Broken Frontier

This is an Inter-Review—a review and an interview in one!  Today we look at The Original Nutty Funsters: A List of Grievances, the first GN collection of the webstrip by Stephanie O’Donnell, published through Free Lunch Comics.

And prime yourself for this article by first reading the interview held over at Project Fanboy.

Broken Frontier Review: A mix of five cats and rabbits—three roomies and two wacky neighbors for supporting cast—head up the ensemble in The Original Nutty Funsters, a webstrip whose origins run as far back as creator Stephanie O’Donnell’s formative (she sure learned how to draw comics, anyhow) freshman year at high school.  Over time, her characters grew and evolved and came into their own, and now, today, they’re spotlighted in a new weekly strip over on the ONF Website. Even better, Free Lunch Comics, the group behind the critically acclaimed series Sky Pirates and Only in Whispers, collects the best of ONF’s early offerings and places them into a nice, meaty GN package that’s available now on the company site, or FOR FREE at Wowio.com.

The primary three characters in ONF are Poley Polarity, the most average and therefore constantly wry of the bunch, especially when it comes to the antics of the others; Henry Haresworth, the temperamental one, prone to lots of shouting; and finally the unforgettable Dee Pilsner, who, as his name suggests, is the party animal and an all-around frat boy/surfer dude/slacker. Ramping up the leads are two others, Xerxes (an elitist and absolutely my favorite, he reminds me of me and what can I say? Elitists like each other, that’s practically the definition of the word) and Trenton Bingley, the resident wannabe conspiracy theorist. The characters are memorable and better yet, instantly recognizable by attitude and behavior alone. They’re guys you want to come back to and check out, again and again, which is the first hurdle to indeed hurdle for any story, whatever the format.

BROKEN FRONTIER: So out of all the anthropomorphic comic strip possibilities…why cats and rabbits?  Just a proclivity for big ears and furry cheeks?  Or is there more?

STEPHANIE O'DONNELL: Well, Poley and Dee are obvious homages to Hobbes of “Calvin & Hobbes” fame, and Henry’s a shoutout to Bugs and Buster and any of the other cartoon bunnies throughout the years. I think he represents the neurotic hare rather well. People are used to seeing rabbits be wacky or mischievous; he’s breaking that stereotype by enjoying arts & crafts while at the same time revering Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down.

I like taking characters based off of childhood favorites and putting a new spin to them, to show a different side, so to speak.

BF: Do you have a favorite (do you play that?) among your babies?  One rabbit to rule them all?

SO’D: It’s so hard! I can’t do that. I go with whoever is the main focus in that particular story or strip. For that moment, they’re a special gem. I try my best to let each one shine in their own way, and give them their own little spotlight.

BF: So how did you come to land a GN collection at Free Lunch Comics?   And evenbetter, how does it feel knowing there’s now an in-print collection of your strip?

SO’D: I found them through Comicspace dot com. They put out a bulletin for artist collaborations for “Only in Whispers”, so I jumped at the chance right away. I worked on the story “One Nibble at a Time” for them, and after that we kept in touch. I told them I was working on putting out a book and they offered to help me out with it. Ever since then, we’ve been partners in crime!

It feels really good to see something you made in a sleek, tangible form. I remember first seeing the books and going, “Wow. This is real.”

BF Review: The book kicks off with two bonus short comic stories, both done in comic book rather than strip style, presumably to honor the occasion of getting picked up by a comic company and collected. It’s a rather inspired move as they prove an enticing introduction. The first story is a pseudo-political debate (and what timing for this to hit!) involving each of the three main characters as they state their “platform” and basically give the reader a crystal-clear view of their personalities and general character. Including a cameo by everyone’s favorite B-movie actor, it’s an intro hard not to be intrigued by, and then the “two” of this one-two opening attack is a story titled “Fundraiser”, and this was easily my personal fave of the book. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the rest of it; in fact, it put me in just the right kick-back-and-let-it-ride mood to do just that.

BF: Were the short stories your idea to include, or the folks over at Free Lunch? Were these new tales tailor-made just for the occasion or stories you were holding onto for just the right moment?

SO’D: It was my idea to do a bit of both. I planned the Debate one ahead of time, but wasn’t exactly sure how to put it out. I thought about how the bigger C&H collection books were formatted, and remembered how Watterson had some comic book type stuff preceding the strips. I wanted to do something like that, plus have a nice little intro/insight into each of the main characters. An appetizer, if you will!

“Fundraiser” was a very last minute thing. I caught a little static once advertising, and it was written out of that frustration. I was gonna hold onto it for something else, but I figured it would offer to be a nice little bonus of sorts and give the reader a bit more to go with in terms of what’s ahead.

BF: And I take it you’re a big Bruce Campbell fan?  You’ve got to send him a copy now, you know that, right?

SO’D: Oh yeah, come Hell™ or high water, I’ll have to find a way! It’s funny though because I still haven’t seen the Evil Dead movies in their entirety yet. But I did love his work in Bubba Ho-Tep. To many fans, I am sure this is sacrilege at its finest.

BF: Not to me, Bubba was awesome. So from your more recent strips, it strikes me that you’re a political or at least socially-conscious person, so…if one of your main three Funsters had to win the “Stalemate Debate” in the book, which would you root for and why?

SO’D: I don’t know, I’m kinda leaning towards Dee’s stance on water park rides. I mean, who wouldn’t wanna experience that? It might inspire some newfound patriotism. Knowing that your country is the first and only to have a nationwide theme park, literally, would make for some really interesting Toby Keith songs I’ll bet.

Broken Frontier Review : Then we come to the strips themselves, and like all sequential punch line jokes, some will work for any individual reader and others won’t. Occasionally the jokes depend on some (I thought) pretty esoteric reference (which I didn’t get) but those were rare.  More often than not comic folks are the ideal audience for the subject matter and should find themselves inside familiar and funny-as-hell territory. For instance, there’s a running story about writing a disgruntled fan letter to a comic and the back-and-forth he has with the editors there, culminating in a trip to the city to give them what-for in person. It’s a send-up that should strike home for nearly every comic reader, and the humor of Nutty Funsters utilizes such situational genre fare to great ends. Be it comics or soap operas or wind gods of anger, it’s an impressive range of material and well selected at that.

Broken Frontier: How do you go about getting “inspired” for a new strip?  Do you usually have a joke in mind before you put pencil to paper, or do you just start something with a vague concept and see where it leads?

Stephanie O’Donnell: It depends. Sometimes I get really passionate or fired up about something. So I’ll try and channel that energy into something more amusing. Turning serious (or just plain dumb) things into jokes is hard work, but very rewarding if not a fun challenge. Some jokes I’ve had in my head for a long time, and I’ll use that opportunity to throw that in.

“Jerry, God Of Anger” started off as a random doodle before I went to bed of a big, angry, almost Faustian creature shouting about fudge rounds and the show “Cheers”. I liked the concept so much that I kept drawing that character more, and soon enough I figured “Hey, why not introduce him to the Funsters? It’s got potential!”

BF: Can you give us a hint on subject matter to come? Certain topics you know you’ll hit or can’t wait to dive into with the strip?

SO’D: Definitely! I’m always writing things down. I hope to touch on loud neighbors and how to deal with them, more Funsters losing bets and enduring Trenton Bingley’s rants, and perhaps a little jab at the “Go Green” phenomenon at some point.

Be sure to join us for Part Two of this Inter-Review tomorrow.

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To read the online strips of Stephanie O’Donnell’s The Original Nutty Funsters, visit their official site at http://theairingcupboard.net/tonf

And for all things Stephanie visit her Comicspace, Myspace, and DeviantART pages.

For ordering information visit the site of Free Lunch Comics, and for free download of the entire graphic novel reviewed and discussed herein, visit it’s Wowio page at http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=4341