Jamie Smart is a British comic artist and writer, known for comics such as Bear, The Dandy and Desperate Dan. His new book Bunny VS. Monkey Human Invasion, is out now. We caught up with him to find out more…
How would you describe Bunny vs Monkey: The Human Invasion to an elderly relative?
Well firstly I’d try and warn them that inside this book there is going to be a lot of cute animals running around, falling over, yelling at each other and blowing each other up, plenty of fart jokes, a big bag of poo, an array of ridiculous inventions and the most explosive carrot in the world. If they seem fine with that, then I’d suggest they dive right in.
What was the most fun thing to draw?
The most fun scenes are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the action scenes. When Bunny’s riding a huge wave of custard, or a giant eyeball is rolling down the hill, just picture me sat there making the ‘woosh’ and ‘crash’ noises with my mouth.
If you weren’t a cartoonist, what would you be doing for a living?
I genuinely don’t know. Thank goodness I’ve not had to figure it out.
Where does the idea for Bunny Vs Monkey come from?
Bunny Vs Monkey was an idea I had about fifteen years ago when I was trying to come up with ideas for TV shows. All the characters emerged really quickly, the whole thing just locked into place. I loved drawing cute animals being silly, and this was a perfect outlet for that. Fast forward a bit and I pitched it to The Phoenix, and nine years later I’ve been drawing new Bunny Vs Monkey stories nearly every week!
What sort of inspiration do you draw from for the character of Looshkin?
Looshkin inspires us all to live our best lives, to do what we’ve always wanted to do without being constrained by fear or insecurity. Now it just happens that for Looshkin that means wearing underpants on his head or driving a steam train through the living room, but I like to think I could gain a little confidence from his actions too.
What is does your working day look like?
Get up, walk the dog, try and start work before 8. That’s the plan, doesn’t always happen though. I then work through until about 6ish, at which point I switch off for the evening. I never used to take days off but over the years I’ve learned that’s silly, so now I try and take at least one day off a week.
What comic strip do you wish you’d invented?
I wish I’d come up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the 80s/90s licensed comics and toy ranges, there was something so fun and colourful about them, and TMNT is one of the longest lasting. It’s such a simple idea, and yet it has been reinterpreted in so many different mediums, I think it’s a real inspiration.
Is there a project would you love to do? It can be anything.
Honestly, and I know this sounds boring, but I’m just loving my own projects at the moment, I wouldn’t wish to be doing anything else. I’m working on a new comic series for The Phoenix right now called Megalomaniacs, and it is an absolute joy, I’ve tried to come at it in a slightly different way from my previous work and now it feels like a whole new chapter for me.
If you could have movie made out of ANY of your projects, what would it be? Who would voice it?
Probably Flember, my illustrated novel series, I think it’d make a really fancy animated movie, although I’ve no idea how you might condense the books down. I know adapting ideas into movies can take decades too, so I’m not holding out much hope.
If you could save one bit of art (or music, or book, or tv or whatever) and ensure it would survive forever, what would it be?
A job lot of Oink! comics from the late eighties, all the issues and the annuals too. Bury it in concrete and let future generations work out what the flipping hell was going on.
What’s better, Doctor Who or Doctor No?
Doctor Who, easy.
Simpsons or Futurama?
Simpsons in general, I never quite got a hook into the main characters for Futurama although the animation and writing were brilliant.
Truth or Beauty?
Both please.
