JG Quintel, creator of Cartoon Network's Regular Show at Comic Con 2011 (Image via Wikipedia)
The following interview with JG Quintel, the creator of Cartoon Network’s Regular Show, took place outside an East Hollywood Bar earlier this year. The interview was conducted as research for a Publisher’s Weekly article on the tremendous amount of independent comics talent working on Cartoon Network Shows like Regular Show. Animator/Cartoonist Benton Connor was hanging out with us for the duration of the chat and managed to squeeze a couple of choice sound bites and some additional levity into the conversation.
Shannon O’Leary: Calvin Wong a storyboarder and writer on Regular Show and Hellen Jo a storyboard revisionist on the show both claim you found their respective mini-comics at the Sparkplug Comic Books table at San Diego Comic Con in 2009. Sparkplug isn’t exactly a mainstream comics publisher or distributor, what brought you to their table that year?
JG Quintel: At the time I was gearing up for the (Regular) show. I was looking for new people and knew I wanted to look at independent comics because the style matched closer. A lot of mainstream comics, like Spiderman or whatever, don’t really fit what we’re looking for.
SO: How does it not fit? How does indie fit more?
JG Quintel and Benton Connor (Image via Calvin Wong's Tumblr)
JG: A lot of independent comics (are) written and drawn by the same person. It’s not done in a company kind of aspect where one person writes, one person draws, and one person inks. I wanted to find people who were the total package because we’re not a script based show. We’re a storyboard driven show – where the board artists write the dialogue and draw the drawings. Usually with comics you can tell right away what kind of sense of humor (someone) has. Are they funny? Can they draw? Do they understand perspective? You can tell a lot by a little mini-comic. And