We contacted Mark and asked him more questions regarding his work. The ‘Pain Train’ series often features unique and memorable characters. We were wondering how the artist goes about developing characters that fit the tone of his comics. We learned that: “I think most of my strips started with the main character already in mind - either a particular face or 'voice' I was imagining when writing the punchline, which is to say, there's not much development before sketching out the comic. I think webcomics as a medium force character development to evolve naturally over time, so a one-off character will probably be pretty two-dimensional - just a vehicle to tell a quick joke - it's the recurring characters that get a chance to become layered through iteration.”
Asked which character is the artist’s personal favorite, Mark answered: “I'm fond of the office worker character and his two bosses, which ended up in a handful of strips. They're pretty close to Dilbert territory but I think they're cute, fun little guys.”
Next, we wanted Pain to share with us some of his influences in the world of comedy and humor. The cartoonist told us: “In terms of other webcomics, you can refer to my answers from the last set of questions. For TV influences, most of my childhood took place in the '90s so we're talking lots of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, then Adult Swim shows later, as well as your standard Monty Python influence and whatever sitcoms were on then. One outlier which might be unusual for these times would be M*A*S*H - I rewatch the latter half of that series every now and then. I really like the way they would throw in so many jokes you could easily miss if you weren't paying close attention, which is probably why I like Arrested Development so much too. Another show I was binging while making a lot of comics at the time was Frasier. I would just put something on in the background and half watch it while penciling and inking, so I think a lot of different stuff bled into what I made at different times.”
Lastly, we were curious about what, in Mark’s opinion, makes a good comic, and what mistakes artists should avoid. The author of ‘Pain Train’ told us: “Webcomics are such a strange thing. They're their own weird beast and they can take all kinds of forms and broach all different kinds of subjects which will resonate with different audiences. It's just so subjective... there's a quote which has stuck with me since I heard it, I can't remember exactly how it goes or who said it (maybe you can find it?) but to paraphrase: 'The best writing is that which approaches embarrassing the writer,' which I take to mean the best writing is both personal and honest. If your comic reflects how you interpret the world, then it should, in theory, resonate with anyone like-minded. Whether that overlaps with your actual goals in writing/making something is another matter, but I think that advice leads to the 'best' results when it comes to creative endeavours. All the other details can be worked out as you go.”
