Broken Frontier

Let's be honest. For the first time in decades (and perhaps ever), geeks are "in". From Neil Gaiman getting an award on Spike TV to Jessica Alba presenting awards to a special effects guru, nowadays its good to be a geek. But how far do these geek drives run in here-today, gone-tomorrow pop culture. Broken Frontier asked Alina Pete, writer of Weregeek, a popular webcomic on the subject of those who, for one reason or another, hide their geekiness from the world until it emerges in a full-moon frenzy. Just who are these weregeeks? Is it someone you know, or maybe someone you look at in the mirror every morning? Keep reading to find out...  

BROKEN FRONTIER: Why webcomics? Did you ever consider telling the story of Weregeek in any different form or medium?

ALINA PETE: Actually, it's funny. For years I never even considered doing a webcomic. I was pretty set on telling a long-term story in a comic book format, since I'd been reading comics ever since I was a kid and really idolized a lot of the artists and writers. But as I started reading more and more webcomics, I found that people were telling long and fairly complex stories with a joke-a-day strip format, and I really liked how easy it was to publish material and have it seen by a diverse audience.

I have to admit, chosing webcomics over print comics was a little daunting. For one, there's a constant update schedule to contend with. Self-publishing a comic book means you can sort of work at your own pace, but I wasn't sure about tying myself to three-day-a-week updates for years to come. I was also pretty scared about the idea of telling a story and a joke at the same time. I had no idea if I could be funny every single update day. But my boyfriend, who's been such a big driving force behind the comic, sat down with me and we went over a bunch of the funny things that have happened to us, and I realized that I had enough material for years!

I'm really glad I went with webcomics as a medium. It's really nice to have a sense of immediacy with your audience - instead of just interacting with them whenever another issue comes out, I get to make blog posts about the comics and talk with people on my forums. Plus, having a strict update schedule is about the best thing I can imagine to keep you drawing every day!

I came up with the concept for Weregeek specifically as a webcomic, since I figured it was flexible enough to do both short around-the-gaming-table type gags, and a longer story about the characters and their lives. If I was to re-work the idea as a comic book, it would be a completely different beast, and I don't know if I'd enjoy it as much.

BF: For those that don't already know, what's your definition of a dreaded "weregeek" ?

AP: Well, in the strip, Weregeeks have some semi-supernatural aspects - like their shadowy geek forms. I haven't got into the hows and whys of their powers yet. But aside from all of that, a Weregeek is just someone who hides the fact that they are a geek from 'normal' people, and only "geeks out" around others like them.

BF: Whether it's Seth Rogen movies doing well at the box office or comic books getting awards on Spike TV, it seems very popular to be a geek right now. What do you make of this? Do you think the trend covers some corners of geekdom and not others?

AP: It's actually a pretty interesting phenomenon. It seems like certain aspects of geek culture have become more mainstream than others. Playing video games has become fairly ubiquitous, especially with games like Rock Band and WiiSports appealing to people who wouldn't normally pick up a controller. The internet's not solely for geeks anymore - my grandma actually keeps in touch with me through Facebook and sends her friends links to my comic. Even comic books, which were a bastion of nerdiness for decades, have become pretty acceptable thanks to all of the big comic-inspired summer blockbusters.

But, tell someone that you LARP or speak Klingon and they're going to start looking for the nearest exit. Even among geeks, there's plenty of things that are considered 'nerdier' than others. I don't know if you've ever seen Lore Sjoberg's "Geek Hierarchy", but it's a basically a list of which group considers itself less geeky than the next. It's funny but true. I think that there's always going to be hobbies that are considered geekier than others, so I'm not too worried about Weregeeks disappearing!

BF: What do you think this culture says about people like Weregeek's main character Mark, who are for lack of a better phrase, still in the closet about their geekiness?

AP: I think a lot of people still feel pressure to keep quiet about their hobbies, especially in the workplace. It's perfectly acceptable to stand around the water cooler and talk about making model airplanes or collecting sports cards, but talk about making chainmail or dressing in medieval garb and suddenly this line has been crossed from quaint hobbyist to complete wierdo.

This is actually part of the reason I made all of the characters twenty-somethings. It's one thing to see geeks being teased at high school - that's just a part of the usual teen drama, and there's enough comics about that - but it's a completely different thing when you see being people teased or ostracized in the workplace.

BF: Finally, were there any real life parallels to yourself, friends of yours or people you knew to begin writing Weregeek?

AP: Oh, tons!! Nothing's been copied verbatim, but each character's personality has been inspired by two or three different people that I know, and a lot of the jokes and situations in the comic are drawn from my own gaming experiences. My friends are all wonderfully tolerant of me suddenly scribbling down joke ideas in the middle of games or while we're out having coffee together. It's actually a running gag between me and a buddy of mine that his Ninja character is in every single strip I draw, but you can't see him because, well.. Ninja.

I've had lots of people say how much the characters remind them of themselves or people they know, which is really great to hear. I wanted the main characters to feel like they could be part of your gaming group, or somebody you'd meet at the gaming store.