Today were interviewing a good friend of mine and a great comic maker. This interview is full of Lava, sides, and rahi

The LR interview!

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1. How did you get into Bionicle?

I got into Bionicle in early 2003 when I recieved a Bionicle set for Christmas. I had gotten these Bionicles in the past before, but this time I noticed the little LEGO Magazine offer. Once I got my first comic, it was off from there.

2. How did you find BZP and know you wanted to join?

I found BZP through a link on bionicle.com which no longer exists. At first I just used it as a news site, but then after a while I started venturing into the forums, and I liked what I saw. It just seemed like a great community.

3. What got you into comic making and was it hard to do when you started?

I saw my first comic maybe a couple of months after I joined BZP. They were done by someone named Kongo, this guy who wasn't exactly hugely popular (but he had a decent fan base) even at the time and is long gone and forgotten by now. What's funny is that today his comics seem so amuterish, but back then it was the spark which set off everything else. Not only was this something I knew I wanted to do, this was something I knew I could do, because I recognized that he made them using MS Paint, which I was familiar with.

It was hard to do when I started, for various reasons. When I started, I decided I didn't want to do the whole kit thing and tried hand-drawing them on the computer. Well, that went nowhere, since I have zero skills with hand-drawing. So after completely washing out, I reconsidered what I was doing and decided to use kits instead. Even then it was still very hard, because I couldn't keep a topic going for long. I must have done three sprite comic topics which died instantly. Eventually I was able to cling on to a living topic and it grew from there. I'm really glad they put in the rule that you can double-post if you're posting a new comic, because I'm sure it really helps new comic makers keep going on even with only a few fans and avoid some of the problems I had when I started.

4. How long would you say it takes you to make one comic?

Obviously it depends on the comic, but I'd say on average each comic takes a few hours of solid work. This is spread over the course of days, weeks, or even months depending on how busy I am.

5. How did you think up Larry and Terry?

Ah, Larry and Tarry. Terry. Tarry. You know, I actually thought that was how you spelled Terry when I made them. But rather than correct it, I decided it was a funny gag so I left it Tarry. I could go on for hours about this stuff...

Anyway, I thought them up because I wanted to have a silly character. But instead of having just one like everyone else, I decided I wanted two, like Thomson and Thompson from Tintin, or Fred and George from Harry Potter. There are many great comedic duos out there.

So at first they were just total goofballs, and a lot of fans seemed to take this to mean that they were stupid. After having a couple of "dumb" PGS, a bunch of other wacky people, and a million "dumb" guest stars, I decided I was sick of stupid characters and really wanted Larry and Tarry to get a bit more appreciation, since they were my first and always favorite characters. So I made them a lot smarter and turned them into something new.

6. The main army in your comics are..fruit. Grapes. What was the idea behind them?

That was Lady Ervai's idea. I have no idea what her inspiration was, but she mentioned hearing the title of the story "Grapes of Wrath".

7. Like most comics you have a makuta in them. What was the idea behind him as well?

That was also Lady Ervai's idea, and again I have no idea where she got the idea.

8. Did you have any goals in the comics or on BZP? And did you achieve them?

I'm sure I did have goals ("get really popular" was one of them, I'm sure), but time and a shift of interests and duties has made me forget about them. Now I just do comics for the love of it. There is one thing I want to do for the comics though: I know that I won't be able to keep doing this for much longer, so I hope I can tell a good story to finish it all off.

9. Do you have any future plans to do on BZP and comics?

For the near future, I'm going to finish the Birth of Ultra Matoran series. I've written the script for the last episodes of the movie, so it'll be up to the animators to do their thing.

I do have one big thing in mind. Not a movie, I'm done with that. It's that "final story" I mentioned above. I want to do something that has the feel of the Birth of Ultra Matoran series I'm doing now, but bigger and set in the present. I have it all planned out, but I don't want to say anything in case it turns out that I can't do it.

10. And lastly: you have reached a skill in comics as high as Darks. Do you like the popularity? or dos that not matter and you just do what you do to make the viewers laugh?

Well firstly, I don't think I'm on the same level as Dark. Not in terms of popularity, but in terms of originality. For crying out loud, he made his own kit! He's doing his third movie. He's made hundreds of comics. His stories are compelling, and his jokes are hillarious. His dedication to comics is unmatched on BZP and truly something to look up to.

There was a time when popularity mattered to me, but a growing disinterest in Bionicle and BZP has pretty much ended that for me. Now I just make the comics and share them, and it really doesn't matter to me if two people post or twenty people post each time I put up a comic. I've come to the realization that there are many people who have followed my comics but may not post, so I know that no matter what, people will see them, and at this point, that's all I need to know.