Q: What is Fenix Gear?
A: Love.
Q: …
A: Wow, I’ve already ostracized my audience. Awesome.
Q: I don’t know what that word means.
A: Doesn’t matter. Fenix Gear is -
Q: Love.
A: Precisely. But love is never simple, and neither is this.
Q: How would you know? Who are you?
A: My name is Josh Breidbart. I’m the creator of Fenix Gear.
Q: So, Mr. Creator Guy…what is Fenix Gear about?
A: Fenix Gear is the story of three women named Leylie, Zoe, and Carolyn. They are members of an artificially created class of super heroes called SAMSONS, and they’re out to stop the oppressive White Coats, who have turned the world into a police state.
Q: So the theme of the comic is…
A: The theme is - what are your values worth? What will you fight for? What are you willing to do for what you believe? And beyond that, when life takes away everything you want and love, how do you keep your sense of self?
Q: So what are your future plans for this series?
A: I have the entire story, more or less, laid out before me in a Fenix Gear bible. It will tackle themes of love, friendship, death, past, present, future, and more. For now, though, let’s take this one trade at a time. I’m currently building funding for the next one…
Q: How do you make your comics?
A: I script the comic in Final Draft, marking pages and panels so the artist, Zack Turner, has an idea of the intended visual progress (which takes time to get the hang of… you’ll notice, as issues progress, I use fewer panels per page. I am learning). I then pass the script to my artist, who reads the script and makes a visual outline on his own. We go over what goes where and when I give the approval, he pencils/inks the pages on his tablet. In the first issue, penciled by Chrissy Roepken, the pages were actually penciled on paper, scanned, and turned over to Jim Whaley to ink. In either case, following inks, I do another round of notes and then the panels are sent to be colored in Photoshop. Once this is done, the final pages are sent to me, which is when I rewrite the script. Sometimes, when you see things in front of you, some lines work better in different places, or need to be removed altogether if the finished drawing speaks for itself. It’s important, to me, that the drawing and words work together, rather than as two separate entities, and that’s why I take the time to rewrite after the fact. Also, a lot of jokes that sounded awesome before can sound terrible three months later. Finally, the new script is then bubbled in Illustrator, and then… well, that’s it, really.
Q: Why don’t you update much?
A: These issues take a lot of time to create and it is, unfortunately, not a full time job. All money spent hiring artists and paying for printing comes out of my pocket. I wish I could work faster and churn out more but, well, them’s the brakes.
Q: How long does it take for each comic?
A: It’s really a case-by-case basis. It depends on who I’m working with, but with Zack, it takes roughly, 3 months between script and art and final (though it took about 1 year for us to pull together our first 4 issues with him doing all the art, and that was a huge undertaking for both of us).
Q: When did you start this site?
A: July 2008 was when the original site went up, but the new one went up in September 2011 after finishing the Effects of their Cause Trade.
Q: How can I make a comic?
A: Sheer guts and hard work. I listed how I do it, but if you have a dream, just go for it. It’s honestly hard at times. Like, extremely taxing and requires effort, sacrifice and oh so much time. It requires making mistakes. A lot of them. It requires thick skin too, as I’ve been chewed out before and made hundreds of goofs with artists and editors. Also, being a producer sucks, since it’s your money and you have to be the dick if you want to get stuff done on time (especially hard if the people you work with are close friends). But if it’s what you really want, you just gotta stick to it and find a system that works. The best advice I can give is “Don’t give up. Ever.”
Q: Can I send you some of my work for opinions?
A: I’m not really an expert, but I’ve worked with professional artists, written a lot of scripts, and read hundreds more, so I’m pretty good at analyzing what’s good and bad about something. If you want, send it my way, and I’ll see if I can give you some feedback
Q: Can I use your characters as avatars?
A: Please, by all means. I’d be honored, actually.
Q: What about fanart?
A: Same deal. Submit it and I might even put it on the site (given it’s tasteful… but I’m less picky than you might think).
Q: What about fan fiction?
A: I… uh, sure. I don’t really take fan submitted scripts, but I’m a very open guy, and if you have something creative to show me, I’m pretty excited to see it, regardless.
Q: Do you put friends in comics?
A: Kind of, sort of. I mix in personalities with my characters. If I ever have a funny conversation with a friend or see something quirky I like, I usually will put it in a comic. No character is directly based on a friend of mine. Except Mooch. But he gave me lots of money, so he’s an exception.
Q: Do you wanna do a link exchange?
A: I don’t see why not.
Q: Are you a huge Gears of War fan?
A: Actually, I’ve had the name Fenix Gear since the year 2000. I didn’t rip it off.
Q: Are you a huge Metal Gear fan?
A: Actually, yeah.
Q: Are you a huge Guilty Gear fan?
A: OK, enough… but yeah, I am.
Q: Why does the kid have intestines coming out of her?
A: Those aren’t intestines…
Q: Did you use Kickstarter? Why don’t you still use it?
A: To be clear, the first issue would not have been possible without Kickstarter.com. That said, Kickstarter works best with a deadline, and since mine for the next volume is open ended, I chose to keep the project off of the site for now. But for anyone looking to get funding for a project with a defined timeline, I highly recommend them. Great site.
