This month we're talking to the hilarious man with the fabulous hair!
FORUMS QUESTIONS!
How long have you been on dA and by extension, how long have you been foruming?7 years, with a few hours before Hitler's Birthday as the anniversary. I'm almost certain I got my first taste of the forums that very first year, but it was casual and infrequent and it wasn't until maybe 2007 when I really came to love Complaints and it wasn't until 2008 when I became recognized and "popular"
after blatantly stealing a Colonel Hunter Gathers image as my icon thanks to my charming personality.
How often do you make threads in Complaints?Rarely. Although now that I'm taking "normal" classes in college, all of the teenagers fresh from high school have been giving me quite a bit of material to work with. So thanks to those half-wits, I've been making twice as much as usual. STUPID! You so STUUUUPID!
Do you hang out in any of the other dA forums?In those early years I was in deviants, movies, games, but those places got really boring really quick for me, especially the games forum. I'm a former Senior Moderator for the G4TV forums, which was what I did before Complaintopia, so that should give people a good idea of how I learned to deal with internet idiots. I just don't like dealing with those kinds of idiots anymore. Let's face it, Complaints is where the character is at.
What's one of your favourite threads or comments you've seen in Complaints?Oh, I know I'm not able to pick just one! That recent one with the no-fuse "macho" man with the daddy, mommy, and girlfriend issues was just GOLD! I can't even remember the guy's name, but getting inside his head and giving him the Hugo Strange treatment was the most entertaining thing I've seen here for months! Ask Angelishi, she ripped him a new one from a female perspective (seriously, this guy was a Freudian Freakjob!)
And before that, there was one that will always be a favorite of mine, and this one I actually saved the link!
forum.deviantart.com/community…Wow, look how young we all were back then! ...Man, I look fat! But the Winnie The Pooh Pajamas and "Penis Snacks" comments I made make that one very special to me.
What's your favourite emote or PLZ?For single image:
It just works on so many levels! It was also the very first PLZ I typed (and as we all know, it sure as Hell wasn't the last!).
But if we're going for a "team" of Pleezees that compliment each other, I have to go with this:
:iconwhatdidyoujustsayplease:
Namedrop some of your forum friends!Anyone who can "give me something to work with" is good for me!
come to mind.
People are my fuel, my materials; the more they give me to work with, the more I can create! I'm The Psycho-Social Ahteest!
ART QUESTIONS!
What's your main medium? So how long have you been working in X medium? Why do you like it?Right now, digital is my medium, and I really wish that weren't true. I like it, but I accept it's a corner-cutting method that borders on cheating (for me!), but I also admit it's great practice, and the hundred dollars I spent on my tablet + Photoshop Elements bundle, plus the 40 bucks on Painter Essentials is a lot better than the buckets of cash used on traditional materials. So digital is just practical right now.
Who would you consider your inspirations?Oh god, get the list! I'm a very "absorbing" person, sort of a "I am Legion, For We Are Many" deal. So anything I find useful, I take into myself, resulting in many inspirations. And without them, I am nothing.
Robert Crumb is a big one right now. He can take the worst about himself and turn it into the most honest art without hiding his dubious history or character. His brother Charles is also a strange kind of "anti-hero" inspiration for me (For more information, purchase the CRUMB documentary by Terry Zwigoff today!)
Bill Watterson, Gary Larson and Charles Schultz are big inspirations because The Sunday Funnies have been some of the earliest introductions of art and humor to me since childhood. What can I say, it built character!
George Carlin, Eddie Izzard and Conan O'Brien are huge inspirations just for being such funny bastards!
John Kricfalusi of course, not only for Ren & Stimpy leaving a huge mark on my childhood, but because he made me realize that it's perfectly okay to be a dick about your opinions, as long as you can intelligently explain your point of view.
Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett and Tex Avery are "The Big 3" of my "Classical" inspirations. They're the ones that combined art and humor for me and made the living cartoon character I am today. "Duck Amuck" is my madness in a nutshell!
Stephen King and Neil Gaiman cover the literary side of things. They remind me that no man, woman, child, animal, or even gods are safe. I don't like "safe", safe is restricting and censoring, which cuts artistic potential short (Disney can suck my ass!). And King also reminds me that bad mistakes can result in good humor .
Speaking of which, I'm just going to have to sum up the rest, because I can talk about inspirations all day (and look these up! Build some character!): The Nostalgia Critic, The Spoony One, The Cinema Snob for humor, Weebl for his hilariously catchy music, much of which I listen to while drawing (especially Savlonic), Winsor McCay for Little Nemo (NOT the stupid fish!), Drawn Together for reminding me you don't always need a "point" in order to be funny or vulgar, The Hernandez Brothers for Love & Rockets, and Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb for their work on Batman: The Long Halloween, which was a real life-changer for me in more ways than one.
Do you ever branch out in other mediums?I should, but that budget thing's a bitch. The most branching I did was for actual art classes. I really wish I could get into oil painting more, but that's very demanding and messy. These days, I don't really "branch out", but rather "return" to something. It feels good when I get to use real, actual artist pens again.
What's your favourite piece from your gallery? Is it different from your most popular piece?My favorite one is this nasty bit of work:
The drawing itself isn't all that spectacular to me, in fact, I STILL need to fix the guy's glasses, but art isn't just about technical skills. Sometimes, the IDEA is what matters, especially in cartooning. This is the drawing that taught me how to strike the right nerve at the right time with the right (as in WRONG) people. It wasn't "nice", but to HELL with "nice". People don't notice "nice" (and those who do tend to be very boring people), which brings me to the most "popular", or rather most "infamous" of my works:
Almost all the stuff I worked on since the SRPF didn't get a lot of recognition, which we'll get to next, which got me to thinking: "Why was the Prick Fairy so Popular/Infamous?", and it was the word "Infamous" that was the key! I mentioned earlier how I can get into the heads of some people, and well, that's what I did again. I knew what buttons to push, I knew how to get "the BAD fans" to jump to conclusions by turning their own horrible traits against them (I used myself as a guinea pig for years to develop that talent) and Boom! The idea worked! And best of all, I didn't even have to put in much effort into the drawing! I'll conclude this rant in the next section.
What's a piece you worked really hard on or are really proud of but didn't get the response you hoped for?This lil' darlin':
That's what happens when I do "positive" drawings. That picture was me having fun with both my childhood and adulthood (...), but it went quietly with others. Maybe because it's something I did for myself, so I got to thinking, maybe if I draw things that get a connection with OTHER people, they'll be more responsive! And that's how the "Fandom Freaks" thing started, and it's only at the beginning (Future ideas include Nolan's Batman, Johnny Depp, Star Wars, TF2, The Spoony Experiment, Final Fantasy, and others) . I was a jerk and I pointed out how others could be jerks, but hey, guess what? I tried playing friendly, and it ain't workin'. So I flipped the coin and now I play dirty. Here's another example:
Yeah, it's nice, but it ain't reaching people. It's boring. Although I have to be fair, I can do some "nice" things that people like.
But even then, it doesn't live up to the "meany" drawings. Let's face it, this kind of art is more entertaining (and the potential controversy even more so)
And I'm sure as HELL not going back to my "Tits For Pageviews" tactic! Well, I might throw a few in, but it won't be like last time! Never again...never...ever...again...
Are you open for commissions? Would you like to be?I wish I could be. My chaotic moods sometimes keep me away from my own art, and now that school is my top priority, THAT keeps me busy! Right now I'm stressing out over finishing my Batman-related Mother's Day picture on time. But school is my focus now, so I'll be lucky if I can even do a free commission/suggestion, although I am proud of myself for doing this one in just a few hours after someone asked me to do it:
TIMING!
Oh, that's another one of my favorite Pleezees! And also my favorite Nostalgia Critic joke! Isn't side-trivia fun? Hey, print out this interview, slay a whole tree!
OTHER
Where'd your username come from?OH GOD, we're never gonna get done with this, are we? This is another long story, but it's an interesting one: In the 11th grade (2001), I started growing my hair long, as well as a bit short. So long story short, much like the hair, I grew a Mullet, and much like my art, it got a strong reaction from others (plenty of positive and controversial), but more importantly
I loved it! This was also the time when I was heavily into Counter-Strike (I mentioned this was 2001, right?), and "Mullet Man" became my alias. The "SBK" came as a team/clan title; the original full spelling was [S*BK]MulletMan. "SBK" stands for whatever you want it to. For me, it was "Sadistic Bunny Killer". I was watching a lot of JoeCartoon and Killfrog.com at the time. Animated animals dying was funny to me. Still is!
Wait, no, that story wasn't interesting, it's where I got my Mullet the name "Gary" that's interesting! While playing Counter-Strike, I was shot in the head and died. Behind me, the Easter episode of the Simpsons was playing, and it had JUST got to the part where the unicorn dies of exhaustion, and Flanders-God says "MY UNICORN! Oh, what have they done to ya, Gary?!". So I applied that to getting shot in the head in the game: "MY MULLET! Oh, what have they done to ya, Gary!?" People loved it instantly, the name stuck and it's now 11 years later!
If you could go back five years and give your younger self some advice, what would it be?"There is SO much I could tell myself, but all that happened needed to happen, or else I would have wound up even worse. But since I'm a total bastard, especially to myself, I'd pull a Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) and taunt myself with cock-teasing time travel messages from the future:
" I know something I won't tell! I won't tell! I won't tell!
I know something I won't tell! Nah, NAH, Nah-Nah!"
I would however at least give myself a cryptic clue or two. "You want answers, kid? Watch the BBC miniseries JEKYLL!" and laugh as I faded away. I realize I'm also giving the readers cryptic messages, but hey, that's our style.
Will we see more of the Self Righteous Prick Fairy? That depends on the rest of the world. I try to make the timing of the Self-Righteous Prick Fairy mean something (meaning it may very well piss people off because certain wounds are still fresh), so I don't use her that often. I might do a few "missed opportunities", like the Norwegian incident I really wanted to do, but missed out on due to personal schedule conflicts, but for the most parts, she'll only come out for appropriate world events as they happen. With that in mind, she's probably the most "real" of my drawings. When she's more established, I might make a few filler drawings for her, like a "daily awareness tear-away calendar idea I have. I have a feeling she'll come around for the US elections coming up, and may show up for the end of the world in December.
Can I touch your mullet?Only if you wish to be assimilated. All glory to the Mulletorian Empire!
What ever happened to all the nuggets?I forgot to eat them and they grew up into boneless chicken tenders, and they've overrun the place. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some cleaning up to do! Good night and Fuuuuuck Youuuuu!
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Next month we're talking to