12 questions for the creators of Fredo & Pid’Jin

January 13th, 2007

Okay, we’ve had enough iPhone for now, it’s time to relax for a bit. Fredo & Pid’Jin is a funny webcomic developed by Eugen Erhan and Tudor Muscalu. We convinced them to put world domination aside for a bit, while they gave us this interview:

Our-Picks: How did you come up with the idea of an online comic?
Tudor: It was eugen’s idea to start a webcomic.
Eugen: At the time i was just thinking it would be a nice trick to add some more readers to my blog. And also it was a project that Tudor and I had tried some years before (when we were 12). So then we started thinking about the story, characters… what it should look like. And nothing came up. So one day I call Tudor and ask him “dude, remember that comic we wanted to make? I’m giving you 5 minutes to think about an idea for it, and that’s it”. Then I called him in 5 minutes and he goes “ok, I have 2 ideas. One is with 2 evil pigeons who want to end the world”.
Tudor: And it worked. I came up with the plot, the characters. Then he gave me 5 more minutes, and I gave him the names, their body types, their motivations, their personalities. Again 5 minutes, … and we had our little first episode (never released though).
Eugen: Apparently he works well under pressure. Then I drew the first episode (actually the second, the first one never came out, as Tudor said) – and right then and there we knew this was gonna be more than just a gimmick to attract readers. It actually became its own site. It took over our lives in a very short time.

Our-Picks: Do you think that the online webcomics’ “market” is well developed?
Eugen: We really know very little about it. There are tens of thousands of free webcomics. Most of them are crap. Some are incredibly good. But neither one of us managed to stay faithful to one. We liked “Questionable content”, “Diesel sweeties”, that one with the alien and the predator… Still, we did get bored after a few episodes.
Tudor: If we leave out the ones that started in the newspapers, and the ones that made it to the newspapers, we are left with a zillion of the webonly ones. Some, like 20, have an audience, the rest are struggling.

Our-Picks: In your opinion, is there any major difference between this type of comic and those we see in magazines? I’m talking here about readers, promotion…
Tudor: I couldn’t tell you how they promote in the newspapers. If you’re in the newspaper you’re a made man, no need for promotion there. And on the web I’ve seen all kinds of tricks and this and that. If i knew the answer, I’d be using it.
Eugen: Being in the newspapers guarantees you a solid base of readers, even money. Still, people are not buying the paper for your cartoon. Which is not the case with the web. When a visitor comes to our site, it’s the pidjins they’re after.

Our-Picks: What program (or programs) do you use to draw the comics? Does it take long to make an episode?
Eugen: I draw them in Flash using a wacom tablet. It used to take up to 7 hours to draw an episode… Now it takes around 3 hours. As for coming up with the story… That can take from an hour to several months. We still have episodes we can’t release because they need more work… Since 2005.

Our-Picks: Are you doing this just for fun or is it a profitable business?
Eugen: We’re doing it because it feels right. So far we have made zero money with it, and in 2006 we’re gonna have some potential sources of income from it… but really pennies. We hope one day it will BOOM and we’re suddenly drawing it onboard a yacht, though.
Tudor: I don’t think we’re going to have the pennies, not even in 2007. But it does consume some cash.
Eugen: It is a lot of fun to make the episodes… we laugh a lot, we argue a lot, in the end we get a shiny sweet story.
Tudor: It feels good, and we learn a lot while doing it. It feels like this way, while doing them, by doing them, we might get better or quite good eventually.

Our-Picks: How do you feel about blogging? Could Fredo & Pid’Jin be called a blog?
Eugen: Technically, it is a blog. Blogging is a very nice tool, and that’s all.
Tudor: Yes and no. It uses a blog, but it’s just a means to deliver some regularly released content. It does not link out , i guess you noticed. we are planning to link to comics we like in the future, and to our friends’ blogs/sites, and to our parents, and to the maior. We want to keep this list short.

Our-Picks: I saw on the comic’s page that you also have high-res pictures. Are you thinking of expanding your field? Maybe an animation?
Eugen: Animation is the next natural step. However, we are lazy bastards.
Tudor: Though this can not be taken as a commitment on our part, Eugen is going 3 times a year in taiwan and china to try to find an affordable animation sweatshop. So far we haven’t.
Eugen: Yeah, those 4 year olds can’t animate.
Tudor: It’s not natural. Come on, you saw Garfield.

Our-Picks: What’s your favorite episode?
Eugen: Little Kicks, Skin Pour Homme, Water Sports, Goofy Monday. Oh, and Ballistics!
Tudor: The one with the baseball batt and the whores, then Narnia, then Goofy Monday.

Our-Picks: I know this is somewhat like telling a mother to choose which son she likes best, but what character do you feel closer to?
Eugen: I think i like pidjin just a tad more… because the poor guy needs it. Evil and hysterical as he is… somehow he always becomes this affection sponge – you gotta love him.
Tudor: I tend to worry myself about which one we make more likeable. I like Fredo, but by a very close margin, I like him as in admire, and I feel for Pid’Jin, because he frets so much.

Our-Picks: I can understand Pid’Jin’s name, but why Fredo?
Eugen: Why are you called Andrei? ..It’s his name.
Tudor: It’s a morph between Frodo + and Fred, it sounds italian, in a mobster way, it’s cool as in cold, it alot of other things.

Our-Picks: If all goes well and this year, or perhaps the next one, you start to get some income from the comic, will it be followed by other similar projects?
Tudor: No, we keep doing pidjin income or no income, and I wouldn’t bet on too much in income very early in time. I think we’re talking years here. And we’re talking us getting a bit better with each episode, mor econstant, better story tellers, funnier.
Eugen: There will be time for money. Now it’s time for fun.

Our-Picks: A word of conclusion?
Eugen: Word!
Tudor: I noticed all the interviewers want an ending, it gives them a sense of structure, of equilibrium, or whatnot. Let me end this for you: Enjoy your time on this ~little~ Earth!