This interview is ofPIT_ FACE, whose comics are: PUTRID MEAT, DETHRONED and others!
(interview conducted by Pieguy259!)


Well, firstly, the perennial question - age/sex/location?

Hahaha! I didn't know I strolled into chathouse.com. 24/she-thing/Connecticut.

Yes, I figured by the name “Diedre”. Putrid Meat is certainly a mould-breaker, in more ways than one - how did you get the idea?

Close, it's Deidre, happens a lot though. And thanks! I really can't remember how the idea came up. I used to make comics for fun in my free time when I was a kid and it just kept evolving until Putrid got ralfed up.

Your art style is certainly… erm… “unique”, ha ha. What drew you to the sort of “gross out” style as opposed to more traditional fare?

Well, I was a real tomboy and real cleaned up stuff just never appealed to me. I remember the art in the beetlejuice cartoon, I always thought alotta that kinda thing was cool, I was exposed to it a lot as a kid. It's like, why do shit that's been done a million times already,you know? Why not distinguish yerself and have some fun doing it?

What other artistic influences have gone into it?

Ahhh, I'm a big simon bisley fan, and the drummer from Voivod, Away has made pretty fantastic stuff. I used to be a real anime humper too, so I'm sure some of that stuff sticks in my art somehow. Influence always seems to leave some kinda residue.

Knowing Putrid Meat, probably the kind of residue left at the bottom of a frying pan after a week, am I right? Jokes aside, do you often find people are surprised, knowing your art style, to find out you're actually a girl?

Haha, oh, all the time, man. All the time. I think that can be a good thing, though. I mean, I don't wanna coast on my gender, I want my work to speak for itself, but shit, if that helps people to remember it, then hell yeah! I kinda dig that people are surprised by it, as long as they don't make a big deal about it.

So! Now that the generalities are over, let's get to the meat, as it were, of the interview. We'll start with Bones, that charming scallywag. Where did the lovely Bones spring from?

Haha, shit, somewhere that probably needs to be nuked off the face of the earth. I gotta say he's a product of my infatuation with thrash metal. I used to draw this other character, pretty Mary Sueish back when I was in high school, and one night, Bones just kicked his way into my imagination and said “nah chick, screw that other douche, yer gonna tango with me for a while.” I mean, that's pretty much how it was. There weren't any second thoughts or anything, the minute I thought of Bones, it was pretty much love at first sight and he wrote himself.
Like, when I started coming up with Bones and Putrid and everything, it all felt so right and natural.

Be honest - would you ever date Bones?

Hahahaha, well, if I didn't have my current priorities… yeah, I might try it… though I'm pretty sure I'd really regret it later on. If I could stand by him without puking every 5 minutes from the fuckin stench, then we might have a little something, haha.

What would you say Bones's good qualities are, insofar as he has any?

Well, he isn't responsible for any kinda genocide, other than that, it's questionable. He just kinda goes his own way. I suppose ya could classify him as a little bit of a sociopath. He's a pretty self serving guy and it really doesn't occur to him that he's even doing anything wrong or right. Like consequences not only don't matter to him, but he doesn't even really think about them either. He gets an idea and fuckin goes for it. I guess the other good quality would be that he's fuckin entertaining as he does it!

What would you say is his main motivation? Money, power, or just shits and/or giggles?

Well, currently, his motive is to retake Septica City. Before he got executed, if ya remember, he overtook the city with an army of psychos and became the head honcho for a while; after he was electrcuted though, Exis scooted in and took everything. Bones figures it's still his, so he wants to put himself back in the chief's chair. On top of that, he's not too fond of Exis anyways, because he got attacked by one of his psy-cops pretty much as soon as he came back. Also, Septica's changed from what he used to know. It's gone from a crime ridden shit hole to a safer place to live. That confuses him. So, everything makes him want to come back and set things back to how they were before he got fried.

Ah yes, Septica. A character in its own right, really. How did Septica get to be such a mess in the first place?

Well, some hundred or so years ago from where the story is now, there was a giant catastrophe. The continental plates on one side of the planet split, making a giant crack down the middle of the planet, wiping out tons of life. The survivors lived underground to escape the heat, and the human race had to kinda rebuild itself. Well, there were about 4 or 5 cities that ended up re-emerging from the ground first, and they all ended up gaining a special responsibility. Like one city was responsible for producing food, another one for governing, Septica's job was to take care of all the waste and trash. It was a pretty shitty place from the get go and bred deterioration, I mean, ya don't have a whole lot to live up to when yer surrounded by trash.
I'll get into that a little more down the line in the story.

So this is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future story, or a parallel universe?

Eh, I suppose ya'd say parallel universe.

What was the main inspiration for the setting?

Eh, I just felt it fit the style a lot. The dystopian future wasteland thing has been done to death though, so I wanna be careful with how I treat it. Like, Bones and a small group of people are gonna be traveling around the world to try to get back to Septica, and the settings are going to change a lot and I need to think of some other way to handle it then just pouring deserts all over the place. There will be some, but it gets used so much in these types of stories, I wanna be careful with it.
I have some cool places in mind I cant wait to get to. One character that's going to be introduced is from a place called Bunker City, it's pretty far off from Septica still, but it's a city whose lifestyle is built completely around war, every school, every factory, every person revolves around a culture of war and the whole purpose of them and their technology is to advance themselves in the art of war. There's another city that also acts the same way and all they do is try to better each other. Like a game almost. Eventually though, Exis comes into the picture and things don't go well for Bunker City. I'm really excited to introduce the character from that city though, I like him almost as much as bones.

Exis, our grand antagonist. Could we be misunderstanding him - is he actually out to make Septica a better place, or is he only out for himself?

You know, I've been waiting for someone to ask that, because I haven't actually made him do anything bad yet besides smack bones around a little bit, which the bastard DOES deserve sometimes! Haha. But he DOES have an alternate motive, and it's a pretty nasty one. He is a mutant after all, and the most dangerous one of all because he's fuckin slick. I've really started to love writing for him.

Are there any other recurring characters that might be popping up again in the future?

Not that I've planned so far, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with Puke, because a lot of people really dig him, I just don't have a place for him right now, and I have the horrible feeling I just lost some readers right there, haha. I have a side story called Dethroned that's about Queen Gretchen and her son Zeus where she kinda gets this Sarah Connor syndrome and wants to restore her son to king status so he can have the city instead of Exis, but she ends up going more down the axe murderer route.

Yes, a quick tour through your other strips. Dethroned - how much can you give away about that that you haven't already?

Well, it's still really a work in progress. Basically Zeus has gotten Septican Corpse Fever now, and Gretchen tries to find a way to save him, but no one will help. She's already pretty unstable, so finally she just snaps and decides to punish the “traitorous” citizens of Septica. Exis eventually gets wind of this too, and being the protector, he steps in and goes after her.
Something along those lines. I don't intend it to be an ongoing thing, though I'm not sure exactly how long it's going to take to get through; at this rate, a real long time. I considered bringing in another artist who I really like, but it takes a lot for me to decide not to do the art on one of my own stories.

That makes sense. What of Ape Shit?

Yeah, that's probably not going to be more than 5 or 6 pages. It's basically how Bones and Puke met each other. I originally made it for a DrunkDuck magazine that Subcultured was putting together, but I don't know, I fell behind with it. I don't know if that magazine was actually completed or not.
I intend to finish the projects some day, but “Putrid Meat” and “The Dead” are my main priorities, if I have things on them that I need to work on, then that's what I need to pay attention to first.

Zipping along, you appear to be the mastermind behind VUS. Perhaps a brief run-down of that?

Oh, that was just a shits n' giggles idea. VUS stands for Vicious Utter Shit and basically the creators on DrunkDuck got to make fun of each other's comics and characters however they wanted to. Like a trash talk competition, haha! It's slowed down now, but it was a ton of fun. Some gold came outta that community project!

And your final comic, one that has many and varied nuances, one that has become a DrunkDuck classic in its own right… where did you get the inspiration for the critically acclaimed “html test for PF”?

Hahaha! Fat chicks. I'm still getting awards for that one. Oprah made it her pick of the week once. Thanks oprah.

Finally, on the subject of critics - what did you think of the review you received from The Webcomic Review Comic on the Web?

I don't think it was that bad. I got pretty much the same thing I hear from other people. The beginning confuses ‘em, but they like where it’s going now. I've talked to Hark on a few occasions too and I consider him a friend, so I don't feel like I was treated unfairly, they're known for their brutal honesty in that comic. I think ya should expect that. Though, I've seen people get much, MUCH worse on there! Haha.

Well, good luck with PM, and here's hoping Exis gets that punch in the mouth we're all longing to give him.

Thanks man, I think ya'll be fairly satisfied! Hahaha.

Nice interview, it reminded me of the fact that I have about three months of Putrid Meat to catch up…

Yay!

Haha, great interview. If you want to know more about Deidre, Roy Duncan said to her recently when we were discussing Saturday morning cartoons: “–You came in on the end of it. You got the Smurfs, My Little Pony, Pound Puppies, Strawberry Shortcake era. I can see it in your work, that's why your art is so violent and nasty. It's pure rebellion against the crappy end of Saturday morning animation! You have my deepest sympathy Pit Face, it must be hard to overcome that kind of emotional scar.”

Keep Bones' adventures coming, Pit. ;)

thanks you guys! i should have pieguy's inty in tommarow or the next day. sorry it's taken so long. he made this really fun and put some humor into his questions instead of being so dry.

and i didnt realize he said that, Pam! i forgot i commented on the saturday morning thing! boy thanks roy! :D

I remember everything.
So I take it there won't be a Bones/Strawberry Shortcake crossover? XD

houseofmuses
I remember everything.
So I take it there won't be a Bones/Strawberry Shortcake crossover? XD

IT WILL BE FUCKIN DONE!!