Meet the Comics Pages

Join Washington Post Comics page editor Suzanne Tobin on Friday, Aug. 24 at 1 p.m. ET for a discussion with " Brevity" cartoonists Guy and Rodd.

From the cartoonists' official site:

Guy and Rodd make movies by day and create the single panel comic "Brevity" any chance they get. They met as producers at The Ant Farm, where they worked on campaigns for films such as "Sin City," "Anchorman," "The Lord or the Rings" trilogy, "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."

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Suzanne Tobin: Welcome, comics fans, to another edition of "Comics: Meet the Artist." Today's guests are Guy Endore-Kaiser and Rodd Perry, aka Guy and Rodd, creators of "Brevity," which joined our comic lineup in the newspaper in March. They have gotten up early in California just so they can answer your brilliant questions and shamelessly promote their latest book, "Brevity 2: Another Collection of Comics by Guy and Rodd," and their exclusive 2008 calendar deal with Borders. Welcome, gentleman, and sign in please.

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Guy and Rodd: Thanks Suzanne,

We are thrilled to be here.

Computers are lame, which is why we are signed on together instead of separately. Also, we like to do everything together... yes, everything.

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Suzanne Tobin: Can you explain how you split up the work on "Brevity"? Does one of you do the drawing and the other the writing or is it more of a collaboration--that whoever has the best idea does that part of the comic?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd does the drawings, and Guy does the writing, although occasionally Rodd comes up with an idea for a comic, which is very emasculating for Guy, who never comes up with a drawing.

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Davidsonville: I checked out your guyandrodd.com Web site and noticed that you two appear to be a "Mutt and Jeff"-type duo...or is one of you just standing on a milk carton? Who is who????

Guy and Rodd: Rodd is the handsome one.

Guy is the dashing one.

Also, Rodd is freakishly tall. It's kind of gross.

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College Park: Love today's cartoon...especially after struggling to put together the IKEA furniture for my apartment last week. You guys rock!

Guy and Rodd: Thanks man. Rodd can help put it together if you want. Just email him at rodd@freakishlytall.com

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Suzanne Tobin: Brevity (Aug. 24)

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Not really relevant: How influenced were you by the Comic Strip of Your Generation, "Pearls Before Swine"?

Guy and Rodd: Never heard of it.

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Clarendon: Love the comic...just wondering...you all started on the Web and then got a syndication contract. Did you go to them or did they come to you?

Guy and Rodd: We were on a website called Comics Sherpa, which is run by Universal Press.

They never contacted us in a year, so one day we sent some samples to all the syndicates.

We got form rejections from everyone, except for Jake Morissey at United Media, who was the editor for The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes.

Obviously we like him a lot.

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Edinburgh, U.K.: Strip cartooning is a difficult business at the best of times. When you gave up your jobs at the circus, as Pip and Squeak the World's Tallest Small Acrobats, did you ever dream that you would one day have a syndicated strip?

Guy and Rodd: We never dreamed of working in such an underpaid, unrewarding business. But it's not difficult to write funny things and draw pictures to go with them.

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Detroit: From where you do derive your inspiration?

Thanks!

Guy and Rodd: Flowers.

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Freising, Germany: With quotes like, "Spinning circle of futility had left the bonds of her computer" and "Extra parts to confuse people", I was wondering about your backgrounds.

Either you've got some technical background or a preoccupation with technical topics due to bad experiences and past traumas.

Guy and Rodd: Until we got into the business, we were both Atari repairmen, which has been really slow the last couple years.

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Hollywood, CA: Sometimes when two creative people work together, one

person ends up overshadowing the other -- causing

resentment that ultimately "breaks up the band." With that in

mind, is there any friction between you two because Rodd

has one more letter in his name than Guy?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd has a repeated letter. It's more of a mistake than anything else.

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The Grove, CA: I understand that Rodd Draws the pictures and Guy comes up

with the concepts. Isn't that way more work for Rodd? Rodd,

do you ever get resentful?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd: It is way more work, and yes, I am resentful.

Guy: Rodd thanks the sweet lord for every day that he gets to collaborate with me. It is a pleasure and an honor for him, which is why he can often be seen crying sweet tears of joy.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: In respect for brevity: what next?

Guy and Rodd: Possibly a modern art version of the Kama Sutra.

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Suzanne Tobin: Since we have a fair amount of traffic from Beyond the Beltway, let me just introduce the next question by saying that Gene Weingarten writes a humor column entitled "Beyond the Beltway," for The Washington Post Magazine each Sunday and hosts an online chat called "Chatological Humor, aka Tuesdays With Moron," where he discusses all things humorous, including the comics. Each week, he chooses his comics picks of the week.

Suzanne Tobin: Here's the link to his weekly chat, which you can join on Tuesdays at noon.

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Suzanne Tobin: Chatological Humor

Suzanne Tobin: Heeerrreeee's Gene!

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FreakishlyAverage: Gene Weingarten aka Moron had this to say about your August 13 panel: Second, the M.C. Escher What-Is-Wrong-With-This-Picture award goes to yesterday's Brevity. We seem to be looking at an actual war scene, with persons being bayoneted to death in the background. (Speaking of on-panel deaths). So why are the guys in the foreground doing a basic-training barbed-wire-crawl exercise? Either that's some basic training, where they actually bayonet guys in the background for verisimilitude, or these are the dumbest soldiers on Earth. They could stand up and RUN over that barbed wire.

I tried to splain to him that if a soldier stands up while people are shooting at him, he is likely to get hisself kilt, but perhaps you can get through to him.

Guy and Rodd: Gene was actually at the Alamo, so he knows of what he speaks, when he speaks of war.

Anyways, everyone missed the point of that comic, which is that wars are good, and we should have more of them.

Watch your back, Liechtenstein.

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IJOCA, VA: Since this was a webcomic, is it drawn electronically? Or old-style and then scanned in?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd: I create the comic in a 3D application called Maya from a rotating cast of pre-built human characters, chickens and such. I then create a vector map and down-res the image to 2-D which, unfortunately for now, is all that newspapers can handle.

Webcomics are lame.

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Los Angeles, CA: Guy & Rodd,

Which one of you does the most editing of your strip? What percentage of strips never make it into print?

Guy and Rodd:100 % of our strips make it into print. These gems are just too valuable to let them sit on a shelf.

Rodd draws the comic from Guy's caption and Guy tells him what he was actually seeing in his head, so Rodd draws it over again. This process is called, "Making them less funny."

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Ft. Worth, TX: During your Comic Sherpa days, did you give yourself a deadline - like a year or something - after which you would say "ok - we gave it our best shot" Did you get any encouragement from editors or anybody during that time period ? Stay Classy, boys !

Guy and Rodd: Good question. No, we never got a single word of encouragement from any of the editors, although they did encourage almost all the other cartoonists on that site.

We never really gave it a deadline, except for the natural deadline determined by when we run out of funny ideas... which was last week.

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Richmond, Australia: I have an idea for a comic. Jesus is in a bank making a

deposit and the title says "Jesus Saves".

How much money could I make for that comic?

Guy and Rodd: We have done something like that joke, and it wasn't funny then either.

So we would pay nothing.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: You worked on campaigns for films? Did you two work by yourselves or were you part of a larger organization that promoted films? What exactly did you do in these campaigns?

Guy and Rodd: We used to be part of a larger organization that promoted films. It was an amazing place, full of brilliant people. It's called Cimarron.

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Martha's Vineyard, MA: for Guy..how influenced are you by your father's fabulous sense of humor?

Guy and Rodd: This must actually be for Rodd.

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Los Angeles, CA: Why isn't your comic in the LA Times?

Guy and Rodd: Wow, we wish we knew the answer to this.

We were in it for a while, and actually kicked Garfield out, but then got kicked out ourselves for something called Bliss, which I believe is also a comic.

Sherry Stern over there makes the decisions, and she said if anyone wants it back, they should just email her at sherry.stern@latimes.com

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The Grove, CA: Why isn't Brevity as funny as Garfield?

Guy and Rodd: I cry myself to sleep struggling with the problem every night.

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Glover Park, D.C.: Why are both of Spongebob's parents round like sea sponges while he is square like a kitchen sponge?

P.S. I love Brevity!

Guy and Rodd: We don't know, but it's details like those that have made his creator a very rich man.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: How did you two create "Brevity"? Did one of you first come up with the idea of working together, and who first came of with the name "Brevity"?

Guy and Rodd: Guy was doing horrible drawings, then Rodd started doing much better ones, and that's how we started working together.

The name "Brevity" actually came from a piece of hate mail, where a reader complained about our long captions by saying, "Don't you know that Brevity is the soul of wit?" Which, if I'm not mistaken, is a quote from Dune.

Suzanne Tobin: Yeah, right, which is why you have Shakespeare in his underpants on your Web site.

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The Grove, CA: Which one of you worked on Anchorman, and what was that

experience like?

Guy and Rodd: Guy worked on it, and it was magical. Honestly, the opportunity to work closely with one of the funniest men in America was a genuine treat. I am talking, of course, about Andy Solomon.

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Japan: Hey Guy & Rodd,

If you guys start making enough money through syndication, would you quit the movie business to work on "Brevity" full-time?

Guy and Rodd: Absolutely, but bear in mind that we make about 100 million dollars a year from the movie business, so Brevity would have to get huge.

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The Grove, CA: I see, from your bio that you " make movies by day". what

movies have you made?

Guy and Rodd: Pretty much all the ones you really like? Also, Freddy Got Fingered.

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Gaithersburg: Which one of you is funnier?

Guy and Rodd: neither.

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Knox County, IL: How influenced were you by the new Comic Strip of Your Generation, LIO? Do you know Mark Tatulli? Have you ever met him? Do you know how he can be reached?

Guy and Rodd: Lio has influenced everyone who came before or after, no doubt about it.

Mark Tatulli works out at the same gym as Rodd, so they often shoot the schvitz in the steam room.

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Seattle: There's something kinda porn-star about that extra D, Rodd. Is there something in your past you need to share? Is your last name Biggs?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd: My cup size is double D, which is a coincidence I think.

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The Grove, CA: Is your relationship strictly professional, or do you do other

things together? (if you know what i mean...and i think you

do)

Guy and Rodd: I don't think I do know what you mean. Unless you are talking about sex. In which, case the answer is an emphatic "No Way!"... at least not lately.

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IJOCA, VA: Do you pitch cartoons anywhere else? BEK and Duffy have panels in the NY'r while still doing their strips, while Bliss has gone the other way w/a panel in the paper.

Guy and Rodd: Yes.

We pitch our cartoons to BEK who never writes his own stuff anymore.

Suzanne Tobin: For those who are not New Yorker readers, BEK is Bruce Eric Kaplan, a cartoonist who is also a screenwriter. He did an episode for "Seinfeld" about Elaine's obsession with a New Yorker cartoon. He also wrote for HBO's "Six Feet Under" and served as the Executive Producer during its final season.

Duffy is J.C. Duffy, also a New Yorker cartoonist, as well as creator of the comic strips, "The Fusco Brothers" and "Go Fish."

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IJOCA, VA: How many papers are you in? What did you start with?

Guy and Rodd: We started with 54. We have a little over 500 now.

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Hoboken, NJ: What's the difference between BREVITY and

F-MINUS? They seem like the same strip with different art. Why don't you merge the two strips, combining their incomes, then split it three ways? Then some weeks, somebody can always have some time off.

Just a thought.

Guy and Rodd: F-Minus is our side project.

We create it.

Tony Carillo is just an anagram.

See if you can figure it out.

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Suzanne Tobin: You all have not made one shameless reference to your new book, which makes me look like a total sellout for mentioning it in my intro. I feel so...so....USED!

Guy and Rodd: Mentioning the book is callous and lame and totally a sell-out.

But people really should buy the calendar, which has just been released at Borders.

Every day there is a new Brevity comic! And every couple weeks, there is a funny one!!!

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Amsterdamn: Do you guys like sports?

Guy and Rodd: Guy does cause he is American. Rodd is from Australia, where they don't even have sports, except for Rugby, which is a sport where a bunch of guys compete to do the best group hug.

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New York, N.Y.: Besides cartooning, what else might you like to do in life, or what else have you done, and what else may you still do?

Guy and Rodd: Rodd would like to have a daughter.

Guy would like to date her.

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D.C.: Hey Guy- I think you are really dreamy. Do you have a girlfriend?

Guy and Rodd: I do, but I am always willing to upgrade... very willing.

Suzanne Tobin: I daresay you won't have that girlfriend after she reads this chat.

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Orlando, Florida: How could you not have heard of Pearls Before Swine?? Do you guys not read other comics? Or you just being silly?

Guy and Rodd: No, seriously haven't heard of it.

Actually thought that was a bible reference.

We read most of the current strips.

Is it online, or in papers?

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Los Angeles: How influenced were you by the comic strip of your

generation - Family Circle?

Guy and Rodd: One word, 'Very'

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New York, NY: Will there ever be an animated Brevity cartoon??

Guy and Rodd: There was. It was called Shrek 2.

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Mitch, Portersville, VA: Do you ever get tired of being called, "Far Side for the smug lower class?"

Guy and Rodd: Yes. And we have told our syndicate to stop it, but to no avail.

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Seattle: How about doing a comic of Iron Chef Korea with the secret ingredient of puppies?

Guy and Rodd: Gross.

But maybe.

Probably.

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Falls Church, Va.: I don't really pay attention to comic strips except, of course, for "Love Is..." Would I enjoy your work?

Guy and Rodd: Love Is... is Rodd's side project.

He comes up with all the ideas by thinking of all the things he loves about his beautiful wife.

He also has 2 naked angel babies locked in the backyard, so sometimes he just observes them.

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Seriously: I have asked like 28 questions? Are my questions not good enough for you?

Guy and Rodd: yes

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Guy and Rodd: Thanks for all your time today.

Suzanne has asked us to do this every single week, but we will have to think about it. She said she is willing to pay us money, and went on to explain that she would never do that for anyone else, despit the fact that Dave Coverly has repeatedly asked her.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Yours Sensually,

guy and rodd

Suzanne Tobin: Thanks to you both for a most entertaining hour. Join us again next month for another edition of "Comics: Meet the Artist."

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