Bored Panda is excited to meet new artists, so we reached out to Alex to ask him more about the idea behind these comics and the artist himself.
Alex is a 29-year-old guy from Germany. He studied Computer Science and Media and worked as a web developer for about 4 years. Very recently, the artist quit his job to focus on making comics full-time. His biggest inspiration is Japanese manga like One Piece and Bakuman.
Drawing has been Alex's passion since he was a little child. "When I was in elementary school I created my first comic series. The title was 'Der verrückte Igel' which is German and means 'The crazy hedgehog'. It was drawn with colored pencils on sheets of cheap copy paper that I stapled together.
Later I also explored other forms of art like animation, video production and game development. After I failed the entrance exam for a design course, I lost interest in art for a while. It was only in 2018 that I started drawing again and created characters for 'Fossil Fools'."
The artist revealed that while some of his comic strips only serve the purpose of making one laugh, many of them do have an underlying message. "One recurring theme is going on one's own path and not letting others tell you how to live your life. A recent comic strip of mine that seemed to resonate a lot with people was about being someone who does not drink alcohol but is surrounded by people who do. I wanted to encourage those who are subject to peer pressure the same way I was when I stopped drinking."
"I like having full creative freedom for my work. Art allows me to have this kind of freedom. The reason why I chose short comic strips, in particular, is because I wanted to create something people can consume occasionally without worrying too much about where to start and in which order to read."
Alex thinks that dinosaurs are cool and so do we, of course! According to the artist, even though they went extinct millions of years ago, people all over the world are fascinated by them. And the fact that there are still so many things we don't know about them leaves a lot of room for imagination. "When I was a child I had plenty of dinosaur books and figures. Now, more than 20 years later, I combined my passion for drawing and my fascination for dinosaurs and the result was 'Fossil Fools'."
Alex hasn't announced this yet, but he is currently working on "Fossil Fools" merchandise. "In the second half of this year, I will start working on a 'Fossil Fools' comic book, as well. Beyond that, I would like to develop a game that features my characters but this is something for the distant future."
