Joined Oct 2014 Philadelphia
Hey! I’m Pat. I’ve been releasing these comics online for free for about three years now and they’re based on an idea I had a long, long time ago, one that refused to go away. Before starting work on the first story, I had never written a full-length comic book before (it’s kinda obvious, sorry), and once I finished the book, I just sorta kept going. I’m addicted to it now. I think I’ve gotten to be a much better writer and artist too. I hope!
My artistic influences are Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, Jhonen Vasquez, Rob Schrab’s Scud the Disposable Assassin, Hellboy, Penny Arcade, Adventure Time, Ren and Stimpy, a steady diet of horrible anime when I was an impressionable kid, and who the hell even knows what else.
My writing influences are Bryan Lee O'Malley, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Dan Harmon, Alan Moore, Douglas Adams and of course the words of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior Praise Be His Name.
I’m a fan of horror, particularly from the 80’s and especially if it was made by David Cronenberg or John Carpenter. Oh, and action movies of that same era. And science fiction in general. Everything in general. I like all of the good things.
Surviving twelve years of Catholic school may have also had something to do with all this.
I don’t know what kind of damage is going on inside my head that when I went looking for my inner child, the Anti-Christ fell out. But I’m glad he did.
Tools
- 102
- 15
- 18
Because I'm well aware of the temptation to disappear into writing that stuff, I've been regarding lore as something to avoid. Having my own vague context for how Andy was born, what the Tower is, why the moon looks like it was destroyed, all that stuff, that's enough to just write the characters' lives and live with them in the moment. Andy's six, he has no idea what happened before he was born, he's never lived outside the orphanage, so you shouldn't know too much more than he does. You should discover the world with him.
BUT I've decided today, after having written six of these books, that it's time for me to go back and figure that stuff out. The worst thing that happens is nothing. The best thing that happens is I have a solid base to help me contextualize upcoming events in the story. I know what Andy does not and I know when I would like him to find out.
So I just spent the last six hours typing out a comprehensive timeline of events stretching back about 50 years before the story began. I'm having a beer and I wanted to tell someone and I think you all are the only people on the Internet who care. Thanks, guys.
It's FULL of gigantic spoilers so putting it out now would kill a lot of the fun. But it's definitely the kind of thing you'd release in some kind of post-mortem retrospective, so maybe after I've done like sixty more Andy Christ books, I'll release 'em. We'll all be old by then though. :)
Another update's coming on Thursday. :)
I'm working on getting everything together to start selling the full book for you Andy Christ superfans. You will be able to purchase prints of Episode 6 on andy-christ.com well before the book is finished coming out here for free. They're very pretty, very much worth owning. And of course, you can still buy back issues right now. They come with a bunch of extra material. The first two have bonus Andy Christ short stories you can't read anywhere online and they all have rough sketches and stuff.
And if you like what I do, you might want to follow me on Instagram. I put out a lot of preview panels of stuff you won't see here for weeks or months. www.instagram.com/andychristcomic
