Posted By Leo Johnson on April 12, 2013

Mark Gosson has been posting the adventures of Xombee Guy weekly for all the internet to see. Xombee Guy is “America’s Most Loveable Zombie”, and he deals with all the same problems we do. He’s stuck in a job he hates, has an annoying mother, tries in vain to find a girlfriend, and much more. Xombee Guy celebrated his one year anniversary last month and now is a great time to get up to date with his struggles.

Leo Johnson: To start with, what is it that you do when you’re not making webcomics?

Mark Gosson: I spend my days working for Microsoft. In my spare time I’m writing a novel, I co-host a podcast, I enjoy fermenting things and I try to keep up with my favorite comic titles. Also because sleep is totally overrated, I’ve been teaching myself Ancient Mayan, you never know when that will come in handy.

MG: A zombie is trying to make his way in our world (not a post-apocalyptic world). He struggles with the same problems we all do: work, dating and friendship. Occasionally he eats people.

MG: Xombee Guy was actually conceived of in a book I’m writing. I just thought the idea of a comic strip about a likeable zombie was funny. Since no one else had made one from that point of view, I gave it a shot.

LJ: Why a zombie?

MG: To glom onto the popularity of zombies of course! But seriously, I wanted to take a look at what life would be like if a zombie wasn’t just cannon fodder. When we mow down a zombie in a game or movie, we never get any glimpse of who they were. Xombee Guy has a mom, (a really annoying mom -just like we all do) friends, he works a job and he struggles with prejudice. He has a life, or at least an afterlife.

LJ: Xombee Guy eats a few people, but it’s really only ever implied. Was it a conscious decision to keep it off-panel or something that just sort of happened?

MG: Absolutely a conscious decision. We can’t call him America’s most loveable zombie and watch him chow down on some kid, no matter how badly the little brat deserves it. I enjoy when the strip is darkly funny but I don’t want it to be gory. Along the same lines, he never eats anyone nice (see episode #51 for example) and he has friends. No zombie is an island after all.

LJ: Describe the process of creating the comic a bit. What does it take to get an idea from your brain on to the page?

MG: Some Sundays I think it’s just magic. I try to come up with ideas all week, sometimes that works but most of the time it fails miserably. The last few Sundays I haven’t even had the idea until late in the evening. I almost always start with the joke and then draw the panels. I work old school, for I am old myself (I joined the AARP today). I use pen and ink on bristol board. I sketch out characters or ideas on regular paper and use a light board to copy the good bits up to the final board. When I first started drawing, I would literally find myself trying to press Ctrl-Z on my paper. That doesn’t work too well. I enjoy the permanence of ink and the danger of messing up an entire panel with a bad brushstroke. The result isn’t always as nice as if I had made it using Photoshop but that’s part of the charm of that medium.

LJ: What’s been your favorite strip/page to create so far?

MG: Even though the drawings are pretty awful, my favorite is Episode #5. When Laertes, the vulture calls him a monster – not because he murdered and ate a child but because he doesn’t share any with Laertes.

LJ: What makes your comic different from all the others on the internet?

MG: The combination of the fact that the strip is about a loveable zombie and it is done with pen and ink. Also, my mom said it was cool, she never said that about any other strip besides ‘Garfield’.

MG: That anyone can create a webcomic. Artistic talent is overrated when it comes to comics, being funny is much more important. The popularity of strips like XKCD, Poorly Drawn or even rage comics really proves this point.

LJ: What do you see in the future for the comic?

MG: Two words: funny and more.

LJ: Where else can you be found on the vastness of the internet?

MG: Twitter: @MarkGosson

Blog: http://mark-gosson.blogspot.com/

Podcast: http://sojcast.blogspot.com/

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Categories: Comics, Interviews
Tags: Dark humor, interviews, Mark Gosson, Webcomic Creator Interview, webcomics, Xombee Guy, zombies