How did you start doing Rudek and the Bear? Why this specific historic and geographic setting? :)

Hi! Waaaay back like 10 years ago my friends and I (all into comics and cartoons) were goofing around and sketching things, and I drew a tough looking fox with a karakul hat and a semiautomatic rifle.... we dubbed him "Polish Fox," and the story idea was born :)

Later as I was developing the idea, I thought I really wanted to flesh out Rudek's background and life in the military. I wanted him to work as a border guard to explore how things are sort of undefined, neither this nor that, in borderlands, and yet we have barbed wire and checkpoints and it all seems absurd. Because that's kind of his world view :)

Cool!

Are your kids in preschool yet? Its exhausting years :-D

Yes they are very high maintenance right now haha! Preschool, sorta-- Both are in day care, my son will go into kindergarten this fall (pandemic permitting)

Ah man, that Corona really blows...

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced when you started your comic?

Hi! Good question... hm... well I had toyed around with another webcomic about a sentient pear for a few years, so I was no stranger to like, coding html and posting artwork and the whole gig... but at the beginning of Rudek and the Bear my art style and skills were nowhere CLOSE to what I wanted the comic to look like. It was basically painful for me to look at those early comics :P One reason was because I wanted to draw digitally and had this brand new Intuous but I had NO tablet drawing/painting skills! That was a hard learning curve!

Well I think you’re doing an amazing job with your digital works! I’m struggling with transitioning to digital art because I’m primarily a traditional artist so I’ve been making adopts to get used to it haha

Thanks ^_^ it's a slog, but you'll get there! Adopts are a great way to hone those skills :)

How's fatherhood and family life treating you?

Hi there, thanks for the question! I can't complain. Being a dad is pretty awesome. My two kiddos have inherited my stupid sense of humor and love of art and reading, and one of my son's favorite activities is sitting at my desk with me and telling me what to draw -- usually turtle or frog characters that he makes up... five and he already has OCs, and gets his commissions for free haha

LoL what a freeloader!

I know! I'm thinking about keeping a tab and then charging him when he turns 14 haha

Do you have any connections to the region in which the comic is set?

Hi! Well at the time I was creating the concept I was friends with a Polish guy whose parents grew up in the Gdansk area... and my wife has some Polish blood... but that's about it. Really I just find european interwar history super fascinating, as it echoes into modern day but is largely unknown in the US.

I have some family that lives not far from Szczecin now. Roots all over the country, though. It was most certainly a fascinating time in the history of Europe.

Cool!

Have any of your characters ever been sprayed by a skunk?

Well there was that unfortunate incident at a brothel in Warsaw when Lucky... Oh nevermind 🤣

I'm sure his fellow soldiers were thrilled about sharing the barracks with him afterward lol!

Have you read the new Osprey Military History Book "German Soldier v. Polish Soldier, 1939?" (ISBN 978-1-4728-4171-1)

I haven't! Those Osprey books are great, thanks for the tip :)

This is not a question for pdonz. It is for the poor skeleton being held hostage inside the meatbag:

Why did you lose the bone war? Did you not drink your milk?

The skeleton has told me to type the following:

I have not lost... the bone war is a long game. Also milk as a source of bioavailable calcium is overrated.

fight on bone brother

How long did it take your to outline the plot and do background research?

Also did you know that your comic was one of the most popular in the SA webcomic forum around 2010 or so?

It's an ongoing process, so I'm not sure! I've read books, scoured forums and databases... I probably go back to research for something or other -- a gun design, a costume, the layout of a farmhouse, a vehicle -- for every single comic!

And, woah, I didn't. That's pretty cool :)

Not sure if it's been asked before: was there any particular reason for intermingling single Polish words here and there throughout the dialogue?

Hi! I do that for flavor, I guess -- it's important to me that the characters read as Polish, having Polish culture, thinking in Polish.

Language is also kind of a theme because there's a lot of intermingling of Belarusians and Poles in the border country of the story. And eventually the Germans and German language will become important in the story.