“Don’t ask me why Bob is angry,” Stephen Notley said when I pulled out my iPod mic. Well, there went my first question. I quickly scanned Notely’s booth, looking for something to latch on to, anything that would give me a direction to go with this. Then I saw it behind him: a poster reading “Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.” I’m a punctuation foot soldier myself, prone to carrying around a black Sharpee so I can fix hand written store signs at Home Depot or Wal-Mart (in case I black out and find myself there. I’m not willingly going to a Wal-Mart. Are you kidding me?) which often misuse, or completely ignore, apostrophes. Lisa the Geek couldn’t do this. I’d have to start as Ms. Fary the English teacher and ease into Lisa the Geek.
Pink Raygun: OK, I won’t ask why Bob is angry and I won’t ask why he’s a flower.
Stephen Notely: Actually, now I have that answer. I can deploy it from now on. He’s angry because it’s funny.
PRG: I like your poster back there, “Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots”. Are you a grammar and punctuation warrior?
SN: Yes. Yes, I am. I get a lot of people coming up and saying “Have you read Eats, Shoots & Leaves?” and it’s like, “Yes, I have.” I’m not quite as high profile and the author of that book, but I think I’m up there. As far as people who are known for their punctuation pedantry, I am one of them. I’m one of those people that gets cited and linked to and told “Dude! Quit being a noob!” It’s a cartoon. Stop moralizing with apostrophes!” I feel like it’s a failing cause, ultimately. I have a strip in my book, Dog Killer, about just destroying the apostrophe. We have to go far beyond just using apostrophes correctly. We have to push back and just say “No more apostrophes.” It may seem strange. It’s kind of a radical program, but it’s the only choice we have.
PRG: How do you feel about there, their and they’re?
SN: Well, I have another cartoon on those three. unfortunately, that one is on The Ultimate Book of Perfect Energy, which is out of print at the moment. It’s another thing that makes you look like a dumb ass if you make that mistake. Try to remember when they teach it to you in fourth grade so you won’t look like an idiot. But, all too many folks just don’t get it.
The thing is, there, their and they’re are quite easy. “They’re” is obviously “they are”. It has the apostrophe in it, so you know its a contraction. Then “there” is a place, like “here” and “there”. And then the possessive is the one that’s not those other two. It’s not complicated. I don’t know how people manage to screw it up, but they find a way.
PRG: Have you seen the movie Idiocracy?
SN: Yes.
PRG: Do you feel that the English language is degenerating to a combination of Valley Girl, street lingo and grunts?
SN: I suppose so. It’s probably going even further than that. Now that people are texting and that sort of thing, vowels are getting obliterated. But, that’s what languages do. They get mangled according to the generations that came before and no one is really happy. It’s like “What? “Postman” without a hyphen? What are these kids talking about these days?” Texting is pretty corrosive, and also gamer talk. But, I kinda like leed speak and that sort of thing. I like “noob” and “woot” and that sort of stuff. That’s evolving langauge, I suppose. We’ll see. I don’t know if we’ll all end up as idiots or not. I can’t help but assume that there will be some sort of countervailing trends that will stop it from happening like it did in the movie.
PRG: Like a breeding program.
SN: Well, if it were true that the stupid people reproduce more, then it would have already happened. We wouldn’t have hit the top of the curve and then gone down. It would have happened from the beginning. So, there has to be something operating in the other direction that gives us some cause for hope.
PRG: How autobiographical is Bob the Angry Flower?
SN: Very. It’s pretty much my life with this very thin veneer of metaphor on top of it. Pretty much every strip I do comes from some personal experience that gets transplanted on to Bob.
PRG: Do you find yourself carrying a notebook around, jotting things down as they happen or do you carry it around until it causes an ulcer?
SN: I used to carry a book around, and that would be the smart way to go about it. Now it’s more like, “It’s Sunday. It’s time to draw a comic. Has anything happened this week that I cared about?” It tends to the more sloppy, whatever I happen to think is funny or in any way engaging at the moment I have to draw a comic.
PRG: When you’re executing whatever you’re doing for the comic, do you do a script first or hack it out in visuals?
SN: It’s a little bit of both. I usually will have the dialogue in mind, so I’ll write out what’s being said and the pauses. I won’t write out a description of each panel, but I know what will be in it. I’ll sketch it all out in a little thumbnail, then if it seems to work, I’ll start drawing it.
PRG: Do you start with the joke and work towards it or do you find the joke as you go along?
SN: Usually, I’ll just sit and think about something until I find something funny. That will be the core joke and I’ll build the cartoon around it. It may be the punchline, but not usually. It may be the title of the comic that I work around. But, usually it’s just like noodle, noodle, noodle until I find something funny enough that I can build a cartoon around.
Bob the Angry Flower runs weekly in VUE Weekly, Terminal City and Buffalo Beast. Bob the Angry Flower is updated on the web every Friday.
Win free stuff! Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email, or Subscribe via RSS
Related Stuff:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Hooray! I had forgotten how much I adore Bob the Angry Flower! Thanks, Pink Raygun!