Bored Panda reached out to Andrés and asked some questions about his series of comics. We wanted to know how the author of Dark Dystopia first became interested in comic art, and what inspired him to pursue it professionally. Londoño shared with us: “I have always been a big fan of communicating stories through drawings and the internet provided a new medium to do it through webcomics. Even though I followed a lot of popular webcomics online and I really enjoyed them, it was pure randomness how I got into drawing them too... I was riding a bus once on my way to university and started contemplating my future and how I was just wasting my time. I don't know why, but at that time, the idea of starting a webcomic project just seemed like a good solution for this issue!”
Asked about his favorite dark humor works, either in comics or other mediums, the artist told us: “I really enjoy playing with ideas that would usually be considered offensive, sad or tragic and try to give them a funny approach. Ricky Gervais' stand-up is for sure a good example of this; I truly believe that with the right approach, anything can be turned into something funny, at least for some. Cyanide and Happiness were the masters of dark humor webcomics back then.”
We were also interested in how Andrés came up with ideas for his comic strips, and we learned that: “Daily life, stories people tell me, inspiration from pop culture, but mostly from dreams. I don't necessarily dream my ideas, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a random idea I just have to write down. I have a list of a lot of random stuff... Most of it makes no sense, but every now and then comes a good one.”
Next, we were wondering if among his own comics, the artist has a personal favorite character or a storyline that he particularly enjoyed creating. Londoño said: “I used to do a series called The Creator. It was about an artist struggling with all the stuff artists struggle with like art blocks, procrastination, plagiarism, recognition, etc. It was pretty fun while it lasted!”
Lastly, we asked Andrés what in his opinion makes a good comic, and what common mistakes artists should avoid: “A good comic is something that people enjoy, of course, not everyone likes the same thing and that's probably the biggest mistake aspiring artists make, trying to please everyone! Also, don't do it for the likes or recognition, you'll go crazy. Do it because you enjoy doing it and take your time. You're more important than your readers.”
