Bear Beater Bunyan Creators…Interviewed!

Mar 09

Bear Beater Bunyan Creators…Interviewed!

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Josh Hechinger, Writer

(Bear Beater Bunyan,

The Grave Doug Freshley)

Jorge F. Muñoz, Artist

(Bear Beater Bunyan)

Last month, Robot Comics published the final part of the four-issue mobile comic, BEAR BEATER BUNYAN by writer Josh Hechinger (The Grave Doug Freshley) and artist Jorge F. Muñoz.

Definitely one of the freshest, most inner-child-wild mobile comics we’ve yet published, Robot Comics decided to celebrate the series’ big wrap-up by interviewing the creators on the making of the series, it’s move to mobile, the sudden shift in title, and more.

ROBOT COMICS: So let’s start with revealing where the inspiration for Bear Beater Bunyan came from. Was this a collaborative creation in concept between the both of you, or originally just your brainchild alone, Josh? Did the concept change once Jorge came aboard?

JOSH HECHINGER: Basically, I came up with it, posted the idea on Panel and Pixel, and Jorge was like “hey, tell me more”. And I did! And it was great.

The plot, format, and characters are mostly me; the layouts, the idea of Kenbruin, basically all the cool art stuff is Jorge.

Inspiration wise…I just wanted to do something that flew. Speed comics. Three-chord garage rock as words + pictures. I was getting into yonkoma comics as well (see below). So, somehow, that all translated into “what if I wrote a four-issue greatest hits/summary of a nonexistent shonen comic?”

I’ll be the first to admit my creative process makes little-to-no sense whatsoever.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: I was looking for projects to work on, and Bear Beater Bunyan (then Yon Kuma) really grabbed my attention among all the available scripts, it sounded like a lot of fun.

ROBOT COMICS: Now in its webcomic incarnation (and first early mobile release, for that matter) the series was called “Yon Kuma“. Care to explain that title for our readers, pretty please? And maybe touch upon why the change to “Bear Beater Bunyan“?

JOSH HECHINGER: Bear Beater Bunyan was one of those “I grew up reading Dragon Ball and now I think almost exclusively in bad puns” things. It’s a serious medical condition.

Basically: “yonkoma” are four-panel strips; think Japanese comic strips, as opposed to pages. YK was originally going to be like that, rigid strips, but I threw the idea out early on when I realized I needed characters to really fight in the thing. “Kuma” means bear. So a four-panel-per-page series about fighting bears became Yon Kuma.

In the end, I pushed to change it because it’s just a hassle to explain. It’s a cute joke, kinda, but not worth the hassle. And too, Bear Beater Bunyan is really catchy and kind of sounds like…like, it sounds like what an American company would call Yon Kuma if Yon Kuma was an actual Japanese series they brought over here. If that makes any sense.

I’m pretentious.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: We even checked with Tim Young, japan resident, from the Deconstructing Comics Podcast and he told us that Yon Kuma was the best translation for 4 bears. I really liked the shortness of Yon Kuma as a title, but I believe Bear Beater Bunyan will work better.

ROBOT COMICS: What would you say the greatest challenge of creating and completing Bear Beater Bunyan was for each of you?

JOSH HECHINGER: Producing the mobile phone edition. Slicing it up, re-lettering it, coming up with a design aesthetic for the credits and backmatter…it was a lot of fun, and valuable experience, but it was some work.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: Drawing, toning and lettering the whole thing, I’ve never done anything that big in page count and scope.

ROBOT COMICS: And what was your absolute favorite part about doing BEear Beater Bunyan?

JOSH HECHINGER: Jorge’s art. This all could’ve gone horribly wrong if I didn’t have an artist who totally nailed it, like this guy. He’s the Johnny Ramone of junky-punky kid v. bear comics.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: Working with Josh, and seeing the improvement in my artwork page after page.

ROBOT COMICS: If Bear Beater Bunyan didn’t exist, what would be your favorite comic?

JOSH HECHINGER: Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, hands down. It’s everything that can possibly be good in a long-running Japanese adventure comic. In terms of continually busting out new concepts and just completely making them work, Oda’s got no equal.

For a 2nd, probably Casanova by Fraction, Ba, and Moon; the story and art and all are great, but I really love it because it’s clearly three interesting-as-hell dudes synthesizing stuff they dig into the kinds of comics they want to read, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what American comics need more of.

Third: Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. I don’t have a rambly write up on this. It’s Calvin and Hobbes. It’s a classic.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: Mmm, lists are hard! Something by Frank Miller, probably Dark Knight Returns or his Daredevil run, The Incal by Jodorowsky and Moebius, mostly because of Moebius, Lone Wolf And Cub might be my favorite manga ever and not exactly as fourth, but I think everybody should check out The Last American by John Wagner, Alan Grant and the criminally underrated and extremely awesome Mick McMahon.

ROBOT COMICS: If you could do Bear Beater Bunyan again, what would you do differently?

JOSH HECHINGER: I’d maybe have bumped it up to 96 pages, just to make it more OGN-able. Also, I’d have made Cheyenne, the first bear, wear a hat or a vest or some kind of “Rarr! I’m an evil cowboy bear!” visual cue.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: Chapter 1, I would like to redo at least half of it, but on the other hand, the thing is done so it’s better to move on to the next project.

ROBOT COMICS: Who would you cast as Bunyan in the movie? Who would direct?

JOSH HECHINGER: Man, I don’t know from kid actors at all. Would it be a cartoon? If it’s a cartoon, Barbara Goodson turned in a pretty convincing kid performance in FLCL, so she’d be my pick for Bunyan. And Joaquim Dos Santos is the king of the animated fight scene, which would be real solid, since BBB is pretty much all fight scenes.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: I think an animated film would work better, but for me the perfect translation to another medium would be an action RPG for Nintendo DS, with 2d graphics.

ROBOT COMICS: Wow. Way to dodge the question, guys. So what next for the two of you, then? Something in the same style? Something totally different?

JOSH HECHINGER: I never know what’s next. I don’t really have a career plan.

Serious answer: Lea Hernandez is working on a script of mine called The Moon is Mine; if you liked this comic, that one is going to be way up your alley.

I’ve also got a script with mpMann called Okita the Cat, which is a character study of Soji Okita as he dies from tuberculosis. Just a bit tonally different from BBB. Just a bit.

(mpMann’s also the artist on The Grave Doug Freshley, my first proper OGN, but I’ve no idea when that’s out.)

Jorge and I are talking about doing more stuff; R+M is looking like our next project, at some point. R+M’s sort of a two-guy anthology of stories about a robot hero and a monster anti-hero.

JORGE F. MUNOZ: The Swordsmith, with Ryan Burton and Felipe Sobreiro, a fantasy comic filled with blood and violence. Some personal stuff and R+M that Josh just mentioned. No Bear Beater Bunyan Vol. 2 in the immediate future.

ROBOT COMICS: Awesome, thanks for taking the time to pour your dirty little hearts out for us, fellas!