a NSFW version of Evil Inc, my Patreon earnings tripled by the end of the month. And I had only posted one proof-of-concept strip.

Evil Inc. After Dark

When I tried expanding that strip into a longer story, the support grew even higher. When I introduced an uncensored version of Courting Disaster, it grew higher yet. Ditto with offering to do NSFW commissions.

In other words, Patreon became the conduit through which my readers could tell me what kind of comics they really wanted from me — and it was a far cry away from the newspaper comic strip I had been doing for 15 years.

I listened to them, and prepared to divert more of my work day towards NSFW comics. AND THAT meant it would be very difficult to continue doing a five-day a week comic strip. In fact, it meant that I had to financially justify to myself continuing the strip at all!

So I decided to reboot the strip entirely. I restated the storyline, and re-imagined the story as a graphic novel instead of the strip. This meant I had to stop self-syndicating my strip to the few newspapers that carried it. But it also meant initiating a completely new approach to writing and producing the strip. I could correct some writing errors I had made since starting the story in 2005 — and let’s face it, I learned a lot about writing during those years… mostly be making mistakes and learning from them. This was an excellent chance to put that trial-and-error learning to use.

Evil Inc is now chugging along a 22-page story outline, which updates one page a week (usually a half-page on Tuesday and a half-page on Thursday). Evil Inc After Dark, the NSFW version of Evil Inc updates exclusively on Patreon on a 1-page-a-week schedule. Along with all of the other NSFW (and SFW) content I post on Patreon, I average more than one exclusive post for every day of the month for the people who support me through Patreon.com/guigar.

BSP: Do you feel that the day of the traditional three or four panel comic strip, even on the web, is done?

BG: No way. It’s an incredibly powerful format. If I were just starting out, trying to build an audience, I’d be doing a comic strip, and updating as often as possible.

The daily comic strip is a nearly perfect construct to attract and keep readers for a very simple reason: It’s addictive.

Positive reinforcement is when you reward a subject for a desired behavior. It’s tremendously strong. You can get a mouse to press a little bar in the cage when you deliver a food pellet after the desired the action. Simple enough, right? Press bar/get food. Who wouldn’t press that bar, right? And if you keep delivering the food every time the mouse hits the bar, you’ll get great results. But if you neglect to deliver the food a certain number of times, the mouse will stop pressing the bar.

But what if you delivered the food pellet at a variable rate? Something interesting happens after the mouse has learned the behavior: If the pellet gets delivered inconsistently, the mouse starts pounding on that bar more than ever! And as long as the food doesn’t stop entirely, that mouse is a bar-pounder for life. Because the next pellet might just be one more bar-press away.

Variable-rate positive reinforcement has a very high response rate and a very low rate of extinction. Slot machines work on this very principle.

The challenge that today’s cartoonist has is that the average Web reader is getting variable positive reinforcement from any number of social-media sites… and they’re not out trawling the Web, looking for new “pellets.” And that variable reinforcement is coming in a steady stream of content that’s flowing past the readers’ eyes.

You have to be very social-media savvy to be successful in self-publishing right now.

The rebooted Evil Inc.

BSP: Have you received any blowback from the decision to reboot Evil Inc? I’m sure at least some fans weren’t too happy to see the changes.

BG: My fans are among the most supporting, kind, reasonable people on the Web. No joke.

I’ve received a couple of emails from people who didn’t like it, but our discussions have always been reasonable and polite.

I’m sure some of them have quietly walked away. Some of them are sticking with it… for now. My analytics tells me that I’m doing a good job of retaining my readers and adding new ones to the mix. And that’s the best I can hope for.

BSP: How much of a game changer has Patreon been to webcomics in general and you and the way you work specifically?

BG: Are you kidding me? Patreon has been the single-biggest influence in independent comics since Kickstarter. Between the two, it’s a completely different landscape than the one we occupied even three years ago.

Right now, my days are devoted to keeping my Patreon backers pleased with the content they get for their pledges.

I do the public-facing Evil Inc Web site — largely — as a promotion for the Patreon content. It’s still important — and the graphic novels that are going to result from this work are going to be spectacular. But if I’m in a situation in which I have to choose which one to spend my time on, my Patreon work takes the highest priority.

That’s mind-blowing to me.

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BSP: You have made no secret that Patreon and the revenue it provides has changed the way you think about Evil Inc. What in your opinion makes it different from readers having to pay a subscription?

BG: Nothing. That’s exactly what it is — the way I use it.

The beauty of Patreon is that it can be used different ways by different types of artists.

BSP: Evil Inc. After Dark, your very NSFW comic strip, has taken on a life of its own since you started posting them. Can you see a day where you abandon the regular Evil Inc strip to just work on After Dark?

BG: I would hope not.

But I just wrote a blog post yesterday encouraging fans of the PG-13 version of the strip to become Patreon backers — even at the $1 and $5 per month levels. That sounds silly. I mean, they’re not going to even notice one dollar being deducted from their credit/debit cards. But all those $1 and $5 pledges add up in a big, big way.

At the end of the day, I’m a businessman. And doing comics is how I help provide for our family. This is my full-time job. I have to do whatever my readers willing to support.

If there’s too little support for the PG-13 Evil Inc — and overwhelming support for the NSFW version of the comic — then I’d be foolish to take time away from one to do the other.

BSP: Will we ever see Evil Inc. After Dark print collections?

BG: Absolutely. I have enough to launch a print collection right now. I am Kickstarting the ninth Evil Inc graphic novel as we speak. Once that’s out of the way, I’ll be able to turn my attention to an EiAD print collection.

BSP: Speaking of which, you recently launched the Kickstarter for your ninth Evil Inc. collection. What will someone get if they decide to back the project?

BG: Aside from my everlasting admiration?

Aside from the usual — like digital and print versions of the graphic novel, they can get Artist Editions (where I draw a special illustration inside the front cover), copies of past volumes, original art, commissioned illustrations, and all sorts of great stuff!

BSP: If anyone has listed to your Hey Comics… Kids! podcast, they know it sounds like you guys are having a blast. Is it as much fun to record as it is to listen to?

BG: We’re in our third year! My sons wanted to record a podcast. So we decided that it would be cool to record the conversations we have during our 20-minute ride to school. It has turned into such a great experience. They even hosted their own panel at Wizard World Philly last year!

More superheroes and comics: nterview With Lee Bermejo And Alessandro Vitti

BSP: So give everyone the elevator pitch why they should read and support Evil Inc.

BG: Evil Inc is a corporation run by super-villains (and you thought your boss was evil). If you can remember when superhero comics were actually fun to read — you’re in for a treat. And if you can’t, you’re in for a revelation.

Better still, since this is a full-on reboot, this is the PERFECT time to jump into the story!

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