Bill Scafuri (Writer) & Tim Bierbaum (Illustrations) "The Librarianist" www.thelibrarianist.com All content copyright The Librarianist 2007

1.) Tell us about yourself and how your personality and such reflects in your comic?

The Librarianist is Billy Scafuri (writer) and Tim Bierbaum (illustration.) Individually, we are both your normal, run of the mill gentleman looking for a good time. But when combined, we are two normal, run of the mill gentlemen looking for a good time.

2.) What inspires you?

The sounds of baby laughter and the taste of baby corn.

3.) What comics do you like, and who influenced you?

PBF, The Far Side, Brevity, Maakies, Johnny Ryan, R. Crumb, Dan Clowes, Jim Woodring, Super Mario Bros, Warner Bros. cartoons.

4.) How did you come up with your Comic, what sparked its creation?

The Librarianist’s creation is similar to the creation of man; Billy enjoyed writing comedy and Tim enjoyed drawing art. When Tim started drawing the comedy, the Librarianist was born. Like man.

5.) How did you come up with your characters, which is your favorite?

We do not use recurring characters in any comic. Each strip is its own entity. However, our favorite character in all of fiction is Carl Winslow from TV’s “Family Matters”.

6.) What’s your method for writing a comic or story, and how long does it usually take?

There is no exact science for writing our comic. It is usually written backwards, meaning a punch line is thought of before the setup. From conception to creation the process takes close to two weeks to have a completed strip.

7.) Most important, and the reason for all this- Whats the step by step process of creating your comic, from writing to coloring or where ever you end?

First, there must be a strong joke. When that is thought of, there must be a visually pleasing setting for the joke to take place in. When the scene/strip is written it will be sent to Tim and he will begin the illustration process. It is in the illustration process where Tim makes the strongest visual decisions based on what he has read.

Tim: I’m usually able to visualize pretty accurately what I want the strip to look like (in terms of what needs to happen graphically in each panel) when I’m reading Billy’s joke. I spend a minute thinking of details like location, “set dressing”, wardrobe, etc. I work on a large pad (20”x25” I think) to give me plenty of room to work, and draw the strip at about 9”x5”. Although this size is much larger than the image will be displayed at on the web it’s much easier to add details. I sketch with a mechanical pencil loaded with soft lead to be easier to erase. While sketching I work out perspective, placement of compositional objects and anatomy (stuff like angle of hands, feet, posture). Details like expressions, texture, shading are all made while inking.
I use a set of 6 micron pens with various calibers to ink. I start with a medium pen for basic shapes, small for shading/detail, then go back and retrace outlines of characters and objects with large pens for emphasis. I like to add details like specific locations, brand-name products, or famous paintings while I’m inking. The crosshatching technique I’m using now takes a lot of time and practice and is very easy to mess up, which I do frequently. Sometimes mistakes can be corrected in Photoshop, sometimes I just have to live with them. Once it’s scanned a lot of small mistakes are hardly noticeable anyways. The drawing process takes me about 8 hours for each strip.
I scan at 400 DPI with the scanner set to black and white photo. I adjust the levels to get rid of any image noise created during scanning. If you plan on coloring scan at 1200 DPI with your scanner set to black and white document so no grey pixels are created along your line. Once I clean up the image I save a copy at full resolution and a copy at web resolution ( 72 DPI). It’s important to save a high-resolution copy in case you ever want to print larger or in a professional publication. I have a separate Photoshop template containing bold panel frames I put the image into, then resize the frames to fit the comic.

8.) Plans for the future?

Eat some baby corn and make more comics.

All content copyright The Librarianist 2007
No reproduction of any material is allowed in any format without written permission.

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