Winston Rowntree | Subnormality
The Flak Comics Interview
By James Norton

Flak: You're living/working in Toronto, right? Do you have a day job that pays the bills, and if so, what is it?

WR: I work for a lawn-care service, so basically I drive around and cut rich people's grass (no, we don't cut Prince's lawn). I love the exercise, and it gives me plenty of time to think up ideas for comics. Oh yeah, and I only work eight months a year. I can't do it forever though, which is good motivation to strive for success in the arts.

Flak: How'd you get started as a cartoonist?

WR: I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was in elementary school, but I only started taking it seriously in about 2003-2004 when I realized that I kind of had to start doing something with my life other than playing video games.

So I've been making comics for about four years now, practicing and getting better and working towards some still-undefined goal. The lows are horrible and many, but the highs almost make it worthwhile! In a more specific sense, I like cartooning because I like to write and draw and create and that's that.

Flak: Along those lines: are there any cartoonists or other creative types who particularly influenced your art or writing in the early days?

WR: It's early days still. If we define influence as inspiration rather than cause to emulate, then my artistic influences are Bill Watterson, Mad Magazine, Evan Dorkin, and whatever my dad introduced me to as a kid that got me interested in comics — stuff like Raymond Briggs, Tintin, Asterix, and Graham Oakley. All in all though, I actively try to maintain my own style and not deliberately emulate other artists. People should be able to look at one of my drawings and say "yep, Rowntree drew that." I shouldn't have to sign my work.

Flak: These days, what artists (if anyone) do you follow as a fan?

WR: If you mean currently-working cartoonists, then I love the art of Evan Dorkin. He maintains this self-hating "I suck!" persona, but if you can get past it you'll notice that his art is really quite special. He's pretty much the perfect black & white cartoonist. Color wrecks his art, if you ask me. I also love Steve Bell's work in The Guardian. I'm pretty sure he's a godlike genius.

Flak: Your strip often features a female protaganist (the chick with the pink hair, the sphinx, etc.) — far more often than I'm used to, particularly from a male artist. In fact, you've got some strips that are downright feminist. What's the story?

WR: I'm downright feminist.

Flak: Why do a strip that's free-flowing (in terms of arc and characters) rather than a serial, or something open ended with a cast of recurring characters?

WR: In terms of the Silly Jokes I'm working with, the less creative contraints the better. This strip is purely Silly Joke Telling, and I want as few restrictions as possible on what kinds of jokes I can tell.

There is of course such a thing as TOO free-flowing, so I'm gradually narrowing the style of the strip as I continue to define just what I want a Subnormality comic to be. I'm forever rejecting new jokes because they no longer fit the style of the comic, even though five months ago they would have. My standards keep rising. But it's still very free-flowing indeed within that style, in terms of subject matter.

I'm willing to try serialized or open-ended comics as well, and I have a few ideas ready to go, but that's something for the future.

Flak: Any ambitions (or plans) to do a larger project, such as a book?

WR: I've just finished a graphic novel, actually, but it's more of a "practice" graphic novel because the art's too inconsistent to be suitable for publication. I'll stick it up on my website eventually. I have ambitions to do all manner of comics — strips, graphic novels, comedy, tragedy, etc — it's just a matter of time. If by a book you mean a printed collection of Subnormality comics, then I'd love to but first i'll need (a) at least a year's worth of strips and (b) an audience. The strip's only been going since February, and if volume of fan mail is anything to go by then I currently have no audience beyond my friends and family. So it'll be a long while, if it ever happens.

Flak: You have a strip with an illustration labeled "How I Draw" (in your normal style) and "How I Want to Draw" which is sort of R. Crumb / acid trip / Picasso looking. If it's within your technical grasp (which it clearly is), why NOT draw like that?

WR: Because a comic strip, no matter how free-flowing, is still dependent on artistic compromise to be appealing.

Ultimately, how I WANT to draw is just too free-flowing and self-indulgent to be of any use in this particular kind of strip, free-flowing as it may be. It just wouldn't match the humor of the strip in an effective way. It would, in fact, match it too closely, because the current more restrained style of art I'm using (which I still enjoy, don't get me wrong) nicely contasts the weirdo humor. If the art was weird too then I'm sure the element of surprise would be lost to a degree, and surprise is the essence of comedy.

Thus, for Subnormality, how I want to draw is not compatible with how I want to write, and the writing must take precedence (that's precedence — not dominance. Important distinction.). What I want must take a backseat to what works — what the audience will like in a genuine manner. If I decide to do a self-indulgent weirdo offshoot strip at some point, then you can guess what it'll look like, but it won't be nearly as funny. I reckon.

Flak: Your pal Mark Poutenis — who draws an excellent comic of his own — has a pretty good jeremiad on his site about how much he hates clip art comics. Your take on clip art strips?

WR: It seems to be one of the big questions Internet comics readers and artists wrestle with. Yes, he does draw an excellent comic! And he writes an excellent jeremiad! And my take on clip art comics is the same as his: they're indefensible rubbish.

These clip art people are at best lazy hacks, at worst con artists who want something (ie: money and an audience) for nothing. If you wanna be a cartoonist, you should have some fucking respect for the medium and bloody well learn to draw. Moreover, if you're not trying your best then whatever you do is just a big "screw you" to your audience, so have some respect for them too. I could go on, but why bother?

Ultimately, clip art comics are merely a loathsome fad, and, like all fads, in a few years people will be looking back on them and going "what the hell were we thinking?!" They will go the way of the, ahem, dinosaur. And if people take offense to that then now they know how I feel when I see clip art people referred to as "cartoonists."

Flak: Why the alias?

WR: I made it up in high school as a "pen name" and I've always liked it. And when you Google "Winston Rowntree," I'm the only one you get, which I like even more. And I'm creative, so why not create my own name for artistic purposes? Plus I'd be hesitant to have my real name out there on the Internet. Plus I have another artistic pursuit under my real name, and I like to keep the two separate.

Flak: Anything else I failed to elicit that you'd like to add?

WR: Only that the computer is the future of the comic strip (as a delivery medium, that is, not as an "infinite canvas" as espoused by rubbishers like Scott McCloud), and those who care about such things had better get themselves online and see what's happening. It's happening gradually, but it's happening. Pure newspaper comics may as well not even exist — I can't emphasize that strongly enough. They are dead, dead, DEAD.

What you see in tiny black & white boxes in the daily paper has nothing to do with comics, art, or anything else. The Talent is no longer attracted to newspaper comics. The Talent does not want to be constrained by content restrictions from the 1950s. The Talent does not want to give half its income to a newspaper syndicate. Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side were flukes, and you'll not see their kind again on newsprint, I assure you. The next Great comics are going to be online — if they're not already — so for God's sake spread the word!

E-mail James Norton at jim@flakmag.com.