Given the chance, Bored Panda reached out to Daniel, the artist behind Danby Draws with some new questions!
When asked about balancing experimentation with his original style, Daniel explained, “There are a lot of factors that might affect what kind of style I might choose for a comic. In one comic, I had a man twist his head 180 degrees like an owl, so I chose to go with a more cartoony, egg-headed style. While in my comic about mountain lion names, I just felt like drawing in a bit more realistic style would make a good contrast to the absurdity of the humans arguing about them. Lately, I’ve been trying out having more vivid colors to make the comics stand out a bit. Hopefully, it’s working at least a little bit.”
Reflecting on unexpected reactions to his work, the artist shared one of the more surprising moments in his journey, “The most unexpected thing to happen to me was when my website was linked by some foreign magazine, and I was suddenly inundated with sixty thousand hits. They discussed my comic in the article, but they didn’t want to pay to use it, so I suppose the link was sufficient for them. When you make art, you really don’t know what’s going to happen with it.”
As for revisiting old work, he prefers looking forward rather than reworking past comics. He noted, “I usually like to focus on the future, rather than dwelling on one piece too long. If one comic didn’t quite work, that’s okay, the next one will hopefully be better. There are definitely some comics that I feel would maybe work better with some tweaks, and I have done them occasionally. If I’m being honest, the fact that I don’t have a lot of time to work on comics comes with a bit of relief in that I can just move on without worrying too much about what I’ve already done.”
When it comes to dream projects or collaborations, Daniel is drawn to the idea of tackling longer-form comics. “What I have been really interested in experimenting with is more long-form comics. Obviously, the longer comics take more time and require more from the reader, so it feels like a bit of a bigger risk. I feel like I’m always drawn to themes surrounding death and the afterlife, so I might like to explore making some larger comics about these topics,” he revealed.
As for the big ideas he hasn’t yet tackled, Daniel admitted, “I feel like the big dream would be to complete a graphic novel or something of that level. But I would probably have to take a break from making short comics in order to find the time to make that happen. For now, I enjoy making something with my spare hours and being able to get it in front of my fans immediately, and getting an instant reaction. There’s definitely something very special about that.”
