On-line interview
Weaned on Mad magazine, super-hero comics and “Bloom County,” Gilligan attended Toronto’s Sheridan College for animation and illustration and took comedy writing at the Film Institute in Ottawa. He tested out other jobs over the years such as gas jockey, carnie, night watchman and florist, before joining the Ottawa Citizen newspaper as its on-staff illustrator, where he won awards in both illustration and design. Gilligan does not currently own a dog, but he skulks around dog parks doing research, and is an avid viewer of “Dogs With Jobs” and “Scooby-Doo” reruns.
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Suzanne Tobin: Welcome, comics fans to another edition of “Comics: Meet the Artist.” Today we are delighted to have Paul Gilligan, whose “Pooch Cafe” appears in our Express editions. Paul is joining us from his studio in Toronto. Welcome, Paul, and thanks for joining us Live Online.
Paul Gilligan: Delighted to be here.
Harrisburg, Pa.: What is your work schedule? Do you discipline yourself to work at a steady pace, or do you find you produce in creative batches?
Paul Gilligan: Most people I know would laugh at the word “discipline” being applied to me in any way. I keep such odd hours. I do have creative bursts, but sometimes they’ll only last a few minutes and be sidetracked by something as simple as the sudden need to check my e-mail. The 8 hours before the deadline can usually be counted on to produce a creative burst.
Bethesda, MD: What type of a kid were you when you were growing up? Quiet, outgoing, goofy? Who influenced your sense of humor?
Paul Gilligan: Like all good cartoonists, I was socially inept as a child. You don’t spend the hundreds of hours necessary to develop drawing skills if you’re captain of the football team and dating the head cheerleader.
Philadelphia, Pa.: You were a florist. Was that a job, or do you still like to work with flowers?
Paul Gilligan: Thankfully I do not like flowers, and was fired from that job. This freed me up to become an internationally syndicated cartoonist. They’ve probably re-filled the florist position by now, but you’re welcomed to give them a call.
Rockville: How did you first get published? And do you what was it like when you first saw your cartoon in print?
Paul Gilligan: It’s still a thrill every time I see one of my cartoons in print. Unless it’s a lousy gag, then the thrill is a bit less. I was working as an illustrator for a newspaper in Ottawa for many years before I got syndicated, so I saw my work in print often. I also did a weekly one-panel cartoon for them for years. Pooch Cafe was originally distributed by a smaller syndicate before it moved Universal Press. On the subject of thrills, I just got a couple of copies of the first Pooch collection in Spanish! (they call it “Cafe Cao”). That’s a thrill.
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Stephan, Santa Rosa: How much do you weigh?
Paul Gilligan: Finally a hard-hitting question! Let me go check…….
A fighting trim 146. But I’m getting calf implants next week, so that may change.____________________
Georgetown: Hi, Paul. Love your strip. I’d read it online before the Express picked it up. I’d like to know more about how you work with a syndicate to get them interested in picking up your strip. Do you have an agent? Or do you just negotiate with them directly.
Paul Gilligan: Thanks for the positive vibes! No, I didn’t have an agent of any kind before syndication, you just have to keep sending samples to all the syndicates and hope they call you. Often if they’re interested they’ll sign you up to a development deal and flesh out the strip. I did this once with a different strip and the process actually sucked all the life out of the concept, but usually it’s more productive. Luckily Pooch Cafe is based on fact, so they couldn’t tamper with it._______________________
R Lington: I’ve just started reading Pooch Cafe recently and greatly enjoy it. In your bio it
mentions that you worked on several strips that culminated in Pooch. What were they like?
Paul Gilligan: Glad you’re digging Pooch. The first strip I did was a one-panel. Like half of North America, I thought I was going to be the new Gary Larsen. I then did a strip called “Plank” about this naive pod-person with suspenders and a rutebaga-like head. I worked with King Features on that for a while but it combusted. I then did a strip called “Wildlife” set in an office where all the characters had various animal heads. I don’t know why I thought I could do that since I never worked in an office.
woof: Hmmm, more talking dogs?
Paul Gilligan: I tried the strip with all the dogs just barking, but it wasn’t as funny.
Toronto, Ontario: I’d like to work as a cartoonist. Er, I’d like to get paid working as a cartoonist. How did you manage to get hired at that Ottawa newspaper?
alien space worm…
Paul Gilligan: Well, my florist dreams in ruins, I was ready for a re-location. My former Editorial Illustration teacher from College new about the on-staff job at the Ottawa paper and recommended me. There are very very few full-time jobs for illustrators at newspapers, even the editorial cartoonist jobs are fewer these days. However, with a name like “Alien Space Worm” you can never become a doctor or a lawyer, so keep cartooning!
Suzanne Tobin: Paul, since we now have the controversy of “censoring” the comics in this discussion, can you tell us your feelings on newspapers pulling strips they deem in poor taste. Have you ever had discussions with your syndicate about any of your submissions where they didn’t think it appropriate for a “family newspaper”?
I’d love to hear about this issue from the creator’s side.
Paul Gilligan: It really does seem like the comics page is the last bastion of Victorian thought. I got some letters from angry readers when I used the word “friggin’”. So following that I used the word “freakin’”. Some papers didn’t like that and changed it to “friggin’”, which I got more letters about. It’s difficult terrain in a strip where the main character regularly goes off on angry rants.
I’ve also had my syndicate nix strips involving Poncho making a bowl of iced tea in the toilet, and one containing the word “vasectomy”.______________________
Suzanne Tobin: Speaking of collections, Paul, why don’t you tell the nice folks about your “Pooch Cafe” compilation that’s in English! (And I want of cut of any sales this chat generates!)
Paul Gilligan: Gladly! The first Pooch Cafe collection is called “All Dogs Naturally Know How To Swim”. The second just came out recently, it’s called “No Collar, No Service”.
And while I’m busy schilling, in answer to an earlier question, getting Pooch in the Washington Post is easy, just get 100 of your closest friends to flood the offices with letters. Mix them up, make some plaintive and some threatening.
alien space worm : Have any of your relatives ever been shipwrecked and stranded on a small deserted island with seven stranded castaways?
Paul Gilligan: With a surname like Gilligan, certain things are denied me. For instance, I can never go to an island, go on any tours lasting three hours, or date any girls named Ginger, Mary Anne or Luvvy. Coconut trees are also a constant source of tension.
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D.C.: If a rat and a stupid pig were at your strip’s doorstep, would you let them in?
Paul Gilligan: In the words of my father: No.
the Skipper and Maryanne: why a cafe and not, say, a kennel or sleazy jazz dive?
Paul Gilligan: “Pooch Cafe” was actually a pun that nobody got. There’s a drink called a poose cafe (I’m not sure I’m spelling that right). The first person I ran the name by got the connection right away, so off I went. To this day she’s the only one who ever got it.
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Maryland : Censoring - It might be best to let the readers decide so they can see what’s going through a cartoonist’s head. It’s like censoring Lyndon Larouche ads, many would never know how nuts he is unless they saw for themselves.
Paul Gilligan: If you could see what’s going on in my head right now, it’d be confusion, as I don’t know who Lyndon Larouche is, but yes, I too would like to see what’s going on in other cartoonist’s heads. I can only imagine how sexy a strip like Blondie would be with no censorship.______________________
Stephan, Santa Rosa: Do you cry easily?
Paul Gilligan: Only at the end of Star Trek II, when Kirk is giving Spock’s eulogy, and says “of all the souls I’ve know, Spock’s was the most …. human”. Shatner’s quivering lower lip gets me every time. If someone as tough as Kirk can cry, dammit why can’t we all?
Doggone funny: Have you started to merchandise yet?
Paul Gilligan: They sell Pooch shirts, mugs and mousepads at cafepress.com. No stuffed animal yet. I think engineers are working on the problem of how to do Poncho’s ears.
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not Pastis: How tall are you and what is your favorite color?
Paul Gilligan: I’m 3′4″ when I’m sitting down. I can’t pick a favorite color, it wouldn’t be fair to the other colors who I’m also friends with.
upper Maryland : Could Poncho whip Marmaduke? How about Garfield?
Paul Gilligan: Poncho couldn’t do any physical damage to either of them. But he could hurt their feelings. Especially that Marmaduke, that guy’s had it coming.
Iced Tea Rap: Would have been funnier as a bowl of Iced Pee.
Paul Gilligan: See, now where were you when I was pitching that joke to my editor?
animated Canada : Ever work for the International Tournee of animation? You didn’t animate the Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin did you?
Paul Gilligan: No, and noooooooo.
R Lington: If I read a strip about a dog making iced tea in the toilet, I would laugh out loud and write the editor a letter full of compliments and superlatives. Tell your syndicate this.
Paul Gilligan: Done and doooooooone.
Blondie : Yummm. Cookie Bumstead, nekkid! ps- Are all your strip’s characters nekkid?
Paul Gilligan: There was a recent story arc where Poncho lost his collar and all the other dogs laughed at him for being naked. He streaked home, feeling like a hippie.
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DC: Are you an all-nighter type whom the neighbors mutter about to each other? I’ve known a few cartoonists who would fit this description.
Paul Gilligan: Let’s just say some walls have been pounded and leave it at that.
rainy Maryland : If you could be any cartoon character, what would it be?
Paul Gilligan: A character from Peanuts, because I want to live forever. Oh, no, wait, I don’t want to be short. Prince Valiant seems like a good answer, but who could live with that hair? Um, let’s say…. Spongebob Squarepants.
Beltway: Tell us more about what a development contract is like with a syndicate. Sounds
like it could be potentially painful with pitifully small results.
Paul Gilligan: It certainly could be all those things, but if the people who work in the business think your strip needs tinkering they’re probably right. Sometimes it’s a matter of salability, the salesmen on the road need an angle and/or a demographic they can pitch with. Sad that that’s such a major part of the biz these days, but it’s a reality. Ultimately you can’t sway too far from your personal cartooning instincts, it’ll show in the strip, but if you get that far with a syndicate they obviously like your chops so you can probably work something out.
R Lington: There seems to be a sudden renaissance of talking animals strips, which I think is a Good Thing. Do you have any deep thoughts about this?
And I like the sound of “Plank”.
Paul Gilligan: No deep thoughts. I sometimes wish there weren’t so many jokes about dogs on a given day. All the dog strips are one thing, but when non-dog strips have dog jokes too it really clogs up the territory. Like Overboard. I love that strip, But it was about pirates! Now most of the jokes center around the dog. That’s Pooch territory! How would Dunham like it if I started doing a bunch of pirate jokes in Pooch?? Well, anyway, I’ve calmed down now, and I didn’t say “friggin’” once.
Delmarva: Why don’t you like flowers? Most dogs I know seem to love them, if for the wrong reasons.
Paul Gilligan: You’re right, I shouldn’t say I don’t like flowers, they were a valuable stepping stone in my life.
Gaithersburg MD: How has Pooch Cafe changed in the time you’ve been doing it? Do the characters slip your leash and gradually run amok?
Paul Gilligan: I think I’ve gotten back to the roots lately. I used to have more outrageous storylines, like the time Poncho and Boomer ate some rotten eggs and went on a long hallucinatory journey involving ghosts and a taxi driven by a dead worm. I’m not kidding. I don’t know what I was thinking that time.
Alex Andria: Your drawing style seems eminently animatable. Have you done any animation, or are you planning to? PC would look great on Nickleodeon or Adult Swim.
Paul Gilligan: Sean Hayes’s company has optioned Pooch and just signed a deal with ABC Family. We’re going to create a pilot episode. Whether or not it actually hits the air only time will tell. But I did get flown down to L.A. for meetings and put up in a boutique hotel in Beverly Hills owned by Gregory Peck! (not THE Gregory Peck).
Poncho: Was Poncho named after the raingear, Cisco’s sidekick or that Villa guy?
Paul Gilligan: Cisco’s sidekick, but I think I spelled it wrong.
Arlington, VA: Where do you stand on merchandising? At the extremes of Watterson or Jim Davis, or tastefully in the middle?
Paul Gilligan: So far my sell-out level has yet to be tested. I’m sort of interested myself to see where I’ll stand.
Canada: Were you ever teased by other cartoonists in Canada? Parlez- vous Francais?
Paul Gilligan: Parlez what? Sorry, I only gots the English. Um, I got teased by all sorts of kids growing up, it’s possible some of them became cartoonists.
Paul Gilligan: Thanks for all the queries! And thanks to Suzanne for having me. Cheers, all.
Suzanne Tobin: Thanks so much, Paul, for being so generous with your time. I’m sure our readers enjoyed the chance to get to know the man behind the comic. And I’ll probably get skewered again Tuesday in Gene Weingarten’s “Chatological Humor” Live Online discussion for pulling “The Boondocks” today. Nevertheless, I hope you all will join me again next month for another edition of “Comics: Meet the Artist.”