FP

Many years ago, while I was getting my own feet wet in the world of webcomics with S.N.A.T, I made acquaintance with the rather funny artist and writer named Ben Hubbard. He was running a webcomic called Hoboe at the time and through buzzcomix.net, a webcomics community/toplisting website, we were paired randomly for a short collaboration. The resulting absurdity was called SNATCH!.

The product turned out better than I had anticipated. Not because I had doubts about either of our skills, but rather I had not expected such a natural-feeling mesh of the two styles. Visually, his art contrasted mine in that well, he could actually draw. That contrast itself was contrasted by the similarity in our humor. His comic and its characters had a certain off-beat quality that reminded me of my own. To say it another way, our fictional worlds were different enough to be interesting but similar enough to feel familiar. The few-strips-long collaboration was a success, and Ben went on to do his thing with his comic while I went on with mine.

That was roughly five years ago.

Since then, both Hoboe and S.N.A.T. have since ceased, perhaps before their time. Authoring and/or drawing a webcomic, while rewarding and even fun, is also a lot of work and extremely time intensive. The majority of webcomics simply don’t last. It’s an unfortunate yet common tale among webcomic authors, if not artists in general, that there are bills to be paid and “real money” needs to be made by doing “real work” at a “real job”. Life gets in the way of life. Hell, even buzzcomix.net is now defunct.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Regardless of the outcome, the experience itself was an interesting ride to say the least, with many friendly people along the way. Ben Hubbard was one such individual, and I recently caught up with him to chat about Hoboe for nostalgia’s sake, but also to see what he’s up to these days:

Vince: Phew what a day.  I think I may need a beer.
Vince: I’m pretty sure that's what alcoholics say.
Ben: I came here to tell you you have a problem.
Vince: Haha.

Alcoholism is not funny. Unless it’s part of a joke.

Vince: How's it goin man?
Ben: Not bad not bad.
Vince: Cool.
Ben: Yourself?
Vince: Doing good.
Vince: Alright, business mode!
Ben: Uh oh serious time.

Vince: What was it that drew you to webcomics, as a reader?
Ben: Well, I’ve never been much of a comic book reader per se. As a kid though I did read a LOT of mad magazine, so I guess in a way it was an extension of that kind of humour I enjoyed. Also, on the web you have thousands of different creators all filling their own little niche, so you could always find something that related to your interests as well. The obvious being Penny-Arcade, since I am also a long time gamer.
Ben: I liked the peculiar styles and personality you would get from each comic. With one or two people behind each comic you really were getting a singular creative vision. For better or worse.

I don't know why he was mentioning newspaper strips from my childhood, but I ran with it.

Vince: Yeah that's true.  For the most part a very focused creative effort. So you say you didn't really read comic books, but did you follow any newspaper strips as a kid?
Ben: Not religiously, but I would definitely read the comics in the newspaper from time to time. Garfield, snake, etc. It was a local paper so the selection was not great!
Vince: Ah that's too bad.

Vince: So do you remember the first webcomic that really got you hooked?  I think mine was Real Life Comics by Greg Dean.
Ben: Ah nice, yep I used to read Real Life. I remember you did a guest comic for him but I don't think it ran.
Vince: Yeah that's right.  The wound... it never healed.
Ben: And here I am, twisting the knife again years later.
Vince: Such cruelty!
Ben: muahaha

Humorously, the strip in question actually involved a knife.

Ben: So the obvious example again would be Penny-Arcade. I loved the humour and of course the game references. I was also quite inspired by Mac Hall, particularly the art.
Vince: Ah yeah I remember those guys.  Quite slick
Ben: And the other one that comes to mind () is Dinosaur Comics. I really enjoy Ryan North’s writing, and it never gets old. I don't know if anyone else could pull that off the way he does.
Vince: Haha yeah, that's gotta be the highest testament to quality writing, when the art never changes.

Editor’s note: Dinosaur Comics is a pretty hilarious strip which somehow stays hilarious despite (or perhaps partially because of) the same art being used for every strip. Check it out.

Ben: Penny-Arcade and Dinosaur Comics I still keep up with TO THIS VERY DAY.
Vince: Wow. That’s impressive.
Ben: I did a "guest" comic for Ryan North’s side project, whispered apologies. It ran.
* Ben twists knife
Vince: haha
Vince: THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER
Vince: jk jk
Ben: haha
Ben: Here is that comic. The writer is taking a dig at me.

Vince: What was it that inspired you to try your own hand at making a webcomic?
Ben: I didn't start out with big plans to launch a webcomic or anything. I just threw a couple together based on some characters I had sketched. In fact the second comic was called "the last one”, but it was so much fun I decided to throw up a website and keep going. At the time I was living at home and working in electronics retail, so it was an enjoyable side project to keep me sane.
Vince: Ah, an escape from retail hell.
Ben: Yes. I had bombed out of my first degree, so I was back to work to save up some money for my next degree. (The first I could get government subsidised on a loan, the second I couldn't at the time.)
Vince: What field?
Ben: The first was arts + computer science, which I think I chose because it had the word "animation" somewhere in the "fields you can get into after graduating”. Lies, all lies. I hated it.
Vince: Those bastards!

Vince: You mention the Hoboe guys started off as sketches.  I noticed they also reappared later in some of your animation reels. Was Hoboe where they started or is there a history elsewhere?
Ben: Aaah hehe yeah. Steve existed somewhat, as a vague character idea i'd sketched up a few times.

Steve: the beginning of it all.

Ben: The rest just evolved as the comic went along. The comic is definitely where they came alive. And because I lack creative vision, I did reuse them quite a lot in animation work later on! They were in a lot of my student animation work.
Vince: Well it's hard to just let em go, after all the millions of dollars they made you.
Ben: Tell me about it. Sometimes I feel like the money, it's a burden, you know?
Vince: Haha, no doubt.
Ben: Haha.
Vince: Do you anticpate reusing them in other mediums in the future, game stuff perhaps?
Ben: If so I think probably just in a cameo capacity, but who knows! At this point I'm trying to build fresh ideas, and then fresh characters that organically come from that core idea.
Vince: Fair enough.  I suppose reuse comes with reliance on old ideas.  It's nice to create something new now and then. More freedom to explore and all that
Ben: Yeah. Who knows! Games are such a different medium too.

Vince: You both wrote and drew the comic.  Do you feel that either your visuals or your writing outshone the other?
Ben: I think they were equally variable
Vince: Haha that's a good answer.
Ben: Art wise, I could definitely feel the progression as it went along. Things got tighter and more polished.
Vince: Did you find either one more difficult than the other?
Ben: Hmm no I think I enjoyed and struggled with each equally. There were times when the art flowed but the writing was tricky and vice versa. Later on as the comic got more serialised, the writing got easier. It was always nice to have that big picture as to where things are going.
Vince: That does sound helpful.

Vince: Alright the next one is a big one
Ben: Do it.
* Ben holds onto his hat
Vince: Haha.
Vince: Creating art in general can be a largely thankless passion.  It's an incredibly satisfying experience when your work finds an admiring audience, but there is always the risk that people won't be into it, or even worse will dislike it.  Do any experiences in particular with praise and/or criticism stand out to you?
Ben: Well hoboe never set the world on fire, but I did manage to build a bit of an audience. I did get the odd nice message from a reader, that was always a nice surprise. Probably the best was a random piece of fanart sent me, that was pretty cool! I never got any hate mail though. Lucky I guess!
Vince: Haha. Not yet anyway.  If you put the comic back up for the interview there's hope yet.
Ben: Awww yeah.

The progression of a Hoboe strip. Click for full view.
Send me your hate-mail and I'll pass it along.

Vince: Fan art though that's pretty awesome. That somebody felt compelled to do so, must mean you struck a chord.
Ben: For sure. I did participate in a webcomic peer review sort of group. There were some criticisms which were all very useful and I tried to take on board. That's different from hate mail though. Constructive is always good.
Vince: Yeah constructive criticism is vital.  No criticism means nobody's even looking.

Vince: At what point did you realize that Hoboe would have to end?  Was it more a matter of necessity or had your time with this particular passion simply run its course?
Ben: Yeah the passion comes and goes for sure. It's hard to keep it going over the course of years, but in the end it came down to changing priorities. I needed to put my energy into my animation work, as that was going to be my actual career.
Vince: Gotta do whatcha gotta do.
Ben: Yep. Even though i hadn't posted a comic in ages, it was quite sad to put up a news post to say it was officially over.
Ben: Onwards!
Vince: Indeed!

Vince: Alrighty, the last one regarding Hoboe before I ask you about other ventures:  what is the significance of the name "Hoboe" as the name for the strip? (I always wondered this when I was a reader.)
Ben: Yeah I always struggled with that, feeling like the name was weird and didn't really mean anything as far as the comic went. Basically it was my nickname. hubbard=hubbo=hobo
Vince: Ah! It all makes sense now.
Ben: And I spelt hobo wrong! So it was hoboe.
Vince: Haha. Was that not intentional?
Ben: Nope.
Vince: Happy mistake maybe.  I find "hoboe" more humorous than "hobo" as a word. I have no idea why.
Ben: And like I mentioned, I just made the first comics as a quick thing for fun. After that it stuck. I tried to rebrand it as "sitcomic" near the end.
Vince: Ah yeah I recall that.
Ben: But it died soon after anyway. Maybe more fitting but less interesting. I’ve come to realise that a weird name is fine. After a while it's not a word anymore it's just the name of the thing. Like nintendo wii.
Vince: That's a good example. Even just “Nintendo" itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I’d imagine "Game System Supreme!" or some such wouldn't have quite the same ring to it.

Vince: So we've talked a bit about your animation work.  Was this something that you had lots of experience prior to your career or was it mostly new to you?
Ben: I’d always been interested in animation, since I was a child. In high school I downloaded a slightly illegal copy of 3d studio max and would mess around with it in my spare time. In my last year of highschool I animated a 7 minute epic short. It was dreadful. But even though it was dreadful, I knew my way around max now. So when I got to the animation course a couple of years later I dived right in. I did quite well. The polar opposite of my previous degree attempt.
Vince: Congrats on that.
Ben: Because I enjoyed it it wasn't even like work most of the time.
Vince: Makes enough sense.  Do what you like and you'll do it well.
Ben: Oh yeah quite well = dux of the campus in year 2. That's the key for me. To get motivated. But you know when you have a job interview that you are just dreading. Like retail! You don't want the job at all, you just need A job. You have to convince them you want it. It's the worst feeling. I loved going to animation interviews because I actually wanted the job. I was excited. It was great to find something like that. Of course now I’ve been in the industry a while and I’m all bitter an jaded.
Vince: Haha. It happens to all of us.
Ben: Nah just kidding, I still enjoy animation.
Vince: Well shoot. Now I just feel like a bitter fool.
Ben: Being contract based you tend to be on different projects all the time. It's bad for job security but good for keeping things interesting.
Vince: Yeah there's always that tradeoff.

Animation reel, from Ben's student years, featuring Hoboedomians
Check out his recent work here.

Vince: So how did you transition from animation into indie game development?
Ben: Ah yes! Well it's only just beginning, but it's been fun so far. Basically I had a nice long contract working on happy feet two, and my savings from that are bankrolling this new project. I’ve teamed up with an old friend of mine lance burns. He used to hang around the hoboe forums actually! One of the regulars.
Vince: Well that's nice.  Good to work with good people you're already familiar with.
Ben: I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to try something new and build something for ourselves. Lance was just finishing up his PHD so it was perfect timing. He's the crack programmer and i'm the crack artist/animator.
Vince: Sounds like a good team. Are you guys looking at any genre or style of game in particular, or just whatever finds itself coming into existance?
Ben: More the latter. We are trying to come up with unique and compelling ideas first and go from there.
Vince: Gotta stand out right. Especially in a competitive industry.
Ben: Yes it is quite crowded.
Vince: Well best of luck to you guys.  Looking forward to seeing something there
Ben: We should have some stuff out later this year

Vince: Ok now the very last question. I’m gonna tie this into relevancy by the fact that we live and work within the age of digital media.  Hoboe, Happy Feet 2, indie game development - they’re all very interesting places we've come to through recent technology.
Ben: Yes.
Vince: Part of that is that anybody anywhere can create and publish anything, for anybody to see anywhere.  It's quite beautiful.
Ben: Totally agreed.
Vince: As a result, we have a shit ton of cat videos on youtube. I’d like to show one to you now. Tell me your thoughts on this:

Ben: Hilarious! Well synched.
Vince: Haha. Agreed!
Ben: A worthwhile use of technology.
Vince: I think we've truly progressed as a society.

Vince: Alright man, well thanks again for your time.
Ben: No worries! Good chatting.
Vince: Yeah definitely!  Good luck w the game dev stuff.
Ben: I will get you some material. What sort of stuff are you after?
Vince: Could you draw a banana eating a monkey?
Ben: Ok.
Vince: Score!
Ben: Haha.

For a trip down memory lane, and/or for first-time readers, here is Hoboe the Comic. Enjoy!