All of you are probably familiar with Daniel Fus work from his Utter
Confusion strip being run here in The Collector Times. Daniel has a lot
more work to his credit, though. Hes done art for Mangaphiles, and
created his own comic called Love Bites through Radio Comix. Hes a
talented creator, and also one heck of a nice guy.
Sheryl:
You went to the University of Texas. Did you select the school
due to it's extensive history of producing cartoonists, like Frank
Stack (Foolbert Sturgeon) ?
Daniel Fu:
Not at all. I picked the school because it was close by and I was too
lazy to move. :)
Sheryl:
Tell us the inspiration for Utter Confusion, the strip that ran at
UT and that we are re-running in the CT.
Daniel Fu:
Well, it was a combination of things, namely things going on in my
life as well as some great anime I'd seen, including Video Girl Ai, Oh My Godess,
Kimagure Orange Road and most importantly, Maison Ikkoku. I wanted
to touch people the way those anime touched me.
Sheryl:
Where did the moose in Utter Confusion come from?
Daniel Fu:
I wanted a "wise man" archetype. And took Jeff "Bone" Smith's
lead in making a "wise wizard" archetype something other than a human (the Red
Dragon).
Sheryl:
What prompted you to have Pers pimp Hutch to the leather
gang?
Daniel Fu:
Pers has always been a jerk. What, didn't you think it was funny? :)
I actually got hate mail for portraying this S/M thing because it was
offensive to someone. I say, to each their own, as long as everyone's
okay with it and nobody's getting hurt, do whatever you want.
Sheryl:
Can we expect future appearances of the Utter Confusion cast?
Daniel Fu:
I hope so. I actually have a follow-up story in the works starring our
favorite little S/M vixen, Peggy, also known as Gail's step-sister. It's
called Love Bites: Twisted Expressions and features almost all the core
characters in an encore presentation. You can see the preview on my
web site. (shameless plug!)
Sheryl:
How did you end up drawing for Mangaphiles?
Daniel Fu:
I took Fall Into The Sky to A-kon a couple of years ago and
Brandon Graham (of Universe So Big) came by my table and suggested I talk to Radio
about getting published. So I met with Elin Winkler and showed her my work,
and she gave me a thumbs up.
Sheryl:
Has drawing for Mangaphiles increased your visibility as an
artist?
Daniel Fu:
Hm. I don't know. I suppose it has in some limited fashion.
Unfortunately, the run for the book is rather small, so I don't think it's
increased a whole lot. I'm not really getting any fan mail :).
Sheryl:
I loved your comic Love Bites. Is it a story inspired by real life?
Daniel Fu:
Thanks! And... well, yes, in some ways, it is. Who'm I kidding? In a
lot of ways, it is. But I don't want to say anymore.
Sheryl:
How did you get involved with Radio Comix?
Daniel Fu:
The same way I first got stuff published in Mangaphile. The story's
the same :).
Sheryl:
You manage to depict normal folks and make them humorous,
interesting, and entertaining...how do you do that?
Daniel Fu:
Well, people around me, including myself, are often humorous, a lot
of times unwittingly. I try to step back, look at the situation, see the
humor, then translate it to paper. Other times it just comes to me. Then
other times I sit there and stare at the paper for half an hour trying to
find something funny to put there. It's usually the latter :P.
Sheryl:
Tell us about your latest animation project. What is it about?
Who are you working on it with? When can we expect it out?
Daniel Fu:
The story's called "The Nine" and is being written by Daniel
Sanchez, with myself handling the concept design and storyboarding. Serdar Yegulalp
is helping with the script chores and fellow Radio Comix creator Mark
Moore is slated to do in-betweening and other art chores. It's about 9 folks,
chosen at random to settle a bet between God and Lucifer. They are each
given 100 years of immortality and to determine whether Lucifer is
released from hell, the deities watch over the 9 and keep tally as to who
fails and who succeeds in their test. We'll be updating the website soon
and the first episode is being aimed for release later this winter.
Sheryl:
Tell us about your latest comic project. What is it about? Who is
publishing it? When can we expect it out?
Daniel Fu:
It's called Snowflake, about the ramifications of human cloning. A
media company decides the next big entertainment industry will be harvesting
powerful psychics called "projectors" who can project their thoughts in
spurts. The company delves into genetic research to create the most
powerful projector of all, a girl with the ability to project almost
indefinitely. They groom and ready her for her duties, but she's not able
to project at a wide enough "bandwidth." So in order to increase that
bandwidth, the company creates 20 exact duplicates of her and map the
original's memories to each clone's blank mind and they are put into
exactly the same environments, down to the molecule. This way, they all
dream the same and those dreams can be then projected to the millions of
viewers. The story has to do with what she has to deal with as she
realizes that she is something nature never intended. Expect it out
sometime much later, unfortunately. And the publisher? I think I'll take
it a step at a time, for now.
Sheryl:
Anything else you'd like to add?
Daniel Fu:
The industry needs YOUR help. Buy more comics! Why am I
telling you all this. You already buy comics. Get your friends to buy more comics!
