Author: Rick Marshall

Paul Southworth’s webcomic Ugly Hill is about, well… monsters.

At least, that’s how he usually describes it.

If I were to describe it, I’d write that the five-day-a-week strip features a brightly colored cast of creatures who experience the trials and tribulations of life in a bleak, consumer-driven world not entirely unlike our own — except that it’s full of monsters. That’s how I’d describe it.

I’d also write that Ugly Hill is part of the Blank Label Comics collective, and at the end of the month, the multiple Web Cartoonists Choice Award-winning strip will celebrate its third year on the InterWebs.

Oh, and I’d also mention that Paul Southworth recently became a new daddy.

But the thing is, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, so I’ll just let the following interview I conducted with Paul explain everything about his wildly successful webcomic.

COMICMIX: First off, congratulations on the new addition to the family! What’s your schedule like these days?

PAUL SOUTHWORTH: Rigorous. I thought I was busy before, but it turns out I was living a life of spoiled luxury, concerned only for myself and my own ridiculous pursuits. Now my life is consumed with filling bottles, mixing just the right amount of orange mush with just the right amount of pale green mush, and having long, detailed conversations about the size, frequency, and consistency of another human being’s feces. Somewhere in there I manage to work a day job for nine hours and draw a comic strip on the side.

To be fair, sometimes I can draw and hold a conversation about human waste simultaneously, but only when I’m pressed for time.

CMix: Well, I’ll try to keep this short, then. How did you prepare for keeping the strip active when the baby came home?

PS: I always try to keep at least 2-3 weeks ahead of publication. When I started the strip, I was six weeks ahead, but I squandered that away somehow.

So I just tried to work ahead as much as possible. I was also able to line up two weeks’ worth of wonderful guest artists to fill in for me directly after the birth, which was so helpful. I don’t think there has been a time in my life that I have thought less about drawing than those 3 or 4 panicky weeks after my son was born, so not having to worry too much about it was a blessing. Otherwise, after the guest strips had run their course and my buffer had dwindled, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’m sure glad it worked out, though!

(more…)