Creator Spotlight: Bret Juliano

This week’s Wednesday Spotlight is with Bret Juliano, a “web developer at the University of Southern California by day and a webcomic artist by night/at lunch/on the train, etc.”  He’s the creator of the family friendly webcomic Dust Bunny Mafia.  I mistakenly passed over on his interview (it got lost in my queue!) for which I apologize 🙂

D: Bret, to start off, how about you give us the 30 second bio of yourself.

B: Sure thing. I’m 26, married, living life as a back-end web developer in (mostly sunny) southern California. I studied Computer Science in college and according to some of my friends, I’m one of the few people who is actually using their degree and working in the same field.

I’m a big mafia buff, go figure. I can and have used the excuse of watching mobster movies as “research” for my webcomic.

My trademark fashion style is wearing fedoras. I have something like 12 of them, and at least 7 of them all come from the same company.

Some of my best memories were going out for the day shooting photos with no general destination in mind; going wherever the road took me. I love shooting architecture, nature and street art and it’s awesome when all three of those things mix together.

D: 12 fedoras? Why fedoras? How did that get started?

B: Yes, in my collection of hats I have 12 fedoras. There’s about 5 of them that are my “go-to” hats, the rest cycle in and out depending on wardrobe. Why fedoras? All I can remember growing up is that my parents used to listen to music like the Rat Pack: Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. Between hearing them play those and watching old movies like Casablanca, it had to have stemmed from there, a time when the men dressed professionally and had that essence of knowing exactly who they were and were proud of that fact.

D: Besides from making webcomics, what do you like to do with your time/for fun? Any good stories associated with any of those other hobbies?

B: Other than comics, I love shooting photography. My favorite days off from work are either spent shooting photography by driving out on the open road with no set destination in mind, or it would be finding a good coffee shop that knows how to make a good cappuccino and spending hours getting lost in a good book, or writing/sketching. Another thing I love to do is watch mafia movies, and I can and have used the excuse of watching mobster movies as “research” for my webcomic…and it’s actually worked sometimes.

D: What is your earliest memory of comics and webcomics?

B: My earliest memory of comics would be sitting in the car on the way to church on Sunday mornings and making sure that I grabbed the funnies section of the paper before we left. For years, that was my ritual, it’s Sunday and we’ve got a 30 minute car ride: I’m reading the comics! For webcomics, it would have to be Garfield.com, back in the late 90’s that was the spot for everything Garfield and I used to be on that site for hours at a time. I didn’t really branch out from printed comics on the web to full webcomics until I was in college, but that’s where it started.

D: Walk me through your decision making process to make a webcomic.

B: My process in making a webcomic wasn’t very difficult for me. When I was younger I dreamed of becoming an animator for Walt Disney Studios, but as I grew up I was always doodling, even as other passions took the forefront. When I was fresh out of college, I was driving home from a job and I saw “#DBM###” on a license plate and with a 90 minute commute home, I spent the ride home thinking of different word combinations until Dust Bunny Mafia popped in my head and it just clicked! Right after I got home I doodled out a character. As a web developer by trade, I already had the knowledge and equipment to create the characters and publish them on their own site and it all developed from there. It was cheap to get started, I already had the equipment and it was a great way to spend my free time outside of work.

D: What is your inspiration for Dust Bunny Mafia?

B: My inspiration for the Dust Bunny Mafia comes from the golden era great cartoons like Looney Tunes. So I try to make it as appealing as possible for both children and adults. Slapstick humor and cute characters that children would love as well as visual storytelling and plenty of puns and witty wordplay for the adults. My characters may be mafioso, but they are so lovable. Plus, who’s not going to be intrigued by the idea of a mafia full of dust bunnies who take on rats and dirty birds (like pigeons)?

D: What do you think webcomics uniquely offer as a medium?

B: Webcomics as a medium offer the unique prospect of universality. They were never limited in their audience reach. Unlike newspapers, with webcomics, if you can find it online, you have access to it. The other great part is the instant access. No needing to wait for it to come out in the newspaper, or to read about it and wait for the collection to be printed. If you have an internet connection, you can be reading it, practically anywhere.

D: What are your hopes for DBM in the future?

B: I would love to “make it” with the DBM comics and when I say that it’s not shooting for the moon, quitting my day job, get syndicated in the paper lifestyle. That’s always a dream, but I’m looking for a goal: have the DBM start becoming a household name. Get into merchandise, print some comic collections, sell some t-shirts, develop a DBM game (app), and maybe do a set of animated video shorts. If I get to that level, it’s a pretty good chance that it could take off from there!

D: Any advice for other creators or for readers in general?

B: My advice for other creators would be network and keep learning! A few months ago I stumbled on the site Webcomic Alliance and it’s been a tremendous resource for me. hey have a ton of great articles as well as a podcast which has so much great information out there. Similarly, reach out on social media and find other creators! Social media is an open field, if they are active on there, reach out and connect with them and then actually interact with them, not just spam them with your promo posts. It’s amazing the types of relationships that can be built through social media. You never know when they’ll need a guest post or something like that and they ask you since you’ve built a relationship with them.

Thanks again, Bret, for the interview.  Make sure you stop by Dust Bunny Mafia and check out his work 🙂