Decanter Banter: “Tastes like Jägerbombs and semen”

Ian Kaufman
Failure

Kyle: And welcome back to Decanter Banter.

Argus: You love birds, don’t you? Little-known fact.

K: That’s what these interviews should be. Just random shit. Specific questions, yes. But also…

A: Well, that’s the idea. I feel like the whole seriousness thing needs to go, and this can be part of that. We kind of touched on this earlier, but do you think web comics – or being a cartoonist in general – is a viable career at this time?

K: Well, in this economy… It’s fun to start sentences with that. But, in times like these, when people don’t have as much money, they do spend money on little pick-me-ups, like-

A: Chocolate.

K: Chocolate…

A: Seriously, I’ve read that during the depression, chocolate sales actually went UP.

K: Yeah. Little things: movie tickets, lipstick… Just little pick-me-ups that make people feel better – and comics are one of those things. There actually have been increasing comic sales, both for traditional print-based things, and also online comics. Selling books, t-shirts, those kinds of things.

A: Is that due to a recession, or just the rise of the internet?

K: Well, it really could be both. Web comics didn’t really start until the mid- nineties. But I’m willing to bet that it is based primarily on the current economic slump that we’re in.

A: Can you explain the title of the comic strip?

K: “Premise Beach” originally comes from a Kids in the Hall sketch. I just really like the phrase, so I took it. And they haven’t sued me yet.

A: Is there a deeper significance to the name?

K: There is no deeper significance. If I were starting the comic now with the characters I currently have, I would probably name it something else.

A: What would you name it?

K: I have no idea… Something with “failure” in the title, I think. Failure is a very strong motif.

A: Why is that?

K: Um… I don’t know. But I’m starting to feel like I should be on the couch instead of this chair.

A: No, but, in all seriousness. I mean, it’s about students –

K: Who haven’t been to class in, I think, a year and a half.

A: Are Dan and Yvette and the rest of the crew going to age, Doonesbury style, or are they going to stay students forever?

K: Oh, they age in real time. Like, in another year, Yvette’s going to graduate, the year after that Beth’s going to graduate, and I think two years after that Dan will graduate. That’s good, because they don’t seem to go to class a whole lot. A lot of it just seems to take place in coffee shops and bars.

A: So, how are they going to graduate if they never go to class?

K: Well, you just don’t see it. Why would you want to draw four panels of somebody sitting in class?

A: Are people ever upset about what happens in your comic? Do people ever come up to you and say, “I can’t believe Yvette didn’t get that girl,” or whatever?

K: Occasionally, yeah. But, trade secret – few know this, soon many will, perhaps. One rule: Yvette never gets laid. Or, if nothing else, Yvette doesn’t get laid until I do.

A: I don’t understand the distinction.

K: Don’t print that.

A: Can you talk about Yvette a little bit? I wasn’t going to go there because, for people who haven’t read the strip, it’s a little confusing. But she really intrigues me.

K: Well, Yvette’s first appearance was a response to Katy Perry’s first big hit, “I Kissed a Girl.” I felt that song was… ughh. It’s a very sort of “lipstick lesbian” kind of song, and I was offended by it. So in the first strip, I run into Yvette – I was a character at the time, I’ve been mercifully phased out. She says, some drunk girl just kissed me. And she is not all that impressed by some drunk chick who’s totally hetero putting her tongue in her mouth. I believe the quote is: “tastes like Jägerbombs and semen.”

K and A: [Sophomoric chuckling]

A: That may become the title of the article. If you play your cards right.

K: I felt it would be nice to write a character who just happened to be gay, and that would be just a secondary part of their character. You don’t see a whole lot of that in comics. I thought, write this character as someone who just happens to like gals. Since I’ve gotten rid of all the characters based on real-life people, I feel that Yvette has very much become the main character. She’s also become an analogue to myself, in a way. She says things that I would never, ever, ever say but that I would totally think. But I like her.

A: There’s an idea that really intrigues me that I’ve thought about quite a few times (more in relation to music): that mistakes can sometimes be the most beautiful thing. Don’t you tend to lose that, creating your comics on a computer?

K: Yes, but not necessarily. Scott Kurtz (author of of PvP, one of the most successful comics on the web right now) has said in the book that he co-wrote, “Making Webcomics,” make your work the best that you can, but allow for happy accidents. In traditional media, you ink it once. If you fuck it up, well, you start over or make the best of it. But in digital creation, you can go back. It’s a simple shortcut command, and that ink line is gone. But if you do something a little bit different and you like it, you keep it and build from that. When you look at how I draw my characters now, and how I drew them five years ago – or even one year ago – it’s completely different. And that’s because I’ve been building on those happy accidents.

A: The premise of the interview is that it’s been five years. What has that progression been?

K: The phrase “Mary Sue” refers to a character put into a certain fictional universe who is perfect in every sense of the word – you know, they get the girl, they have all these witty things to say. That’s what “Premise Beach” started off as; my own character was basically a Mary Sue. It’s come from that to real, three-dimensional characters, or as much so as I can make them. Characters that I care about, that other people do care about.

A: How does “Premise Beach” interact with the rest of your life?

K: The connection with my day-to-day life is not that big. I don’t go out and have wacky adventures. A lot of the stuff is more things that I think and would never in a million years act on. That seems to be what drives the characters.

A: What can people expect of “Premise Beach” in the near future?

K: In the near future, someone’s gettin’ pregnant. I’m not going to say who, but it’s kind of limited to one person, unless there’s rape.

A: …Are you serious?

K: No, no. No one will get pregnant in the next three years. I can guarantee that.

A: You can’t guarantee that! You never know what’s going to happen!

K: Ok, in the near future, someone’s going to get a girlfriend. We’ve got three single people, so someone has to get a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.

A: Is sexuality an important part of “Premise Beach”? Is that a theme?

K: It is a theme. That’s why I made Beth bisexual. Or she made herself bi. I think sexuality is an important thing and, you know, I am dealing with a college or university audience a lot of the time. Sexuality does work on a sliding scale – the Kinsey scale – and I thought it would be important to have a bisexual character.
I was going to deal with it in a few more comics than I did, and introduce “biphobia”, as it’s called. But I decided, why bother? Like, let’s just move on. Some people like all people, or they like whoever they’re attracted to. Let’s accept it and keep goin’. One character in the strip just likes girls – that’s cool. I can dig that. Another character just digs girls but has a wang.

A: Is there a social conscience to the strip? Is there a message you’re trying to convey?

K: I’m hoping people will pick up on it at a less-than-conscious level, that they will identify with this character who happens to be gay, but basically has the same drives, the same desires that they do. I’m hoping that other dudes will pack up on that, maybe dudes who aren’t all-the-way comfortable with homosexuality or bisexuality, and will just say, “alright, that’s cool.”

A: “Premise Beach” is about student life… is it,uh… I don’t know what the question is. Do you think, like… You are the creator of this, you’re very close to it. But stepping outside and looking at it from an outsider’s perspective – like, say you’re an anthropologist or a historian – Is this the student experience in the 21st century? Is this what students live?

K: I think very much so. They’re just looking for someone to accept them. It could be a circle of friends, it could be a second family, it could be a significant other. Everyone’s looking for someone, regardless of whether or not they’re students. There is a gradual aim towards the future that students have, that these characters do have. And that will be touched on in the upcoming months. But I think student life in Canada, in Northwestern Ontario right now, is the life these characters are living.

A: I know we joked about it before, but the fact that they’re never in class – is that just because class is boring, or is that reflective of student experience?

K: I think more so the former. I mean, sitting in class for hours on end… I’ve done it for years and years, and it’s boring.

Read Kyle’s comic at premise-beach.com

Tags: decanter banter, kyle lees

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