missy

Question of the day: What webcomic looks like it was drawn on a Nintendo and features among its cast a former adult-film actress, a nice-guy robot, and a Macintosh with a libido? Answer: Diesel Sweeties. Diesel Sweeties is solely the creation of one R. (for Richard) Stevens, and for three years has entertained his digital audience with his highly pixilated robot and hu-man creations. Professor Stevens and I recently sat down for a little chat over AOL Instant Messenger, as he cannot be bothered with smelly hu-man interaction:

Richard Stevens: Get your freak on as I brew some coffee.

Keith Daniels: Roger. What's the flavor today?

RS: Fresh Jamaican blue mountain.

KD: They have mountains in Jamaica?

RS: Apparently one.

KD: Ok, let me know when you're ready.

RS: Word is born.

KD: Rock.

RS: On.

KD: Does Diesel Sweeties turn a profit?

RS: Depends on what time of the year it is. Currently I'm way in the hole from publishing a book, but I'll be back in the black by Xmas-time. Books are slow, steady sellers.

KD: So you make all your money from merchandising.

RS: Pretty much. I look at it like TV or radio ... free advertising for stuff I like to sell. I've been making t-shirts [for] as long as I've been interested in making comics; they're an important part of the process for me.

KD: There's something mystical about a good t-shirt too.

RS: T-shirts are one of the only really good things about America.

KD: In #685 Nipples the Bear says that kids should keep up with their art because in ten years it'll be the only thing about them that isn't boring. Grain of truth there?

RS: Damn, you're real specific with the strip numbers and everything! Yeah, I hang out with exactly one person I knew in high school because they all pretty much turned out to be disappointing. Everyone's all married with dogs, or beer-fat, or doing the cubicle job thing. Boo to that crap.

KD: Did that sort of life always terrify you?

RS: My Dad's owned his own business and been a free agent since before I was born. I don't fix cars, but I also don't go work on spreadsheets and listen to conference calls all day.

KD: It's interesting though that Diesel Sweeties entertains some of those cube-dwellers while they're at work.

RS: I can take credit for .5% of the economic slowdown thanks to reduced productivity.

KD: The rest goes to Scott Adams.

RS: Pretty much. I'm a germ in his lower intestine.

KD: The robots in Diesel Sweeties are always sortof retro style. Did you watch a lot of sci-fi growing up?

RS: Let's just say I thought every movie started with the 20th Century Fox Fanfare until I was six or so. Star Wars pretty much owned the first chunk of my life. Hence the gay robots.

KD: The robots in Star Wars were gay? I knew there was something funny going on between seethreepio and artoo.

RS: They had to be gay, all hating on each other in public but soothing and caressing in private. Out of the closet and into the sandcrawler.

KD: What did you think of Episodes I and II?

RS: Episode I could have moved a little quicker, but you can see how the whole galaxy started out formal and clean before turning into the WWII bombed-out wreck we saw in the old movies. Episode II was a hell of a good ride. I like to say that I'm going to visit Count Dooku when i go to the bathroom.

KD: I always say I'm faxing a letter to Panama.

RS: [laughs] Gotta dig that canal.

KD: What is it with you and poo anyway?

RS: The Livejournal is just a joke on Livejournals in general. I don't really like sharing what I'm really thinking, so I go with pure comedy gold. Or not.

KD: So why even keep a Livejournal?

RS: It's hella fun. I would have quit after a couple entries but people actually seemed to enjoy it. I get loads of weird comments, so that's worth it.

KD: Never underestimate the power of poop. I like Maura, the former porn star, where did the idea for her come from?

RS: I don't really know. I needed a lonesome, jaded woman with a colorful background. Porn was elected because I've always wanted to operate a good, egalitarian porn site.

KD: Like Suicidegirls? [laughs]

RS: If there was no Suicidegirls site, I would have probably had to make it myself. I owe you guys for saving me the time and energy. My sweetie wants to be a Suicide Girl. I think she'd kick ass at it.

KD: Tell her to go for it.

RS: No need to - she told me.

KD: Are you a big fan of porn, in general?

RS: It's fun and all, but most of the commercial stuff feels a little too much like Animal Planet with bad moustaches.

KD: [laughs] How long have you been doing Diesel Sweeties? Where did the idea come from?

RS: I'm on my third year as of April. The idea just kind of evolved out of a need to draw comics after being done with college and starting to be bored by my job. I just gave myself a due date and started working on shit until I had a serviceable cartoon.

KD: Do you work best with a deadline?

RS: I don't work at all without one. Going daily is the best thing for me. I need to have an enemy to fight! That's why I include Hitler as a villain -- it worked for Harrison Ford.

KD: Now music is a big part of the humor in the comic.

RS: Yeah, that's how an old fart like me "snags the kids."

KD: But you're also a music geek yourself.

RS: A really bad one, but I guess so.

KD: You've also said that music is a great shorthand for describing a character.

RS: It's probably the best one-word way to describe someone without using ethnicity or insults. If I say someone is "Metal," most people have an image of that. It's usually a nice flexible image and that let's them blend the character with people they already know. Instant Lunch style!

KD: Your girlfriend is a big Danzig fan. Is that why you slipped him into the comic?

RS: She introduced me to the absolute, incomprehensible wonder that is Danzig when she played a parking lot concert video for me one day. Wanna hear a true Danzig story?

KD: Of course.

RS: She's been going to Danzig shows since she was like 14 or so. She brought me to one about a year ago ... first time she'd ever brought a date. So what happens? A roadie offers her a meet and greet pass.

KD: [laughs]

RS: She almost didn't take it, but I told her she had to go! I didn't think I'd get to stay after the show but some strippers gave me an extra pass right as I was about to get kicked out. First guy on earth to get free stuff from strippers!

KD: No kidding. And it doesn't make you nervous to go to sleep next to a Danzig fanatic?

RS: Danzig is all-knowing and Good. Danzig would never let any harm befall me. Oh wait, he's evil. Crap.

KD: I've heard that he's also really tiny; a wee little Satan man.

RS: I can't really comment on that. I'm obscenely gigantic, so everyone seems small to me. I do seem to remember Danzig standing on the steps of his bus when I said hi to him though.

KD: Hmm. Now, your poison is Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

RS: That's the most potent one, yeah. I kind of like them both equally as far as the total experience goes.

KD: What was the idea behind making Diesel Sweeties so pixilated?

RS: I was playing with different art styles once I had the basic concept. I've been obsessed with pixels and icons since I was a little kid ... and the robot/digital combination just seemed right. I hadn't seen anyone actually drawing their webcomics in such a way that admitted freely that they were webcomics yet at that point either. It all just kind of happened on its own, I just clicked a lot until it worked.

KD: Ever thought about syndicating it?

RS: Yeah, but I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off. I'm not anti-capitalist or anything, but dealing with editors and stuff is kind of foreign to me. That's why I quit freelance graphic design.

KD: You know what I would like? Some Diesel Sweeties robot toys.

RS: You know what I would like? To be able to provide you with those toys.

KD: [laughs]

RS: Toys are fucking cool.

KD: Where did the name Diesel Sweeties come from?

RS: Believe it or not, I just spent a few days combining words and humming along to how they rhymed. It was a hit-or-miss, seat-of-the-pants kind of thing.

KD: How much time does it take to produce the typical strip?

RS: Anywhere from fifteen minutes to a couple days. I scribble stuff down when I'm driving around and draw it later. If I re-used art, it's easy ... if not, it can take a while.

KD: Now, you're also a professor.

RS: I've got the cardigan to prove it.

KD: What do you enjoy about teaching?

RS: I teach some graphic design classes. I just love helping people simplify and refine good ideas into projects that are probably better than anything I could do myself.

RS: That and I like seeing what people listen to and how they dress. I also use it as a chance to practice for a future stand-up comedy career that will never happen because I slouch.

KD: I'm trying to rebut that by thinking of a comic who slouched, but.. I can't think of one. Yeah, you're right.

RS: I think maybe there was a guy in a wheelchair in the 80s, but that's about it.

KD: You were telling me yesterday, kindof an interesting story about your degree, and how you got involved with teaching.

RS: You mean the story I don't tell my students until the last class? I never graduated ... I had my advisor switched during my last semester and found out that my first advisor had screwed up and gave me too many internship credits. The new guy had to take 3 credits back, so I wound up leaving the design department second in my class with no diploma. Then a couple years later, the guy who took my credits away called me and asked me to teach a class. I kind of had to do it, purely for irony.

KD: ..and the moral of the story is..

RS: I never thought about it in moral terms. I kind of just taught because the whole situation amused the hell out of me and wound up loving the work.

KD: Are you a big comic fan?

RS: Always. I've been reading since I was three.

KD: Wow. What were some of your favorites growing up, and what are some of your favorites now?

RS: The first books I ever followed were Groo the Wanderer and Transformers. Groo is still pretty awesome. Right now, I follow a little of everything. James Kochalka books, better-written Spider-man stuff, all kinds of stuff. I got really heavily into Jack Kirby comics in college; those are a pretty sizeable pile.

KD: What is the appeal of comics for you?

RS: The speed. You can get so much information in a loosely-defined order in a crazy short amount of time. I'm kind of scattered in my thinking, so it works.

KD: Do you think webcomics will ever seriously offer competition to print media?

RS: I think they don't even need to try. I would wager that webcomics reach a larger and more varied audience than traditional comics as a whole - whether or not we're making money. All I know is that my friends and I reach a really varied, heavily female audience on a daily basis. We're working our way into peoples' lives and it feels good as all hell.

KD: Heavily female?

RS: You know what I mean! Liberal media bias won't work on me. [laughs] I mean we actually reach men and women both -- something comic books haven't done effectively ever.

KD: Ooh, I know you didn't just call me a liberal.

RS: [laughs]

KD: That is true. It has been traditionally a male thing.

RS: I think that webcomics are a lot cheaper to make and we're a lot more free to experiment with genres ... and as a result, we actually get a lot of varied readers.

KD: How will you know when it's time to quit Diesel Sweeties?

RS: As soon as the jokes stop making me laugh at least once a week. I hope I'll know when to quit and I hope to have some other stuff in the hopper before that.

KD: What other sorts of things would you like to do?

RS: I want to do kid-friendly silly stuff and more romance/soap opera stuff. Maybe something with mummies and space aliens too.

Point your web browser in the direction of Diesel Sweeties.