Another month, another e-mail. Four words. "Top last month's interview." Sure, not a problem boss. I have the perfect person in mind.

Would you care to introduce yourself?

My name is Kelly Turnbull, but am better known as Coelasquid (prounounced "see-luh", like in Coelacanth), creator of the webcomic Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. I've worked on the APTN series By the Rapids, Comedy Central's Ugly Americans, and presently am involved with a new MTV cartoon.

How did you train for studio animation? It is not an easy field to break in to.

I have a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Animation from Sheridan. People say it's useless to get a BA for drawing cartoons when it's just as easy to do a two or three year class and get basically the same education for a fraction of the price, but that piece of paper is what it takes to get a work Visa. You have a whole new slew of job opportunities if you're qualified to cross the border.

The first job is always the hardest to find. It was,four months and more than 20 applications for me, and I was one of the luckier ones. Most places flat out ignored me, only one sent a formal rejection. Studios always ask for their ideal candidate but sometimes they have to settle for less, which lets the newbies sneak in. If you want to stand out, though, you need to work. When it came time to gear up for the next set of episodes, they certainly remembered that I was the one who volunteered to work twenty nine straight days in January when we were under the gun.

I have to ask, "Why macho guys?"
I just respect tough things. My favorite cars are the old American muscle machines, favorite animals are big tanky things like bison and wild boar, favorite boots are made of leather and stainless steel. I don't know how to explain it, but I like things that are big and clunky and intimidating. Allegedly the Turnbull surname comes from a man who saved the king of Scotland by wrestling a charging bull to the ground and breaking its neck, so maybe it's in my genes.

Cartooning and gaming are seen as primarily male preserves. What drew you to them?
Once I heard a musician talk about songwriting, saying he has music playing in his head all the time so he just plays what he hears. I think that's what making cartoons is like for me, I have all these characters in my head wandering around and acting out their lives all the time. Drawing them down is the way I get them out of there to free up some space so they can start doing new things.

The idea that this kind of stuff is guy territory... I think it's as archaic as the idea that women don't wear pants. When I was working on Ugly Americans, men and women both had every position from team leaders to administrators to average workers.

Tons of girls play games, anyone who thinks they don't probably doesn't get out much. While I'm on the subject, though, those self-proclaimed "GRRL GAMERZ" types have always gotten on my nerves. I know everyone wants to feel like they're a special snowflake and all, but when you go around acting like you're the one-of-a-kind Loch Ness Monster of gamer culture because you have ovaries and an Xbox, all you're doing is perpetuating the myth that girls who like video games are some kind of rarity.

What are a few of your favorite games?

I think the three series that changed my life the most are Zelda, God of War. And Pokemon.

Unusually, my favorite games in the Zelda series were Majora's Mask and Wind Waker. MM because it was seriously unnerving. Everyone was just coming to accept that they were going to die, the big goal of the game besides "save everybody" was "get to know all the NPCs and make them happy before the end". It's kind of depressing, but it makes for one of the most character-driven Zelda games I've experienced, reminding me that everyone in the world has their own story and personality. I know people complain about the sailing in Wind Waker, but it made me feel like I was in a huge world, able to explore and find all the little islands they hid away.

God of War is everything I want a video game to be, and it's sad that so many people try to imitate it without catching... whatever that X factor that makes it so fun was. I think Kratos is one of the funniest video game protagonists I've ever seen, he's so comically macho. Watching him try to solve problems by yelling at them louder and punching everything is a little like watching someone trying to get out of a Chinese finger trap and failing so miserably that they end up catching fire!

Pokemon, well... Pokemon is always just Pokemon, but there's something about it. Something about Pokemon just resonates with me.

How much of your personal philosophy goes into the strips?
I like to play devil's advocate, so there are times where I'll have two characters arguing with each other and both representing my opinions while avoiding the whole strawman situation. Even in a gag strip, strawmen get old fast.

Every now and then characters will pass down some "words of wisdom" that are usually things other people have handed down to me that I've taken to heart.

The characters all represent my philosophies, but I'm only 23, and I know that's too young to be acting like I've got all the answers. I try to keep an open mind so I don't end up being one of those ignorant 20-somethings who think they've got enough life experience to have it all figured out.

The woman in the strip - you or not?
Not in the least. I think people assume she is because she hasn't gotten a lot of development yet and people like to make broad assumptions but really, the comic is Manly Guys Doing Manly Things not the Sarah Jones show.

I know you have said in various posts the Commander is idealized. Is he factually based, or 100% imagination?

Personality-wise, he's got a lot of my dad in him, a lot of my friends dads, and a lot of my friends who ARE dads. There's a certain way of dispensing wisdom that a lot of dads have (I'm generalizing here, for respected father figures). That kind of "I'm going to teach you how to learn" style of advice that a guy who's had his share of fun times and calmed down enough to be trusted with children doles out. There's a lot of Marlon Brando in him too, because, honestly, I have a lot of respect for the way Brando looked at the world.

I try not to make Commander too idealized, though, flawless characters are never fun. I try to put it out there that he's pretty hung up on his ex wife and he avoids talking about himself to the point that he's a bit of a chronic liar about it. He hasn't even told the girl he's seeing what his name is yet, he's got some issues to sort out there.

Where next for both you and the commander?
What it comes down to, MGDMT is a fluff comic with a concept I came up with on the spot. I've fleshed out the characters for myself to the point where I know Commander's personal history from his childhood right through to the possible conclusion of the strip somewhere down the line, but it's not "the story I want to be telling."

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who are all talk and no action, "someday I'll do this, but-" I have a pile of other comic ideas, some projects have been with me long enough that I don't want to do them the injustice of being the first big undertaking I tackle so MGDMT is my way of figuring out my personal production pipeline and grinding up my comicsmithing EXP. It's true that the webcomic is taking up most of my free time, but it's forcing me to draw on a regular basis outside of work and I think that's what's most important right now.

If I didn't have such a strict deadline of people expecting to see things go online at a specific time every week, there's no way I would be pushing myself that hard. So I guess what's next is more of the same until I get some of my other projects sorted out and figure out when I'm going to draw them.

Thank you, and we look forward to more!

You are welcome.

Image copyright Kelly Turnbull. All rights reserved.