Creator Spotlight: Edward Gee

I’ve got another guest interview by Stephen Leotti, creator of Stardust The Cat, which originally appeared here.

This time, his guest is Edward Gee, writer of the NSFW-ish comic Rabbitual Offender. Follow him on Tumblr or on Twitter.

S: So I usually just start with having you introduce yourself. Give a quick bio with education, current job, anything else you’d like to mention.

E: Well I went to school through high school. I work at a movie theater selling concessions. Popcorn, candy, soda.

S: Ah, okay. So are you hoping to make it in the art world? Or still figuring out where you want to go?

E: I am making it in the art world! I write Rabbitual Offender! It doesn’t get any bigger than that. You know there’s a second guy, Wade who draws it.

S: Right. But, you want to do that full time, and not sell concessions I assume.

E: What? and give up show biz?

Yes. I would like to do it full time. Our goal is to get to 3 times a week, then to license it to Archie Comics, let them do some terrible watered down version, then merchandise, then animated film, then live action film, also a line of sex toys. Like dildos based on Charlie’s penis.

S: Well, they do make dildos called ‘rabbits’ come to think of it…

E: The guy who wrote Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he married a soft core porn actress. So that’s my other goal.

S: I didn’t know that.

E: It’s true.

S: Okay, moving on… Tell us about the comic, what is the main premise/characters? Why would anyone want to read it?

E: Well it’s a gag a day comic. Even thought they are reoccurring characters it’s not like there is a storyline per se. Like last week one of the rabbits was shot and killed. But he’s fine now.

S: Like Kenny from South Park?

E: No. Well maybe. I mean the point is it only happened in that one comic. It’s not like they’re linear. They do have defined personalities though. Like Charlie the one with the big penis. He’s a maniac. Very violent, very sexual, he produces hard core pornography. The girl is a Holocaust denier and doesn’t eat gluten. She is very naive.

S: That is definitely naive…

E: The gluten thing, right? Yeah. And the taller guy is very analytical. He’s the smart one. And he’s basically the straight man. I see them as sort of a modern day Bud Abbott and Lou Costello if Lou Costello didn’t wear pants and had a sex addiction. That might be the quote.

S: Well, I think Bud and Lou liked sex a lot. It was just… less on the surface.

E: We have a lot of scripts. It’s funny because we have maybe 50 scripts and I sometimes forget how few have been produced. Wade is in the military and so when he gets back stateside he can draw more regularly.

S: Ah. I see.

E: He will be back in beginning of March.

S: Great, I hope you become more prolific then.

E: I can’t talk about his military service, it’s all very hush hush.

S: I gotcha.

E: Yes, we should be able to go 2-3 times a week. I don’t believe in 5 times. I just think it’s hard to keep the quality up. I think 2 really is ideal, Like Tuesday and Thursday, and then bonus comics.

We like to do topical comics.

S: Yeah, I agree. It is hard. I did 3 a week and that was enough.

E: I think your reader gets fatigue, too. I mean, I don’t believe they only read my comic. I read 6-7 comics regularly, and then 20 or so irregularly. Like I read Dustpiggies, and I really like it. But he’s 5 days a week, maybe 7.

S: What are some other influences on your style of humor?

E: Well Abbott and Costello really only in terms of that dynamic, straight man/ little fat guy.

The humor style, hmm… I mean the name is Rabbitual Offender so you might think it’s supposed to be offensive. But it’s really meant to be irreverent. More Marx Brothers, like Harpo Marx. Like Cat in the Hat. Remember in Cat in the Hat where they come in and just wreck the house?

S: One case where I can say the book is truly better than the movie.

E: Right, the book.

I really like South Park. I like the idea of skewering rich and powerful, sticking it to the man. See, I don’t like a joke where you make fun of like a special needs kid, or a sick person or a weak person. I want to f*** with Donald Trump.

I want to call out people like Ellen Degeneres. Everyone thinks she’s so generous, but it’s not her money. She gave away a car today, it’s not her car. Ford motor company gave her that car in exchange for publicity. The cost of that car is less than the cost of buying an ad on her show.
They gave this poor woman a 2015 Ford Escape, now she has to insure it? Now she has to pay taxes on it as a gift. It’s a ridiculous gift. It’s not thoughtful.

Thoughtful is giving her a car that’s 2-3 years old, a good working car. A car that when she drives it home her neighbors don’t shoot her in the face for it. I just think it’s hypocritical. She lives in a 50 million dollar house, and then she gives people a $10,000 gift from Target. Meanwhile the guy working at Target gets no health insurance and makes minimum wage for 29 hours a week. God forbid they give him 30 so he gets benefits. So, f*** you and your $10,000 Target and pay your employees a fair wage.

S: So it turns out life isn’t fair after all?

E: I’m not saying life isn’t fair. I’m saying the emperor has no clothes.

S: Well, that’s what cartooning is for I guess. Pointing out things people can’t see.

E: I would like to make people think. I want them to laugh, and I want them to think.

I look at things differently from most people. I just want to share my perspective. I’m highly motivated by spite. Spite is my driving force in my life. Almost everything I do is to spite someone.

Spite feeds you, it gives you strength. Hasn’t anyone ever told you you couldn’t do something?

S: Sure.

E: Did you just give up?

S: Just anger is useful. I agree. Okay, well is there anything you’d like to talk about pertaining to your comic?

E: I think I hit the highlights, did you have any other questions?

S: Let’s see? How did you come up with the idea? Why rabbits? And why penises?

E: The rabbits and the penis was Wade’s idea. Wade and I wanted to do a comic, he wanted to draw rabbits. Rabbits allow you to not be about race. It’s not about white guys, it’s about animals. And you can go a little further when it’s not people.

And he told me, one of the rabbits will always have his penis out. And I didn’t even know what he meant until he started drawing them, and then I was like ‘***. That rabbit has a penis’.

When we have a comic do well on Reddit invariably someone says, ‘hey, is that his penis?’

Do you think we should lose the penis? Because the penis takes a comic that is SFW and makes it slightly NSFW. I mean conceivably someone could have my facebook page removed, it’s full of ***.

S: It is a BIT gratuitous for my taste, but it’s your art. So do what you like. I think there’s a place for that stuff though.

Are you a Ralph Bakshi fan?

E: Moderately. I would say more Robert Crumb.

S: Crumb is an interesting guy. Could never get into the art style myself, but good social commentary.

E: I know Bakshi made Fritz the Cat, but it’s Crumb’s. It’s Crumb’s property. And the Crumb Fritz the Cat is much smarter.

S: I never read the original.

E: Well that’s worth finding.

S: If I track it down, I’m sure I will.

E: I really like Howard Chaykin. Ever read any comics by Chaykin?

Chaykin was doing cursing superheroes and girls with their *** out before anybody, and very subversive stuff.

Sort of like Vonnegut writing comics.He used to write a comic called American Flagg.

S: Oh, I’ve heard of that name.

E: Sort of a spoof of the Patriotic superhero genre, but not a ‘funny ha ha’ comic. More of a dark ‘oh s***, did he just say that?’ comic.

S: Right. More like Chuck Palaniuk? Funny but also twisted.

E: Yeah… I’ve read a little Palaniuk. More like Joseph Heller.

S: Catch 22.

E: Catch-22, right.

S: I know the movie.

E: Catch 22, they wont let you fly missions if you’re crazy, but if you say you’re crazy you can’t be crazy. It’s about the insanity of war.
Chaykin also did some adult material, kind of hardcore, but really smart. I like smart comedy and silly comedy. I don’t like lazy comedy. Like The Interview, did you see The Interview?

S: Not yet. Need to. I heard it was great.

E: Well I’m not going to spoil anything.

S: I’ve heard reviews that spoil most of it.

E: Now I like Seth Rogen. I’m a fan.

S: I’ve always liked Rogen and Franco.

E: But this is one of those new style films where they have a general concept and decide they’ll “improvise” the rest.

S: That’s not really… new… Jerry Lewis did that.

E: Well he made bad movies too.

S: Some.

E: I think Will Farrell popularized it.

S: Jim Carey.

E: And Jim Carey, yeah. I consider them new in the grand scheme of comedy. But my point is, you take a movie like Team America World Police, and it’s really, really smart and subversive. They skewered America just as much as North Korea.

The Interview they go all the way to North Korea and then tell a bunch of dick jokes. Did you ever see The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy?

S: No.

E: Well it’s the first movie he had complete artistic control over. And he wanted a really high concept movie about the reincarnation of the Dali Llama. But the comedy sort of got lost, which isn’t really the same thing.

But my point is, someone described it as they shot the movie in Tibet just to put a pie in someone’s face. They spent all this money and they didn’t have anything. No substance.

Groucho Marx got tired of gluing his mustache on, so one night he just slapped some black grease paint on, and no one cared. Because the material was so strong. Monty Python the same thing. Not the greatest sets, not the greatest costumes. They made Holy Grail for like $60,000. And the set pieces from that movie are some of the strongest comedy ever made.

S: Holy Grail looks rather nice though.

E: Well they had real castles, because England. So those were free.

S: Scotland.

E: But the final attack scene is all smoke. It’s just one row of guys and smoke. Life of Brian they spent way more, much better production values.

S: And it’s a WAY better movie. I think.

E: Right. Holy Grail is a bunch of sketches, that’s how they wrote it. Meaning of Life is not strong. I believe Meaning of Life they wrote sketches then tried to find a theme. Decided on Meaning of Life. Wrote some more.

S: Coming back to you, any future projects on the horizon? Writing the next great American novel perhaps?

E: No. Just the Rabbits. That’s it. That’s the plan. Write the rabbits. Sell out. Marry Mia Malkova.

S: Well, I hope you get very rich.

E: Me too.

S: Right. Okay, well thanks for talking to me today. It was fun.