Kickstarter

Although I'm often the face of "Holiday Wars," the comic is a team effort. So for the first time, I thought it would be AWESOME if I did a behind the scenes interview with Michael Odom our kickbutt, but shy penciler. - Scott

Q: Why is this Kickstarter important to you?
First and foremost it would mean everything to see my work in print. To have it sit there on my shelf and be able to say "I did that." Being able to hold the printed book in my hands would be proof that all the work I've done for the past three years was worth it.

Q: Let's get right to the elephant in the room: Are you really a person or are you just some Monkey that I keep locked in a basement?
I'm real I swear! I just let you handle all the marketing junk so that I can stay focused on drawing.

Q: Do you have any other published works?
"Holiday Wars" is my first full comic project to see the light of day. That being said I've done some charity artwork and back-up stories for other indie comics.

Q: How did you first get involved with "Holiday Wars?"
It was an ad on Digital Webbing. I submitted my portfolio. You and Mike of Th3rd World liked it and then asked me to do a sample page. Fast foreward and here we are three years and almost two hundred pages later!

Q: What about the project drew you to it?
It's different. There's nothing else like it so right away I was drawn in and excited about doing weird and different character designs.

Q: What was the hardest part about drawing Volume 1?
Just the overall length of the project. Prior to that I'd only done about 30 pages worth on any one thing so Holiday Wars was a real marathon challenge.

Q: How have things changed for Volume 2?
Well I'm inking my own work on this one so that's really the only big change for me as the artist, but outside of that I can tell you that coming up {Spoiler Redacted}!

Q: Who is your favorite character to draw?
The whole crew. I don't really have a favorite, they all have unique enough design elements to keep them fun to work on in different ways.

Q: Which character is the hardest to draw?
There isn't one that really stands out as being tougher or more involved due to design elements. However it does take a while to get a sense of them as a full character with a defined personality and that does effect the way they are drawn in relation to their body language, their facial expressions, how they react to what's happening around them and so over the course of getting to "know" them the way they are drawn changes as they become more defined to me as characters. I think in that sense the Bunny was the hardest because it took much longer to get him molded into a look that would really fit all the qualities he needed to be able to posses.

Q: My cartooning students want to know how do you determine a page's layout? How do you decide when you want to break a panels border or make a triangle shaped panel?
That's one of the things I've had fun with when drawing "Holiday Wars." The page size is different and so I've gotten to mess around and play with different layouts, seeing what works and what doesn't. I will say though that when I do the different shaped panels there are a few rules that I have that I try and stick with but they should be a little bit obvious if you study them a bit.

Q: You had a full years worth of buffer for Volume 1 and a little less than that for Volume 2. How the heck have you managed to stay so far ahead of schedule?
The secret is.......to work hard!