- NA : So, we hear that your comic creation, “Angry Naked Pat”, will be going live with a website this June.
Yep. http://www.angrynakedpat.com. It’s a strip I did in college that was popular in it’s day, and I while writing screenplays over and over for movie studios is a fun gig, I missed the fun of actually having people see my work. It had been four years since I had even drawn Pat, and after an accident to my left hand it hurt too much to draw, but I braved through the initinal discomfort and resumed my nekkid sketches for all the internet world to see. Come to think of it, the whole thing plays like a LIFETIME movie of the week…except for the naked man cartoon. I’ve drawn about five or six new strips so far, and I’m getting the mediocrity back. Took a while, but it’s not as painful for me to draw. No, the only pain will come from those visiting the site.
NA : Describe the comic as best you can…What kind of tastes does it cater to?
Well, NA, it’s a single panel comic strip with tons of characters making fun of things scattered all over like some kinda collage. The lead is a bitter naked guy (who used to be ANGRY YOUNG NAKED PAT, but it’s been four years so he ain’t YOUNG no more) who has a hate-on for celebrities and the like. I think it caters to anyone who’s a fan of pop culture but at the same time is frustrated by how stupid it is. Did that make sense? No? I guess I’m going for a SOUTH PARK/MAD MAGAZINE on acid kinda feel. If you’ve seen BIG HELIUM DOG (and who hasn’t, really), and enjoyed it, you’ll be into ANGRY NAKED PAT. If you didn’t like, well, don’t feel the need to bookmark this one.
See? I said “bookmark”, I speak your langauge, people. Accept me.
NA : What other comics and films have influenced this creation?
BLOOM COUNTY was the biggest influence. Of course, my comic is nothing like BLOOM COUNTY, and it’s not nearly as good or as smart, but the dialog beats are the same, along with the integration of celebrity mocking into the odd little world created by the respective artists. Recently, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have proven (not just with SOUTH PARK, but with CANNIBAL and ORGAZMO and THAT’S MY BUSH) that you can offend lots of people and still have endearing characters that your audience, even to the smallest degree, cares for. Don’t know if I was successful with that, but they were a big inspiration.
NA : How and when did you first come up with “Angry Naked Pat”?
My room-mate Pat in college got kinda loaded one night and ran around the dorm room naked, save for a green bippy top. No one paid attention because we were all drunk too. A gal came to visit me (yes, also drunk), and he answered the door naked. She didn’t notice. She came over and sat down on my bed. He sat on his, across from her, and talked to her. She still didn’t react. He sat in all sorts of various positions to accentuate his nudity. She didn’t react. She left, he went to sleep frustrated. The next day he woke up to find a wall full of cartoon re-inactments of his hi-jinks. He laughed. I laughed. My Floor Advisor came in, told us to keep it down, saw the wall, thought we were gay, hurried out.
At the same time, the editor of my school paper, THE BEACON, wanted me to do a comic strip. I had no idea what I was going to do. So I did ANGRY YOUNG NAKED PAT without telling my room-mate. First edition of it, they blocked his penis with a black bar. Not very funny. What’s the point, you know? Pat read it, liked it.
Next issue, they removed the black bar, and everyone on campus took notice. Pat loved it. And the real Pat is getting married this June, I’m hoping he chooses to wear the outfit of his comic strip counterpart.
NA : Can you give us an idea about what we can expect to see on the new website itself (aside from the comic, of course)?
Well, there are archived comic strips, about a hundred or so, with my commentary under them so the readers can understand certain jokes that may have played better a couple of years ago. There’s also an extensive character profile section, a letters column (no web boards, there’s enough web boards) that for now features some of the best hate/love mail Pat got during his tenure at college. After we get some interesting emails about the new strips I’ll start posting them and responding.
Two new ANGRY NAKED PAT strips, this time in full-color (compliments of Josh Dobbin, who’s running the site and making my stuff seem 100% prettier), will go up every Friday. A couple of weeks in, a new character will be introduced that will take the world by storm (actually, he already has taken the world by storm, but now we get to use and abuse him for our own purposes), and he’ll get his own section of the site, too.
I’ve already talked to a bunch of talented people about doing other strips for the site, and eventually, and this might be a ways off, we’re going to have new comics every day on said site. PAT will always be Friday, another strip will always be Monday, so on and so forth. So far, three people have signed on to do stuff and I’ve seen their work and it’s pretty obvious that Pat will soon be the LEAST FUNNY thing on said site and I’ll be bitter and fire everyone. But until then, smiles, people, smiles!
Josh is also working on some sick downloads for the site, got one this morning, and, well, kinda great. But I’ll let that be a surprise.
The biggest news, and it’s also the most mysterious because I don’t want to count my chickens before they’re hatched and whatever other cliche fits here, is that it looks like Pat won’t just be regulated to a comic strip. He’s branching out into different mediums thanks to people that are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more talented than me. Stay tuned for news on that stuff, too.
And we’ll also be bringing you all the latest news on View Askew, so if you want news, be sure to go to http:www.angrynakedpat.com before you go anywhere else. In fact, if you have any sites that are pretty much JUST View Askew News related, you can damn well erase that bookmark and go right to Pat.
NA : Do you have a URL set up for the site yet?
Yuh-huh. It’s http://www.angrynakedpat.com
I was gonna call it www.newsaskew.com but that was taken. I have no idea by who, but…
…do you understand the COMEDY I just gave you people FOR FREE? I’m ON newsaskew right now! And I’m acting like I don’t know what it is! Frigging A! And yes, you can expect this kind of genius over at the new site.
NA : How often will we see updates on the site?
For Pat comic strips, every Friday. But they’ll be new stuff popping up all the time, courtesy of me and Dobbin and other fine peeps. He’s busy with his new site, http://www.itsthecatsass.com, but he’s kindly taken time to make this the best it can be.
Which, admittedly, isn’t very good, but I will admit IT’S THE BEST IT CAN BE.
The first non-Pat strip goes up mid to late June.
And the big, ANGRY NAKED PAT GOES WAY BEYOND A MERE COMIC STRIP thing, well, that’s a little down the road. Hopefully not too long, because I’m unhealthy and I’d like to see it.
NA : Will the material on the site be new stuff or archives of previous stuff you’ve done around the character?
Like I said before, it’ll have all the old black and white strips, and have brand new stuff too. Hopefully it’ll just get bigger and better.
NA : Will this also serve as an official Brian Lynch portal site where we can learn about developments with your other
scripts, movies, and stuff?
Not sure, really, I think your site and the VA board do a fine job of that, but who’s to say, really. There is an update section, so maybe if I sell something or NIGHTCRAWLERS gets pushed through I’ll mention it. And then make fun of it the next week in the comic strip.
NA : Any plans to publish “Angry Naked Pat” officially or will this be a web-only type of deal?
Publish, maybe. But no, it’s definitely not a web-only type of deal. Hopefully this will be the spring board for other stuff (and it seems as though it’s happening, which is sweet) that is Pat-related, but the web site will always been mission control for all things ANGRY or NAKED or PAT.
NA : With some of the other View Askew Productions (Drawing Flies and A Better Place) hitting DVD this year, do you have any plans to finally release Big Helium Dog to the public? I heard a rumor that you might want to remake it before it sees release.
Man, I’ve been so swamped with rewrites and Pat that BHD is still in the back of the room raising it’s hand and being ignored. But yes, there has been talk of doing something with it. Not remaking it, but taking a bunch of the best bits of the original and pairing it with all new sketches. I think that’ll be fun and weird. Once Kevin finishes his movie and I hand in my stuff, we’ll talk about it more.
NA : While we’ve got your attention, any exciting stuff going on with any other projects of yours? Sold any new scripts or have any of the others moved closer to development?
Alot of good stuff. Warner Brothers continues to be excited about NIGHTCRAWLERS. Rewriting that (big studio pics are FUN) again, and starting a rewrite of MILLER MINOGUE, a script I wrote right after BIG HELIUM DOG. It basically contains all the sketches and ideas I couldn’t work into BHD. MM has been picked up by Landscape Entertainment, which was founded by Bob Cooper, the man who ran Dreamworks’ film division for a while (during the AMERICAN BEAUTY and GALAXY QUEST phase). They seem to really get the script, and since it’s not a big, epic, special effects comedy like NIGHTCRAWLERS it looks as though it won’t have to go through so many rewrites. But I could be wrong. And probably am.
Thanks for listening, guys. Or reading. Or, if my assumptions are correct, Brad, thanks for reading this out loud, and Chris, thank you for listening to him and playing with your action figures.
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