Interview with Joe Chiappetta of Silly Daddy Comics |

Cartoonist, Joe Chiapetta, popularly known for Silly Daddy Comics, took some time to speak with ComicNews.Info about his work on Silly Daddy Comics as well as what it takes to succeed in the world of self published comics.

For those not familiar with you or your work can you give us a little
background?

I have lived almost my whole life in the near west suburbs of Chicago
and started drawing intently at age 5. I am a former high school
wrestling as well as chess champion. So I’m a paradox, being a nerdy
artistic jock. My Mom and Dad are third generation Americans, and our
ancestors came over from Greece and Italy, and of course before that,
Noah’s Ark.

I am married with three kids and a decent amount about our life can be
found in my long running comic Silly Daddy. I have been doing that
comic for 17 years… most of my professional career. But when I
started making comics 20 years ago, I was a fowl-mouthed fellow with a
faulty moral compass. Then exactly ten years ago I became a Christian,
which freaked many of my readers out and even scared them away. But
the bulk of them have come back and realized, “Hey, this guy still has
the unique qualities to his work that I can’t find anywhere else.”

When did you start Silly Daddy Comics? How did it come about?

I started making the pages for Silly Daddy Comics in 1991, a few
months after my first daughter was born. Becoming a father is such a
radical experience. Yet I quickly became amazed and disturbed at how
bad of a parent I was in the beginning. And so I thought it would be
useful and engaging to do comics about what that parental life
experience is like… the good and the bad of it.

This was of course before reality TV. I had never read anything in
comics at the time that had portrayed the trials, triumphs and
tribulations of a parent in autobiographical format. The early issues
had all sorts of relationship conflicts in them as well as the
internal conflict that most artists wrestle with: how to retain a
creative and joyful spirit while the realities of the world continue
to beat down upon you.

People say it captured the attention of many in the independent comics
movement because I was one of the pioneers in autobiographical family
cartooning. This was long before TV shows like the SuperNanny allowed
you to get a glimpse into a real family’s dynamics. The comic also
gets attention due to the logical surrealism thrown into the stories
at various points.

Before the concept of daddy blogging was invented, I was doing it in
comic format. But now everyone and their mother can be a daddy
blogger. I think what also gave me a bit of an edge is that I had
something to prove; I passionately wanted to be a better father and a
great cartoonist. These are two goals that can be at odds with each
other if you’re not careful.

Putting the comic out there all the time for the public to see gave me
a vehicle to have some sort of accountability for the mistakes of my
past. The questions I would answer in the comic are, “How is my family
doing right now? What am I doing with my life? Are we having fun yet?
Why are we here?”

After years of doing the comic and getting Ignatz nominations, a
Harvey nomination and winning the Xeric Award, I was accustomed to
answering this question in Silly Daddy; “What is so special about my
family life that I have to cartoon about it? What do people really see
that is eternal?”

Eventually I started asking even deeper questions in the comic; “What
does God see when he looks at my life? Would my daughter, who soon
became old enough to read, appreciate my comics? How important is my
life? What is important? I want to live forever. Can I do that? Will
redemption get me where I want to be?”

Of course I had all sorts of people in my life that would bend my ear
and try and answer these questions with me: the free spirited artsy
types, the apathetic wanderers, the business minded contacts, and
lastly, a few incredibly faithful followers of Jesus.

It was their life that most impressed me and that’s what I went after.
I was tired of wandering aimlessly and the concept of truth, or the
pursuit of it, had often been a running theme in Silly Daddy. As a
cartoonist and a father writing and drawing comics about family, I
found new security in knowing that my grounding force and major
influence creatively was now the author of life itself, Jesus Christ.
When I actually acknowledged that any talent I had came from God, it
made the whole artistic experience even more profound; “Why did you
give me this talent and drive to be a creator?” I would ask that
question a lot. I still do actually, even though I suspect the answer
is so complex and multi-layered that if I actually were given the
answer, it would be beyond my comprehension.

It sounds like quite a ride. What is Silly Daddy about now?

It’s still pretty much autobiographical with a steady humor and a mix
of surrealism at times. One of my current taglines for the series is,
“Read Silly Daddy, where parenting is rarely more profound or
preposterous.”

Is there anyone else involved in the creative process of Silly Daddy Comics?

O totally. Who isn’t? My wife Denise, who has no visual arts training,
is actually a great colorist. Since 2007 she has been coloring many of
the comics. Denise also is an incredibly talented writer and a few of
her essays will appear on the Silly Daddy webcomic blog with an
accompanying comic that relates to the essay. Also back when the giant
compilation Silly Daddy graphic novel was being prepared in 2004, it
was a collection of almost all of my work on the series to date.
Denise helped to edit that project. There’s apparently no built in
spell checker on bristol board.

My teenage daughter Maria, when she has extra time, helps me with a
number of things — writing text transcripts of the comic, scanning
artwork and other odds and ends. Her working with me on this means so
much since Maria will always be the first person to ever call me
“Silly Daddy.”

Even the two little ones help. My son who is in 2nd grade has written
a few of the comics, and my youngest daughter, age 2, is a walking
source of humor.

The entire family regularly gives me feedback on what they like –
what’s funny and what’s not. Plus they all come to me when funny stuff
happens and say, “Hey, this would make a great comic…”

Additionally, most of my friends know that anything that happens when
I’m around is fair game to turn into a comic. It makes life a little
more interesting.

Where do your story ideas come from besides that?

Being a cartoonist for so long has trained my mind to often be in
standby mode to record something that can be turned into a comic. I
have been given an incredibly active imagination so the wheels are
always turning and I do a lot of observing. So it seems that half of
my ideas come from just living life and not letting all the moments
pass me by. And the other half comes from having this overactive mind
that I let loose sometimes to dream, explore and experiment.

Which works of yours has seen print?

I put out a lot of mini-comics in the late 1980s. This work was really
experimental and fine artsy, since I came from a painting background.
Then I buckled down just enough to make Silly Daddy somewhat
experimental but also very down to earth. Every Silly Daddy story from
1991 to 2004 has seen print, many of those had multiple print runs or
were recollected in the 2004 trade paperback. However all the comics
from 2004 up to the present have not been printed yet. I am not quite
ready yet to put out a new collection. I want the next big Silly Daddy
volume that comes out to be all color and a ton of pages. Soon I hope
to be ready to bring something to print. However, these comics can
currently be read on the Internet and they all have liner notes in the
blog post along with it.

Where can one go to read Silly Daddy Comics?

The easiest and cheapest way (as in free) is to read them online at
http://sillydaddy.net. I post new comics every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday. They are all-ages, safe to read at work.

If anyone would be interested in purchasing these titles in print,
where would they be able to find them?

The 2004 Silly Daddy graphic novel has been sold out at bookstores for
some time. But I do still have a few copies left that you can order
also from my website. I also sell original art from the series as
well. People can contact me for more details on that.

Being a cartoonist for 20 years, I’m sure you have experienced the
changes in the comic medium first hand. Have these changes been for
better or worse? Where do you see the industry headed?

Yes, I have seen and experienced a lot. I’ve seen cartoonists, titles,
publishers, distributors and stores come and go the way of the
dinosaur. But I’ve also seen fellow friends and struggling cartoonists
sleeping on my couch one minute, and it seems like I blink my eyes and
the next minute they are writing Batman. Is that success? It depends
on what your goals are.

So opportunities in cartooning are still out there. The industry
professionals that survive and thrive are the ones that focus on two
things: innovation and marketing. Better people than me have written
whole business books on both of these concepts yet I continue to see
time and again people in the industry just winging it and hoping all
the pieces will just fall together.

The real winners in any industry are the ones who tie great
innovation, as in an incredible product or service, with great
marketing, as in a steady yet exciting stream of promotional campaigns
and networking. I continue to see many professionals in comics have a
little bit of one or the other, but it’s rare to see both innovation
and marketing working harmoniously in the comics industry. Usually you
just have the big publishers either advertising brilliantly for
products that lack true vision, or you have incredibly gifted people
achieving great strides in cartooning yet few people ever find out
about it. But when these two elements come together: great innovation
and marketing, the results are explosive.

That said, the comics market of today is densely flooded with
material. Is that good or bad? It depends who you are. That’s good if
you are a reader, since you can find comics about any subject under
the sun. But a flooded comics market is challenging to say the least
if you are trying to make a living and support a family in comics.
Getting noticed among an ocean of other creations can be a daunting
experience and I’ve known many bright-eyed creators to drown in that
ocean, never to be seen again.

I remember being a kid in the 1970s and pretty much being able to know
about all the new comics that were out there. But that’s not at all
possible now. Between webcomics, comic books, graphic novels and
newspaper comic strips today with the endless genres they dive into
(manga, superhero, romance, slice of life, sci-fi, etc.), it is
impossible to comprehend all the new comics that pop up every day.
There is no universally accepted central registry for that.

So to your question about where the industry is headed, I see more
flooding of the market, particularly in webcomics and print on demand
books. I see more art schools cranking out artist like there is no
tomorrow… as if there is some huge demand for artists and writers.
But this is not the healthcare sector. There’s no demand for artists
because the market is flooded with them. Yet the schools keep cranking
out dreamers left and right with little to no business training
whatsoever. That’s a student body doomed to career failure.

Will a few stars continue to rise out of this… of course. But many
more unsung cartoonists will abandon the field for “regular jobs” with
the promise of a steady paycheck.

So I see the comics industry getting a lot more complicated and
competitive than when I first got into it. I also see the need for
medium diversification in an attention deficit disorder world. You
have a webcomic? Great. Also make a theme song and write the
screenplay. You have T-shirts? Great, now make a video trailer or a
podcast. You sell original art? Also sell your speaking engagement
services.

The point I’m trying to make is that for most cases in comics, the
road to sustainability will involve sales of not just a particular
comic, but also must include sales of merchandise branded to that
comic’s universe.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing?

Being your own boss can be awesome. And retaining creative and
licensing control is important if you want to do whatever you want
with your characters and stories. It’s hard to retain all that when
you sign with another publisher.

But as a self-publisher, you take all the risks too. It’s your money
that pays the printer, pays for shipping, pays for advertising, and
pays convention booth fees. Eventually, you either run out of money or
start making a profit. There’s no gray area. Bank account numbers
don’t lie. That’s a lot of pressure. It’s like what Stan Lee has
written about Spider-Man, “With great power comes great
responsibility.”

What advice would you offer someone looking to self-publish comics?

- Don’t be married to the concept of self-publishing. If an offer to
print your work through another publisher comes up and the deal allows
you to retain creative rights and there’s good money involved,
consider it. You’re not necessarily “selling out to the Man,” if
someone else publishes your work. In fact, when I am ready to put out
the next Silly Daddy color collection, if the market looks good to go
with a publisher, I am fine with that if the deal is right. I’ve done
it before and I might do it again.

But if you do want to self-publish, I would do the following:

- Count the costs first. The number of small businesses that survive
the first year is 1 out of every 8. That’s what a self-publisher is –
an entrepreneur. And from my observation, the number of
self-publishers that survive their first year is even less than
that. That’s a lot of broken dreams, so have a large war chest and be
prepared to work hard for a very long time.

- Have clearly defined goals that are measurable and numerical.

- Do at least one year of market research and networking before you
print anything other than business cards.

- Write out a business plan and go over it with a business
professional that is not from the comic industry. Ask them what they
think of your plan.

- Start out your comic as a webcomic and build your readership over
time. You can do it all for free with Blogger or many other sites.

- Plan to spend half of your time marketing, and the other half of
your time making the comic. And I really mean half. If you hate sales
or are shy about marketing, quit now.

- Don’t self-publish unless you have at least $5,000 to start with. If
you are in this to make money, be prepared to not see a profit for
years, if ever.

- Your comic needs to meet a need. If it doesn’t meet a need that is
relatively unique, no one will care about your title. Figure out what
need it meets and what need you want your comic to meet. For example,
Silly Daddy meets a number of needs. It’s for readers who:

1. Need a good clean and offbeat laugh.
2. Want to read comics safe for the whole family and ones that they
can even show their kids.
3. Like peering into other people’s life.
4. Long to have healthy fun family relationships.
5. Want a quick jolt of inspiration.
6. Are curious about the balance between being an artist and being a
family man.
With that last point, it is very helpful to research what question
your comic will answer that is relevant to other people’s lives. Silly
Daddy answers the question, “How good of a father and a husband will
this artist be. Are happy endings really real?” And as Elvis Costello
asked, “What’s so funny ’bout peace love and understanding?”

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview! Is there anything
else that you would like to add?

People can reach me through my website http://sillydaddy.net and I
welcome feedback about my work there through the comment feature.
Thanks for this opportunity.