Sunday Comix Super Special #1
Sunday Comix is a collective of artists who are intent on getting comics directly to your inbox! Today is the first of our Sunday Comix Super Specials where we will bring you spotlights on specific creators! Today, we begin with Randall P. Girdner! Stay tuned here for the latest storyline from Randall, an interview with the author, and some vintage Maurice comics!
You can find Randall’s work here:
Note from Randall P.: Buy some books!
The following strips are a tribute to some of my Sunday Comix Collective artists and are the latest strips in the Maurice oeuvre!
An Interview with Randall P. Girdner!
Influences & Inspirations
Who were the comic artists or creators that first made you fall in love with the medium?
I was raised on comic books when I was young. I used to go into convenience stores and 7-Elevens, perusing the spinner racks to find something interesting. Usually it was a bunch of comic books all mashed into very small slots in poor condition, and I would end up picking the ones with the most exciting covers and my favorite characters. As a six, seven, and eight-year-old, reading about these wonderful, crazy, spectacular adventures inspired me and made me realize there was a bigger world out there than my Oklahoma roots were offering me.
From there, I started reading newspaper comics—Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes—and all of those inspired me to make my own comics.
Are there any non-comic influences that shape your work—movies, books, music, or other art forms?
Well, it wasn't just comic books that inspired me. I was inspired by movies and television too. I grew up in the 70s and we had things like Battlestar Galactica. I remember getting freaked out by the live-action Spider-Man TV series from the 70s. Legends of the Super Heroes was a very popular show for me, and it was always so elusive when I was a little kid—I could never find it when it was on.
Then there were Saturday morning cartoons. I loved the Super Friends. I loved the Fantastic Four, even though it didn't have the Human Torch and had only H.E.R.B.I.E. instead. I loved the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon on Saturday morning. I remember watching Plastic Man—anything that had to do with comic books on television was something I was interested in.
Of course, the big moment for me was Star Wars, and I saw The Muppet Movie in theaters. But everything changed when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was the greatest film I'd ever seen and is my all-time favorite movie even to this day.
How do internet culture and social media trends influence your comic ideas?
Social media and the Internet influence me a little bit too much, and I think they influence all of us a little bit too much. I hate to be old school about this, but I have a tendency to spend way too much time on the Internet, and I wish people, including myself, spent less time online. I think we're all a little too influenced by likes and upvotes and what gets the most popularity on the Internet, and I think that's a huge problem.
In that regard, I've tried to stay away from that as much as possible, even though I do subject myself to it a little bit more than I'd like. But the basic idea is that I publish my comics no matter what. If I get readers, that's great, and if I don't get readers, that's just as good, because the most important thing for me is to get my work out there in some form or another.
It can't be about how many people read my comic books. It can't be about how many likes or upvotes I get. It has to be about the process of creation—how we create these things and the satisfaction we get from actually doing something. One of the things I like to say is that every day I bring something into the world that did not exist before I woke up that morning. If I do that, then I know I've accomplished something, even if it's as simple as a Maurice the Beaver comic. It's something that's important to me to create.
History & Background
What led you to start creating webcomics specifically, rather than pursuing traditional print comics?
I started creating web comics because the newspaper comic industry was done—newspaper comics are pretty much dead as a whole. I haven't picked up a newspaper in many years. I read everything on the Internet, so the Internet has become the newspaper for me and I think for the rest of the world. But because I was influenced by newspaper comics like Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and Peanuts, that was a medium I wanted to engage with. There was just no way to do such a thing once the internet took hold. But I still wanted to do it, so I tried it.
In the process of engaging that way, I created my own comics. Back in 2005, I created a comic strip called TJHS 1987, and it was very loosely autobiographical about me growing up in the year 1987 when I was in seventh grade. It was a lot of fun to do. But my artwork was terrible. My storytelling I think was pretty decent, but my art was awful. I did it all in my spare time and didn't use rulers to make the boxes or sketch things out before I started. I just drew them, as is, in my journal. It was pre-digital—I drew everything in my journals.
I always said that because it was about the year 1987, I would create 365 strips—you know, for 365 days of that year. I like to give myself arbitrary goals. When I finished the last strip, I was very satisfied with how it ended and then I moved onto other projects, but I knew I wanted to continue making web comics.
The biggest problem was that it was difficult to make things with pen and paper in the traditional ways because I have a day job and I'm a busy guy. But with the invention of the Apple Pencil, everything about all of that changed. I decided I was going to try to create a web comic again, because with the Apple Pencil and Procreate, I was able to create comics in any way I wanted. The biggest impediment to that was that I just didn't have a character and I didn't have a story to tell.
Then one day in 2019, in a fit of inspiration, I created Maurice the Beaver. I still have his first drawings that I did in my journal, and I thought to myself, "Well, this is a character that I would like to put out there and share with the world."
Part of what made me want to do that was the Trump administration and my desire to critique that administration. I felt like I didn't have much of a voice as a citizen, even though all these terrible things were happening, so I used Maurice as a way to write a political comic and express my frustrations with the world. What originally started as a political comic strip eventually became about my feelings regarding the world as a whole, all filtered through the warped lens of Maurice the Beaver himself.
In doing that, I ended up pursuing it even further. I said I was only going to do 200 strips, and then when I finished those 200 strips, I wanted to do more and continued. Eventually, I created another arbitrary goal of 1,000 strips, and I am working my way towards that. I may finish Maurice at 1,000 strips or I may go on—I don't know. But I do know that I'll take a break after 1,000 and see if I can get some more inspiration for what I want to do with this character, because I love him dearly.
What's been your biggest learning curve since you started?
The biggest learning curve I've had in doing my Maurice comics is just learning to draw again—learning to draw quickly, learning to color, and learning to use Procreate to its greatest advantage. I have done that, and I think I've gotten pretty good at cranking out comics very quickly.
I'm never going to be one of those web comic artists who are very particular about what they do, and that's been part of the learning process as well. I think the things I create are done quickly, and I do them for efficiency because, as I said before, I have a day job—I'm a teacher—and all of my comics are done in my spare time as quickly as possible.
I like to reuse art. I like to reuse backgrounds. I like to do things that enable me to express myself as quickly as possible. If I was more precious about my artwork, things would be different, but I know I'm not a great artist. Because of that, I think it's more important to tell good stories and crank things out as quickly as possible, as opposed to being precious about what I'm doing.
That's been the biggest learning curve I've had: learning not to be precious about anything I'm putting out there.
Creative Process
How do you generate ideas for your short comics—do they come from daily life, current events, or somewhere else?
How you come up with ideas is always a mysterious and confusing process. What works for you one time may not work for you another time—that's the way it goes with me.
My process overall is that I have trained myself over the years so that every Monday, I will write in my journal five Maurice comics. I will do some pretty crappy little thumbnails and then write the dialogue below those thumbnails. Usually those five have a certain theme that I pull from daily life. Then I let that sit for a while.
An example of this would be when Maurice went to see Barbie and he became a convert to the whole Barbie movement. I had just seen Barbie myself, and I thought it was one of the best films of the year. I liked the messages of Barbie and I liked what Greta Gerwig did in the movie, and I wanted to express that joy. So I created some comics based around Barbie and Maurice, and it was all about the conversion of Maurice from a skeptical viewer of Barbie to someone who evangelized Barbie. Little things like that end up creating comic storylines for me.
After I do my thumbnails, I sit back and usually use a little template I have for my comics on Procreate. I do some green pencil rough outlines of what I want to draw, and then I pretty much draw the comic from there and produce it.
The Craft of Short-Form Comics
What's the biggest challenge in telling a complete story in just a few panels?
Actually, I don't find short-form comics to be that challenging, and it could be because I've done about 900 of them in some form or another. So I think actually the challenge for me at this point would be to tell longer-form comics. I have a couple of comics coming out from a company called Sandstorm Comics that is based out of Abu Dhabi, and that was me stretching my wings a little bit and trying to figure out how to tell longer comics. We have a giant graphic novel coming from that. But when it comes to telling stories in four panels or so, I find that pretty easy.
How do you balance humor, emotion, and message in such a compressed format?
I think it can be pretty tricky to try to balance humor, emotion, and messaging in your comics. Sometimes I've hit the nail on the head with some of my Maurice comics, and sometimes I feel like I've been off the mark a little bit.
Maurice is an interesting little character. I can't deny that Maurice is the worst impulses of myself, and my ability to express those worse parts of myself in a comic strip format can be both challenging and liberating as a whole. I want to be able to show growth through my character, and I want Maurice to constantly be getting better, but Maurice makes a lot of mistakes and Maurice is a reactor—he's not a thinker.
Tony is more of the thinker, and thank goodness I have him in the strip because he keeps Maurice grounded and enables him to become a better person in the long run. Hopefully people can see that. I'm not sure they see that all the time, but hopefully they're able to.
But it's tricky, and once you put your art out there, people are able to judge it in any way that they see fit. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it's just a terrible thing. You can usually find out which one it is by looking at the comments or the upvotes on your comic. Those comments have taught me some valuable lessons, and they've taught me a lot about what to ignore when it comes to people on the Internet.
What makes a webcomic shareable in your opinion?
If I knew what made a comic book shareable, I'd be the most popular web comic artist on the Internet. I've had comics that I thought were going to really take off do absolutely nothing, and I've had comics that were done really quickly by me become super popular. So the bottom line is I don't have the answer. It just depends on the mood of the Internet as a whole on that particular day, and sometimes the Internet is one moody chump.
Future Aspirations
Where do you see your work heading in the next few years?
All I want to do is get to 1,000 comics with Maurice. Once I hit that milestone, I'm going to step back and reevaluate whether I want to continue doing Maurice comics or explore something new.
The truth is, if I decide to keep going with Maurice, the format will have to change in one way or another. I've always admired Bill Watterson’s approach to Calvin and Hobbes, especially how he moved away from the traditional Sunday strip format he found constraining. Instead, he embraced more imaginative layouts and storytelling, which I’ve always found incredibly inspiring.
I've wanted to do something similar with Maurice—experiment with new and interesting directions—but it's harder than it seems. After six years of working with the same characters and structure, it's incredibly difficult to break out of that rhythm and reimagine everything. Still, it's something I think about almost every day. Hopefully, inspiration will strike, and I'll find a way to tell these stories differently and take Maurice and Tony in a whole new direction.
That said, I still really enjoy the four-panel strip format. It's succinct, and it allows me to express how I feel about certain issues clearly and effectively. But at some point, I know I’ll need to take a break. I need time to recharge and see where inspiration leads.
I really love Maurice, and I’m proud of what I’ve built with him over the years. My hope is that I can continue in some form, but as an artist, you have to keep pushing yourself. You have to keep growing—that’s what makes it exciting and worthwhile. If I do continue, it’ll be after that break. And who knows, maybe I’ll try a few other comics first before returning to Maurice.
Are you interested in expanding into longer-form comics or other media?
Yeah, I’m interested in all kinds of things right now. I’m currently finishing a science fiction novel that’s been a real challenge—I’ve been working on it for about a year. Alongside that, I’m always writing screenplays and exploring opportunities to make my own films.
I also have a comic book series I’d like to develop over the next year or so called The Anti-Gravity Kid. It’s aimed at kids aged 6 to 13 and focuses on fun characters in relatable situations—all of whom have superpowers. The tone is light and imaginative, and it actually ties into a novel I’ve written (but haven’t published yet) called My Dad the Superhero.
One of my goals is to build a connected universe where a group of teenagers with powers all exist together, each with their own unique way of seeing the world. The idea that this novel can link directly to a comic series really excites me—it helps me build the kind of universe I always dreamed of creating as a kid.
Ideally, I’ll develop a few issues of The Anti-Gravity Kid and release them alongside the novel. I think it would be a great fit for young readers who enjoy fun, super-powered adventures—because those are the kinds of stories I’ve always loved myself.
How do you hope webcomics as a medium will evolve?
I think webcomics have to evolve—and a big reason for that is our growing dependence on large social media platforms, which I believe is unsustainable. These platforms take far more than they give. While they’ve helped us share our work with a wider audience, the reality is that we’ve become slaves to their algorithms—algorithms that are moody, opaque, and often detrimental to artists.
This constant need to please an ever-changing system has made it difficult for many creators to consistently reach their audiences. I know that a lot of Maurice’s comics don’t even appear in people’s feeds simply because they don’t fit the algorithm's criteria, and I think that’s incredibly frustrating.
That’s why I believe it's so important to find new, more direct ways to connect with readers. What we’re doing with Sunday Comix is a great step in that direction—it allows us to publish work and send it straight to the people who want to read it. I hope we can continue to develop business models and platforms that empower us to bypass these corporate gatekeepers.
Ideally, we’ll grow platforms like Sunday Comix to reach millions, allowing artists to thrive without being filtered by social media’s whims. Until then, we need to start weaning ourselves off these platforms. They’re parasites, and they’re slowly killing our ability to connect, create, and sustain our work.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in webcomics?
If I were giving advice to people just starting out, it would be the same advice I’ve often ignored myself: creating isn’t just a joy—it’s work. Sure, there are joyful aspects to it, but at its core, it’s still work, and you have to treat it that way. You can’t wait for inspiration to strike. Sometimes, the real test is creating even when you’re completely uninspired. That’s where discipline and character come in.
So my advice would be this: write every day. Draw every day. Spend every available minute—outside of what you need to do to survive—bringing something new into the world. These days, so many people spend hours on social media, endlessly scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. It numbs our brains and distances us from being present, creative, and critical thinkers.
You have to carve out time for creativity—time that feeds your soul. Because if all you're doing is consuming and never creating, you’re not fully engaging with life. That’s a depressing way to exist. I think everyone should create something, anything. The more people make art, the better off we’ll all be.
And your work doesn’t have to be perfect or groundbreaking. It just has to be meaningful to you. Create something that brings you joy or helps you make sense of the world. That’s how you become a more fulfilled human being.
I make a silly webcomic called Maurice the Beaver. I don’t make money from it, and it eats up a lot of my time—but I love every minute of it. At the end of the day, I know I’ve made something unique, something fun, and maybe even something that inspires someone else to create. That’s what it’s about: doing the work, loving the process, and putting something new into the world.
The Barbie Storyline!
