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“Chasing something hungrily”-Taking a look back On Buster Wilde with creator Scot Zellman
Whilst writing my recent post on the excellent Buster Wilde comics I found myself in the middle of a twitter conversation with writer and published Alex Vance and eventually asked him some more formal questions for the piece. Alex was responsible for the printed Buster Wilde collection a few years ago and I inquired if it might be possible for him to reach out to the man responsible for the strips Scot Zellman in the hope that he might answer a few lingering questions I had about his creation.
He graciously obliged but I honestly didn’t expect a reply, it has been over a decade after all. A few days later however Scot shot me back a message and took time out his schedule to indulge me with rather a long interview. I’d like to thank him again for taking the time to answer me and give a wonderful insight into what went into the making of a comics classic all those years ago.
Marfedblog: The first boring, obvious question a lot of people must have asked. Why did the Buster Wilde strips stop, was it simply a desire to move onto other projects, lack of time and interest in it or something else?
Scot Zellman: I think I lost interest mostly due to frustration. I’d hoped the strip would reach a wider gay audience, especially through the gay-interest newsweeklies I was sending copies to in the hopes they would run it, but I quickly found the strip and Buster character made a much bigger impression on a gay furry community. That was an education because at the time I had no idea there was such a thing as “furries” gay or straight.
My education in furry fandom was hard and fast and while the specific trappings were never of personal interest I certainly appreciated the enthusiastic response even if I did have to turn down a large number of requests for commissioned pieces featuring a much less G-rated version of Buster.
I saw the strip as a slapsticky, funny animal, Warner Bros.-style cartoon antidote to the gay strips I was seeing at the time, most of which looked and sounded the same and featured no talking animals, something mainstream comic strips were full of. It was pretty easy, actually, to end the strip. I needed to focus on my “real” job and I wasn’t really interested in being a niche cartoonist with a small audience. After a couple years I thought “Okay, playtime’s over. Time to move on.”
Mb: It’s unusual you made the comic and it caught on with furs, an audience you didn’t even know was out there, did it lead you to look into what other anthro comics were popular with them or artists who considered themselves furs?
SZ: I did look around a bit, especially when I’d get fan mail from other artists or from folks who’d recommend other artist/cartoonist sites. The only anthro comic/character I really eventually found interesting and still follow these days is the Blacksad series. And that’s mostly because I love hard-boiled detective stories and film noir. Plus, the artwork is beautiful.
Mb: Why do you think the gay weeklies and such were so reluctant to run the comics? The comic itself or partly the attitude towards LGBT at the time? SZ: Most gay weeklies weren’t really reluctant to run the strip, they were reluctant to pay me to run the strip. I think the ones that were reluctant to run it for non-financial reasons wanted something a little less slapsticky and a little more mature and thoughtful (Dykes To Watch Out For, Curbside, and The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green were big back then.) Or whoever was in charge of picking the comics to run just didn’t think it was funny. That happens, too.
Mb: The comic debuted around 1997, was it difficult working with the limitations of the internet back then in terms of storage and bandwith?
I know nothing of computer tech and wouldn’t know where to begin in setting up my own website, especially in 1997. I had a tech-savvy friend do all that for me. I had been a cartoonist for my college daily newspaper, so I was well-versed in the process of keeping artwork looking good when it’s reproduced/reduced for the printed page. As for the original website, I supplied my webmaster with good-sized, pristine copies and let him do his best with the internet limitations of the time.
Mb: What attracted you to the idea of showcasing Buster Wilde online as a webcomic? What was the reaction of other artist or those around you to adopting such a new medium in terms of comics?
I never really heard from others about the novelty of being online. Mostly people sent me emails telling me how much they liked Buster and the strip. I actually forget sometimes that the strip is still online these days. I usually just think of it as a book.
Mb: What was the audience and there reaction like at the comics peak? Was it difficult to find an audience in a time when comics online were not as recognised
The reaction was uniformly positive. In fact, I can’t remember getting any negative email at all. As for my expectations, I had none. I assumed people were seeing it and the ones who really loved it were the folks sending me the fan mail.
JK: Buster Wilde now seems like a snapshot of, albeit a humorous exaggerated one, gay club culture at the time. Is that how you saw it and how do you think the strips might differ if they were coming out now? Would any characters differ or just settings and such?
I haven’t been out clubbing in ages, but I don’t imagine things have changed too much. Going out will always be about the same things: fun, excitement, adventure, and the giddy hope you’ll meet someone thrilled to meet you no matter how sceptical or clumsy or overexcited or over it all you may be.
Mb: The printed book shows a few iterations of Buster before the one you settled on. What was the original idea and how did that develop into what you eventually drew? What was the eureka moment when it all fit together?
SZ: I was trying to come up with a gay-themed “funny animal” comic strip for my local gay paper and at one point I thought that a straight man who turned into a gay werewolf would be funny and allow for a lot of opportunities to poke fun at both gay and straight people. The eureka moment came when, after some time trying to come up with a name for the character, the name “Buster Wilde” popped into my head after Oscar Wilde, of course. Once I had “Buster Wilde” the rest just poured out of me.
Mb: How do you feel about webcomics becoming a lot more established since Buster Wilde and do you ever follow any at the moment? Do you think you would have an easier time building an audience now?
It’s a logical technological progression, so I’m not surprised and it certainly makes it easier to get your work “out there.” I still worry that books will be marginalized to the point being hard to find or disappeared entirely. That said, I do have the book versions of my favourite online strips. I follow Bob the Angry Flower, Poorly Drawn Lines, Scenes from a Multiverse, and Doonesbury regularly. That’s about it.
I don’t know. Probably, but I’m still pretty disconnected from what’s going on online.
Mb: Are there comics that inspired the humour and structure in the Buster Wilde strips? Are any of the events (obviously not the lycanthropy) inspired by real events or people?
I’d say the primary inspiration were the old Warner Bros. cartoons, especially the Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote and Daffy Duck cartoons. Plus, I’ve always just loved slapstick and pratfalls.
The personal inspiration was just my years going out, my friends, and my love of good-natured, accepting straight people who are easily unnerved and exasperated by gay people.
Mb: The Unfinished strips included in the print version have a more experimental panel layout than the other strips, would this have been something we would have seen more of if the strips had continued? Did you ever find the regular format limiting in any way?
SZ: That was an experiment in longer-form storytelling told in a comic book page format that, because I’m a comic book reader, thought I’d try just for fun. The regular format I’d already been working with didn’t feel limiting in any way since I felt like I could do whatever the gag called for. That said, I do like the inherent restrictions of the “Sunday comics” format. Mb: Did you have an overarching story or a direction the strips were going in?SZ: Sort of, but not really. The goal was to cram as much humor into each “episode” as I could without overloading it to the point of incomprehensibility. As for the overarching story, I just knew that the character’s stories would continue to unfold and more characters and adventures would be introduced as time went by.
Mb: Are you surprised that people like myself, still talk about and hold it in such high regard after all this time and Do you have a favourite strip out of the bunch?
Not really. Once people find something they love it usually sticks with them. I’m the same way with older comic strips, TV shows, movies, comic books. The ear-piercing strip. The bare minimum amount of dialogue, the right amount of slapstick, and a funny the turnaround/topper. The strip still makes me LOL as they say.
Mb: Overall what do you think the appeal of Buster is?
The exact same appeal of the friendliest, sweetest Golden Retriever you’ve ever met. He’s just happy all the time and you’re his best friend
Mb: Raspberry Flan. Are there any other suitable bathroom foods?
Baked Alaska Flambe.
Buster Wilde can be read in it’s entirety here. The printed version can also be purchased here or from amazon.
Just a quick ref of my 'sona
Hello From a Unicycling Skunk!
Foxcraft: Book One, The Taken by Inbali Iserles – Book Review by Fred Patten.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Foxcraft: Book One, The Taken, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando.
NYC, Scholastic Press, September 2015, hardcover $16.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Kindle $8.87.
Foxcraft: Book One, The Taken, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando.
London, Scholastic Press, October 2015, paperback £5.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Audio CD £27.70.
Foxcraft: Die Magie der Füchse, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando. Translated by Katharina Orgaß.
Frankfurt, Fischer KJB, September 2015, hardcover €14.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Kindle €12.99.
I won’t guarantee the accuracy of the descriptions of the British and German editions, because I have not seen them. The American cover by Liam Peters is actually a wraparound digital painting, but the back cover portion does not seem to be online anywhere.
Foxcraft is another series for Young Adults; recommended for 8- to 12-year-olds or grades 4 to 7. The blurb calls it “The first book in a thrilling fantasy trilogy”, so we know that it will be only three novels.
“My paws slipped on dry earth. I kicked up shrouds of dust as I hurtled toward the fence. Swerving to avoid it, I righted myself and dived under the splintering dead wood. My pursuer was gaining on me as I grasped for the wildway, the tangle of greenery on the other side. I caught the rich aroma of hazel and cedar, the quiet and peace of the world beyond the web of grass.” (p. 1)
Isla is a young vixen who lives with her larger brother Pirie, and her Fa and Ma and Greatma in a den within a patch by a wildway, a path of green, tall grass, and a few trees between the gray territories of the two-legged furless. The reader will recognize this as a semi-developed human residential neighborhood between the true wilderness and a fully-urbanized city; and that Isla’s family are what are known as urban foxes, living close to the humans but not in their fully-urbanized cities. They are mostly scavengers, but not entirely; they eat well on the rats that infest all human cities. Isla and Petrie, the foxlings, play together while the adults forage for food.
The three elders call Petrie and Isla in from their play when rain threatens. But Isla thinks she scents berries near their wildway and is lured after them. She is gone longer than she expects, and when she returns to her den, she finds redness and smoke and five or six strange foxes prowling in the ruins of her home. The leader of the intruders is a one-eyed vixen:
“‘Death,’ she hissed, and the foxes stiffened. ‘The Master has spoken – all traitors will die!’” (p. 12)
Isla flees into the heart of what her family has called the Great Snarl, and what she learns other wild animals call the Graylands; the human city. She does not know what has happened to her family or where to look for them. For the first four chapters the reader wanders throughout the city with Isla, seeing it with a fox’s bleak eyes and learning some vulpine language; “death rivers” or “deathways” for highways, and “manglers” for automobiles. Then she learns that she is being followed by Siffrin, another fox who hopes that she will lead him to Petrie. But Siffrin is not an ordinary fox. He can look like another animal, or Isla herself:
“My ears flicked back. ‘Is it … Do you turn into different creatures?’
His voice was so low I could hardly hear him. ‘It’s a foxcraft, an ancient form of shape-shifting. With it I can mimic the appearance of another cub of Canista. I copy what I see, what I feel with my senses. I do not become someone else – it just looks that way to the untrained eye.” (p. 70)
This foxcraft is called wa’akkir. Isla wants to learn wa’akkir, and what other foxcrafts there are like slimmering, and what happened to her family, and why Siffrin and the Elders who she has never heard of want Petrie, and who the deadly foxes are who destroyed her den and are mortal enemies of the Elders, and …
And lots more. By the end of The Taken, Isla has had desperate adventures and escaped from them. She has learned the answers to most of these questions, but she has not found Pirie yet (although she now knows that he is still alive). Further adventures lie ahead. Book 2, The Elders, will be published in Fall 2016.
Foxcraft is a mixture of genuine vulpine lore and Iserles’ invention of their culture. A group of foxes is called a skulk. (True.) The high-pitched barking that foxes make while on a hunt is called gekkering. (True.) Foxes call the wisest fox, the master of foxcraft, the Black Fox. (Iserles.) In addition to wa’akkir and slimmering, other forms of foxcraft are karakking and maa-sharm. (Iserles.)
Urban foxes are more common in Great Britain than in North America, and Iserles lives in England. Her first books were the Young Adult fantasies The Tygrine Cat and The Tygrine Cat On The Run, a dulogy featuring talking cats. Iserles has since become one of the pseudonymous “Erin Hunter” authors collaborating on the Young Adult fantasy Survivors series, featuring talking dogs (six so far). Iserles has become an expert at writing from an animal’s point of view.
In addition to writing Foxcraft, Iserles has illustrated it, but not with traditional drawings. She has created circular pen-&-ink chapter headings that symbolize each chapter. The American edition has double-spread endpapers by her that are not in the British or German editions.
