We contacted the creator behind The Jenkins again to dive deeper into the creative process, uncovering their personal insights and experiences that shape the comics we all love. Here's what they had to say about the challenges, routines, and boundaries behind their work.
We started off with a bit of a grim question. Creating comics is definitely enjoyable, but as readers, we only see the final result of all the work that goes into each panel. That’s why we wanted to ask: what’s the most frustrating part of making comics that readers don’t see? For the creator of The Jenkins, the writing stage—before you’re set on one particular idea to flesh out—is the one that feels the most challenging. "Since the style of the comic has become that each entry is standalone, I often start each strip with a blank page."
Then, the next frustrating part is having an idea that’s not quite there—when it’s just on the edge of something good but doesn’t quite hit the mark yet. "I will regularly have 10 to 20 drafts of a comic with different endings, branching off the same starting premise.
Outside of the creation process, the most frustrating part of managing a webcomic in 2025 is the social media algorithm, which is why I've more or less given up on any attempts to appease it. I’ve decided to only write 'The Jenkins' for fun, so I don’t hold myself to any feeling that I need to appease an algorithm. This should hopefully make the comic more fun to read, but it also gives me less of a competitive drive to write prolifically."
Knowing when a joke is truly "done" can be another challenge. The cartoonist shared that sometimes, they know a joke is finished even before they’ve written it down. "A funny concept will strike me in a conversation or in the shower. If there’s a clear, simple punchline, there’s pretty much no editing needed, except to get the wording tight. However, this is not the case for most comics, and oftentimes it will take around ten drafts before something is done. Usually, I’ll start with a fixed opening panel or two and work out potential third and fourth panels that will follow. Sometimes, the more time I spend iterating on something, I discover it’s unlikely to ever be that funny. I don’t stop editing until I hit something I find funny or I give up on the premise."
Taking a deeper look into the creative process behind the scenes, we were curious if the artist has any unusual or unexpected routines that help inspire new ideas. "I have a limited set of exercises I use to come up with jokes when things get dire," they shared. "A lot of the early Jenkins jokes just came from the old 'A + B' ideation method. I’d take out a sheet of paper and write down things I thought were funny, then cross them with each other to see what two ideas would look like combined. From that, I’d get gems such as 'Time Travel Pizza' or 'Rubik’s Cube Mafia.'
That method doesn’t span all the gamut of jokes, however. I picked up another method from friends in college, which I will call the 'bottomless list Google doc' (the true name is a patented secret). In that, you just have a list in a Google doc and enter as many entries as you can. Ideally, you want dozens of pages of entries in a stream-of-consciousness flow. Then, a few days later, you go back and comb through the list for the best ideas. This doesn’t work as well for comics, but it has helped me in a lot of other writing ventures."
While the topics in The Jenkins range from socially awkward situations to hints of mythology, the artist told us they steer clear of adult content and explicit violence. They've kept it family-friendly so far, and they plan to continue in that direction. "I think I mentioned H**l in a comic one time... I stay away from on-the-nose political content, just because this makes the comic stand on its own merit, stay timeless, and critique modern issues in a creative way. If you look in the comic, there are occasional critiques of contemporary issues, such as the one from earlier this year, making an allegory to DOGE.
As for content I refuse to do even if it's funny, that pretty much only applies to adult content. There’s a time for that, and it’s not 'The Jenkins' comic. I do critique modern political stuff if I have something truly funny and novel to say about it. Usually, it will be in an indirect way."
