Today we get an opportunity to feature a prolific Queer comic creator Tab Kimpton; Who mixes, humor sexiness and wit to create great works;
Q What got you to start making your own comics?
A combo of “how to draw manga” books, reading a bunch of gay webcomics back in early 2000, and a heaping dose of feeling like a lonely queer and wanting to write romances with people like me.
Q Infernal relations is the story of bureaucrats from heaven and hell ending up in a off limits office relationship, what inspired you come up with the project?
To be blunt, I wanted to write some demon fucker stuff where the demon was cute and shy instead of being aggressive/non-con territory like most hentai is.
I’ve drawn demons/monsters before but not Angels, but I watched Good Omens that year like every other queer who grew up on tumblr and enjoyed the dynamic of exploring and breaking down the binary of good and evil.
I’ve always enjoyed creating characters who would typically be considered a paradox (IE Minority Monsters: Lucie Decline the Asexual Succubus) and exploring the readers assumptions. Angels are often considered holy, chaste and non-sexual, so in Infernal Relations the Angel Ambassador Theo is flirty as fuck, initiates everything, and sees pleasure as yet another good thing in the world.
Plot also happens because the only thing more erotic to me than theoretical exploration is context.
Q You seem to have a lot of back and forth with you fans, especially with projects like the minority monsters, was this something you set out from the start to curate?
I’d forgotten about this! Yes I got the internet to vote for which monster to do next, and kept an eye on the comments for requests. There’s another paradox in creation where you have to weigh up what you want to create versus what people want to see. Not just for money reasons but for that feel-good-juice of positive feedback.
The internet has changed a lot since I started posting back in 2006, and I’ve seen my work go from hundreds of comments per update to a couple of likes on social media. I’m making more money now than I ever did so people are still reading, but I know as a reader that with so much other content out there it’s exhausting to comment on everything. (Or does the style of social media encourage passive appreciation instead of engagement discussion? Perhaps.)
I’m not sure about other creators, but I’ve felt a bit disconnected from readers this year (Minority Monsters was about 5 years ago now), so I’ve recently gone back to voting again and started a project on my patreon where people get to choose what terrible thing a sexy vampire priest does next.
It’s fun knowing what people really want to see when you ask them, but also playing with that is an element of “be careful what you wished for”.
Q You have been doing comics for a while, how have things changed with your production techniques?
I’m generally a digital artist using a cintiq tablet and clip studio paint, however I’m a style shape shifter and will use traditional methods depending on the story. For example, my Victorian gay butlers story is inked traditionally on large A3 paper on a drawing board and scanned in. I’m an incredibly messy sketcher so I’ll always do that digital so I can erase easily and resize things before I print off to ink.
I used to print off the sketch in blue so it could be erased easily in photoshop, but now a3 usb lightboards are pretty cheap so I flip the sketch, print it off on the back of the thick paper and use a lightboard to see where to ink and work through the page that way.
Traditional stuff sounds more time consuming and risky but honestly I think I ink quicker without an undo button!
This year I’ve been experimenting with moving away from hard lines of inking and doing work where I start with a completely black page, then adding in white areas where light should hit, inspired by how linocut prints work.
Q I saw that you hand founded a couple of projects on Kickstarter, do you have any tips on running a successful campaign.
Mailing lists are where it’s at now, which I can’t believe is how we’re advertising in this, the year of our lord 2023. A lot of the Kickstarters I’ve done are erotica anthologies so we struggle to advertise on social media which explicitly forbids that.
Honestly having a webcomic that people like and read first is a big reason why my projects have worked, it’s much harder to cold pitch something you might make.
Q What other LGBTQ+ creators should people be checking out?
Honestly I can’t recommend the people who have been in our anthologies enough, there’s a full list of them here: https://www.discordcomics.com/Shop/wordpress/anthologies/
As well as people well established in erotica comics we’ve had the chance to work with some newer creators and I love the freshness that brings to the medium.
Q} if people want more info about commissioning you or your upcoming projects where should they go?
(Weirdly I’ve never done commissions, it’s a combo of being more a writer than an artist, and that I have such bad RSI in my wrist I’ll only manage an hour a day drawing. That’s only enough time to work on my most beloved personal projects, most of my income is selling books and anthologies.)
My mailing list is tinyurl.com/tabsmailinglist especially if you want to find out what the next anthology is going to be about as we’ll be announcing that soon 😉
Discordcomics.com/store is where you can find all the books and pdf’s, with a handy link up top to all my webcomics you can read for free.
I’m on social media as either @tabkimpton or @discordcomics , often both!
Final four questions –we ask everybody
Q) When the zombies take over the world where will you be?
I don’t watch zombie movies, even comedy ones, because it turns me into an apocalypse prepper for a week after.
Catch me dismantling the stairs in my house and living on the upper floor, only risking going out on food runs. Honestly it will just be like COVID all over again, and I won’t even have to give up my job as I drew porn through that and will do it again.
Q ) What is your favorite Fandom
I generally hang in the Originals section of AO3 but I have a soft spot for absurd alternative universes. There’s one Inception fic about Eames and Arthur accidentally renovating a house together on there that I’ve read more times than I’ve ever seen that movie.
Q) What piece of art, be it in the form of music, a book, a film or picture, do you think people must experience before they die?
If you’re a creative please read this webcomic about how to be an artist:
https://m.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-art-of-being-an-artist/
It’s not how to draw, but how to set things up so you want to draw, get to the route of procrastination and keep yourself from feeling like you’re a useless sack of shit when you compare yourself to others.
Q) Give one fact that most people would not believe about you?
My friends all know, but the most viral thing I’ve ever done on the internet is nothing I’ve drawn, but a pole dancing Dr Eggman video.
