Peet Tamburino Interview

Peet Tamburino is a cartoonist living in Providence, RI and he also delivers mail. He rides a moped (when it decides to run), then he wrestles with his son and daughter. Later, at night he kisses his wife.

Banci: hi peet thanks first of all for taking your time to do this interview. What’s happening with you comic wise at the moment

Peet tamburino:

Right now I’m still doing my diary comic on BigPeet.com, and I started a new comic called “Flagged for Removal,”  where I find crazy ads from Craigslist and make up a back story or some kind on punchline to the ad. I submit gags for MAD Magazine’s STRIP CLUB . I’m trying to come up with some kind of long form story, like a graphic novel, but that’s still in its infancy stage. It’s mostly just doodles and scribbles as of right now.

Banci: how is the American postal service treating you are you still working for them these days?

Peet tamburino :

My job delivering mail is good. I just switched to a new route that isn’t in the ghetto, so it’s nice to see trees and things like that.  Walking around by myself all day is also good because there isn’t a lot of “having to look busy for your boss”, or anything like that.  I just daydream a lot, mostly about comics.

Banci: from what i have seen from your comic strips is that they only start from when you have a family, were there any strips pre Michelle and the kids

Peet tamburino :

I’ve drawn for as long I can remember, mostly comics, but because of laziness (and the fear that no one would read them) I never really submitted anything to a syndicate or tried to publish any on my own. I did make a mini-comic that I copied and stapled myself in 1998, called “Hard Boiled Funnies”.  It was mostly just one page gags. I was living in Boston and went around to the comic book shops to sell them on consignment. I don’t think I sold any.  I always meant to do another one, and kept putting it off, and then the Internet came around, and it was easier to put them online.  I attached a comic from that book, it’s called “Onion Girl”. You can see that there’s not much to it, story-wise.  

Around 2005 I discovered James Kolchaka’s American Elf, and I thought about doing a diary strip because it’s easier than writing a story. Also because our kids were just babies, I thought  I should write down what they were doing.  I remember I drew one about the shitty day I was having, and it struck me as a thing I could do easily. It just seemed to work. (It’s called “WHY?” I attached it to this).

Banci: if you did finally get the chance to earn a living making cartoons what do you think you would have to write about as the working for the post office element would be taken away

Peet tamburino :

There is a gold mine of stories about the Post Office just waiting to be told.  That place is crazy. All you have to do is pass out magazines and letters, but there is so much anger and mistreatment in entire system. I’ve delivered mail in four parts of the county:(just north of New York City) in Mount Vernon; Schenectady, NY (which is upstate near Albany, about three hours away); Amarillo, TX; and now Providence, RI. In every city it was the same mistrust of management and people trying to screw over each other. Every time I tell a story about the mail people are in shock, they can’t believe how stupid it all is. A lot of them have told me to write comics about that, and I just have to.  Maybe that will be my graphic novel.

Banci: how does your wife feel about being one of the main characters in you comic strips and is supportive of what you do comic wise

Peet tamburino :

She doesn’t seem to mind at all. I think she likes the strips about the kids the most, but that’s probably obvious.  She is the first person I show them to and she usually corrects my spelling or points out how I left out a word or two. She may like the MAD strips the most because I actually get paid for those. I know I do.

Banci: why did you get into drawing comics was there any ones work that influenced you in particular

Peet tamburino :

Like I said, I was always drawing stuff when I was a kid.  When I was in seventh grade I remember wandering around a bookstore and I saw this book called “Billy and the Boingers: Bootleg”. It was a collection of Bloom County,  a daily comic strip in the newspaper. I didn’t even know they reprinted those things. To see all the stories unfold page after page, instead of just reading four panels in three seconds and then waiting until the next day to do it again.  I was hooked. It was before Christmas, and after reading this I begged my parents for a drafting table, fancy pens and paper, and more Bloom County books.  Before this I really thought I wanted to be a doctor. When I told my parents I wanted to be a cartoonist instead, my dad was heart broken. He used to say, “Just be a doctor, and then you could draw funny pictures on people’s casts when they break their legs!”

I was always reading MAD magazine, and was more influenced by newspaper strips like  Bloom County by Berkley Breathed, The Far Side by Gary Larson, and Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes  than Marvel and DC comics, because I didn’t want to draw like super hero comics. Robert Crumb blew me away in college. Johnny Ryan’s Angry Youth Comics was a huge discovery too. He drew his comic in a clean, simple way, even though the page was filled with trash, and Loady McGee’s face was covered in pimples.  Johnny’s comics are also absolutely gross and perverted. I love how he doesn’t censor himself at all. I think I do that a lot, without really realizing it.  You’d love Johnny Ryan if you don’t already.

Banci: what made you want to go the auto biographical route in storytelling and do you think you will carry on this route in future or more along the lines of fiction

Peet tamburino :

Sometimes I think that my strip should be completely honest about my life, and all the boring , mundane events will collectively add up to something. This is James Kolchaka’s approach.  I can see it happening in his comic and when I look over all the strips that I’ve done. Other times I think of the “me” in the strip as just a character doing funny things,  kind of like a Jerry Seinfeld thing. Mostly, I think I need to turn off the Xbox and get back to work.  If I have some momentum going I can keep posting strips easily, but if I miss a day then I have to drag myself back to my desk and start all over again. I think it’s like a diet or starting to exercise, but not from any first hand knowledge.  I just wish it was more of a compulsion. I always feel guilty when I’m not drawing.

Banci: what tools and paper do you use to make your comic strips

Peet tamburino :

This is a constant struggle in my life. I have a ton of sketch books that have the first third or half filled, then I need to get another and start over.  I get frustrated with the bad drawings and I want a clean slate, like I’m being haunted by them. My wife and kids make fun of me when I go looking for a new one. Pens too, I’m always comparing different pen widths and ink styles, thinking that one will make better drawings over the other.  Almost every thing in my life I’m pretty care-free about, except pens and sketchbooks. I wrestle with them all the time.  It’s just a distraction.  It’s busy work to put off the horrible drawing I’m afraid I’m about to make. I know it is but I still struggle.

 Sometime in the last year I got a really great lightbox, so I try to draw a pencil version (usually on cheap graph paper) and ink over it on bristol vellum. I scan them in and usually do all the coloring on the computer. The sketchbooks I keep coming back to are the Canson Classic Sketchbook and the Moleskine Sketchbook. I really love Papermate Flair pens (although they are not waterproof) and the Uniball  Vision pen (because they are waterproof).  I have Rapidio technical pens, fountain pens, dip pens, Micron Pigma pens, gel pens, brush pens, imported Japanese brush pens and hundreds of others. Every store I go into I look at the pens to see if there is a new kind that I don’t have, even at gas stations. None of it matters either because all the stuff I draw is all reproduced and hardly anyone will ever see the original. Comics are meant to be that way.

Banci: are there any books music or films that you have found inspiring  what comics would you recommend reading

Peet tamburino :

I really liked the documentary “Comedian”. The whole movie is about how you have to keep at it, whatever your goal is. Keep going. That’s the only way to be  good at anything.  I’m sure this has happened to you, where you’ll be drawing something and someone will look over your shoulder and say “I wish I could draw”. They think that you’re just born with that talent, yet they would never do that with someone playing the piano. They know that the piano player had years of practice. I think that it’s the desire, the longing to express yourself in whatever medium you choose  that’s instinctive. It’s what keeps you coming back to drawing (or piano),  and getting “good at it” is almost a byproduct.  That movie really inspired me because, like I said earlier,  I have these fits and starts about making comics. I get hung up a lot on different pens and paper, different sizes for the strips or styles, and the next thing I know it’s six hours later and I haven’t drawn a thing.  I have to forget all that shit, and just draw a strip. If it isn’t the best one I’ve ever done, I’ll do another tomorrow.

A few years ago I found this book online called Far Arden, by Kevin Cannon. He began the book as a part of a 24 hour comic weekend. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, but it’s an event where you draw one page an hour for 24 hours straight and, voila!, you have a whole comic. He decided that if he did this once a month for a year or so he’d have a whole graphic novel.  I fell in love with it instantly. I love the looseness of it, and the quickness and the fearlessness of the pages. The story is awesome too! It was exactly what I always wanted to make.

Monty, a comic strip by Jim Meddick is also something I’ve always loved.  His is a style of drawing that I try to internalize (or rip off, to put it bluntly).  Eat More Bikes by Nathan Bulmer is something I just found and he is consistently funny.

Banci: would there be any advice you would offer to cartoonist who are starting out

Peet tamburino :

Keep doing it. Don’t stop.  I guess any advice I would give would be about the things I struggle with the most. Have a real deadline and stick to it. If you have a webcomic or blog, update it regularly, even if it’s just doodles. Post something to let people know that they should coming back. Another thing is pick a size or a format and don’t change it. I have tried all different sizes and feel like that when I look back it all looks like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve seen from a lot of different interviews musicians and artists say again and again that if you set up boundaries for yourself you’ll be able to make better choices within those boundaries. Endless options can paralyze you and you’ll never get anything done (like me and my friggin pens).  The last thing  I guess is be honest with yourself and write about the things that interest you. If you love gross humor then write jokes about people shitting their pants. Don’t ever hold back. 

Banci: What’s next for you, do you plan to bring out a book at any point collecting your strips

Peet tamburino :

A book of all my Big Peet comics is something I’ve always had in the back of my mind. It would be a nice thing to hold in my hands, even if nobody bought one. I’m going to clean up a bunch of my Big Peet comics, so that they are all the same size, and send them out to newspapers to see if anyone wants to publish them.  I think that I have got something with this Flagged comic too, especially since there is no end to bizarre ads on Craigslist. It practically writes itself. I don’t really know what else is out there for me, I just want to concentrate on today and getting something done right now.  Hopefully in thirty years I will look back and have volumes of work to show for it.   That would be good enough for me.

* you can check out Peets Strip here /http://www.bigpeet.com/and here http://www.webcomicsnation.com/peettamburino/bigpeet/series.php