I'm at a complete loss to explain the plot of Goats (as it's impossible to explain fish that live in beer, satanic chickens, and monkeys typing away at an infinite number of typewriters in a coherent manner) so just trust me when I say it's definitely worth checking out.
Kathy
Kathy Peterson: You've been doing Goats for over 10 years now, what have been some of the highs and lows of doing the same comic for that long?
Jon Rosenberg It has been quite a while now that you mention it! I think both the high and the low of my Goats experience occurred simultaneously in a hotel room in San Diego with a case of beer and one of the Lone Gunmen from the X-Files.
KP: Alot has changed about Goats in those 10 years (I'll get to the art in a minute) compared with when you started, how much planning do you put into your story arcs?
JR: I have things planned out to some small degree on a multi-year scale and a slightly better idea of where the current series is going, but I like to keep the plots fairly loose and detail-free so I can approach the scriptwriting process for a given strip with a high degree of flexibility and creative freedom. If I locked myself into a rigid framework I'd lose interest in writing the strip I imagine.
KP: Recently, it appeared as if you killed off a significant part of your cast. Was this the end of the 2012 story arc, or do we have another 4 years to see how it all ends? Any hints as to the fates of the still unaccounted for cast members?
JR: I think we still have some ways to go before the storyline resolves itself, I'm anticipating that it will go until 2012 and comprise 6 or 7 printed volumes of about 150 pages each.
No one really dies in Goats since no one is really alive. I imagine we'll see a good portion of the regular cast again at some point.
KP: The artwork in Goats has improved significantly since you've started, and is now some of the best to be found on-line. What's changed about your approach to drawing Goats and how has going digital affected your artwork?
JR: Thanks! The best? Really? You're making me blush.
The changes I've made to the art have been slow and incremental, mostly just a process of practice and refinement. I think the key to improving your art is to keep a jealous eye on the artists you most admire, don't be afraid to experiment and (occasionally) fail, and just keep drawing until all your bad drawings come out and can be safely filed away.
KP: 10 years from now, do you still want to be working on Goats, working on another project, or do you see yourself out of comics all together?
JR: I think at the moment I'd like to move on to another project at some point in the next five years or so, but I think it's impossible to say for certain how I'll feel about switching it up at that point. If there's a compelling story to tell and the demand is there, I'm sure I could be persuaded to continue.
The only way I would leave comics is if something even more awesome came along, and there aren't many things more awesome than comics.
KP: How has becoming a father affected your work on the comic? Do you ever worry what she's going to think about all this cartooning craziness when she's old enough to read it?
JR: There's definitely a lot of fatherhood and parenthood themes seeping into the storyline since my daughter was born. I think all of the characters have some sort of weird parent/child issues going on. One Death and Jon, Jon and Diablo, Diablo and Oliver, Farmella and Wheatina, Farmella and Bean, they all have these strained relationships where the parent and the child are at odds. Even Phillip gets into the action this week as his miniature clone shows up to cause problems.
I'm not too worried about exposing her to the strip, I'm sure any damage that the strip would do to her will be done through good old-fashioned parenting on my behalf long before she discovers it.
KP: You helped to start Fleen back in 2005, and since then it's more of less taken on a life of it's own. How to you feel about the project 3 years later? Also, what's your honest opinion about Gary's mustache?
JR: Fleen is still exactly what it should be: a great place to come and get the dirt on webcomics every day of the workweek. Gary is cyber-engineered to be the perfect webcomics blogger. No other resource out there can match it. His moustache is the source of his power, I think it is probably best left alone, contained within a demilitarized zone perhaps.
KP: Last, what's the one webcomic you'd recommend people check out that they're probably not reading already?
JR: I'm not very hip with the underground webcomics scene so I don't know too many genuine underdog strips. That said, BOASAS is not read nearly as much as it should be, Octopus Pie is newish and perfect, and Kate Beaton and Rene Engstrom are both delicious recent acquisitions to my comics trawl.
