Name: Chris OttoNom De Plume: My pen’s name? Bruce. Kidding. I have no pen name.
Location: Richmond, VA
Credits: A Dog’s Life Comic, The Sunday Comics
Creative Title: Cartoonist
Favorite Comic: Cerebus
If you could have a 1 power: Shoot, I never know how to answer this. Um. Will power. Stronger will power. Or invisibility.
Chris Otto you left the
The7Deadly Questions
waiting and that is never a good idea
What accomplishment are you most proud of in your creative life ?
There are a few, but the thing I’m most proud of has to be the fact that I’ve drawn a Garfield comic strip officially sanctioned by Jim Davis himself. He gave Golden Bell’s upcoming The Sunday Comics licence to have creators make their own Garfield strips. It was really surreal, drawing a strip that I loved when I was a kid. I was also interviewed by Dog Fancy Magazine. That was pretty amazing.
What is a current goal you are chasing ?It’s not a comics related goal, but I am planning on running for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017, then perhaps the Senate. Our country needs fixing, and I like to dream big. I’ve only said that to my Facebook friends, so I guess this is my public declaration of running for office. How’s that for a scoop?
Creatively, my goal is to get my comic back up and running, with new art and stories. My old site was hacked, and I had to kill it with fire. Rather than repost over 600 comics, I decided to reboot the strip with new art. My greatest regret when I started the comic was that I had only been drawing for about a month before I started posting comics. They were not pretty. So, A Dog’s Life 2.0 is on its way! That one is actually happening very soon.
What is the best Indy comic you have read and hope there are more stories coming ?
I wish I had more time to read comics. I don’t read a lot. I do, however, love Dan Nokes’ Impossible Tales of the Last Pit Stop. It’s really great, and is still ongoing. Check it out here. http://www.21sandshark.com/#!impossiblespacetales/c1pz
DO you think women are equals to men in comic or is there still a ways to go ?
No, but I think they’re getting there. There are a lot of great women in both indie and mainstream comics, and they are starting to be recognized more often for their talents. The record number of women nominated for Eisners this year, I think that shows that progress is being made. However, as long as the harassment of women in comics keeps getting ignored at the highest level, well, that’s just horrible and wrong, and something that needs to change.
What was the worst comic book ever made?
It may not be the worst ever, but The Dark Knight Returns 2 was a huge let down for me. I loved the first, and enjoyed Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil, and just hated that sequel. Ugh. There was a series from Marvel about a trucker; US 1. That was bad. Again, probably not the worst, but whooo! Bad stuff.
Are the big two worrying to much about profits over story telling in your opinion?
Probably? Maybe? Honestly, I don’t read comics anymore. I haven’t read anything from the big two on a regular basis since 1994. I think if the big two trusted their writers enough to create great stuff instead of pumping out as much as they can, we’d get better stuff, right? If you make a great writer pound out several titles a month, the quality will slip. They are huge corporations, and the bottom line is, they want to make money; the stories are secondary.
If you could bring back a character that was killed to sell comic who would it be and why ?
Does anyone really stay dead? Even Gwen Stacy came back, right? Is Uncle Ben still dead?
He wasn’t killed to sell comics, but I want Cerebus back. I loved that aardvark.
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