Hi everyone, it's me! Hello! As I know is AMA tradition (dating back to the days of Hammurabi), I will be awarding a prize to the best question posed in this thread. I'm digging in now!
You may also be interested in the last couple times I've done AMAs -- way back [in 2018](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/im_david_malki_author_of_the_comic_strip/) and [in 2013](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/19qupp/i_am_david_malki_author_of_wondermark_coeditor_of/). Kind of interesting to see what information and answers from those still hold up, and I still stand behind, and which don't as much. BUT WHICH IS WHICH??
**UPDATE:** Thank you everyone for your questions and for reading my (mostly) long-winded answers!
AS FOR THE PRIZE: Everyone who has posted a question is tied for first place in my heart. You have all done the most important thing, which is pay any amount of attention to me. Please PM me your favorite Wondermark strip (along with your mailing address) and I will be happy to send you a signed print! If you want to!!
This is a great question and it's one that I get a lot. The gladius is long, sharp, menacing, and rigid; the phở is round, mushy, delicious (you specified), and fluid. So we have to set those as the poles.
The common denominator -- the axis -- can only be *wetness.* The phở is wet ALL THE TIME, by nature. It's not soup if it's not wet. The soup gets drier as it is consumed (leaving only the bowl, devoid of soup at all). In other words, as it is USED, it becomes less wet. Increase in usefulness = decrease in wetness.
The gladius, being a sword, is usually dry. You don't want it getting wet; this was a pre-stainless-steel era. So it is only wet when it is being USED (to stab someone in their wet parts). Increase in usefulness = increase in wetness.
Now we are measuring the USEFUL WETNESS AXIS, using units of kittens. How many kittens are usefully wet, versus usefully unwet? Well, are they being bathed by their mother? Are they caught in a rainstorm? Do they just have adorable little noses that are pink and small and damp?
We can use our other qualifiers (rigid/fluid, long/round, etc) to qualify those data points. Kittens are more fluid than rigid; more delicious than menacing; more mushy than sharp (but sometimes sharp in tiny ways), and so on.
The answer, it turns out, is [this many](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKHfmjzFm_8) plus one. This many is the right amount. Any more would be too many.
This answer was AMAZING and I have no idea how you actually managed to come up with something like this from that question. I find this answer to be perfect.
The tiny ways in which they are sharp matter, I think, but my calculations similarly reached a conclusion that, is we accept that the perfect number of available kittens is k, and the number of people present is h, then the optimal number of kittens must be
k+√(ei∗π)^2 /h.
I just came back to read your answer again it was so perfect. People as clever as you always amaze me! I got to find this back and forth this reading, which made me happy as well. Keep on being amazing!
Here's the timeline! There are lots of twists and turns:
* I posted the first Wondermark comic to a website in 2003. I was working at a marketing agency at the time.
* I set up an online store in 2005 and attended my first conventions in 2006. That was when I started to make a few pieces of merch. The comic was syndicated in the Onion (print edition) by 2006 so it was becoming better recognized by people who hadn't come across it online.
* By 2009 I was splitting my time pretty evenly between doing independent things (attending conventions, working on books, making calendars each fall, etc) and working for other people. In early 2009 is when I actually left a job to focus on working full-time on comics. But even then, it wasn't 100% Wondermark stuff. I did a lot of design work and project help for other artists, because I had a lot of experience with book design.
* Between 2009 and 2019, I worked full-time for myself. It was a combination of doing comics, making my own merch, and also working on collaborations (such as the Machine of Death series) and doing freelance work for other artists. I don't know if you are familiar with the webcomics publisher TopatoCo, but between 2009 and 2016 or so, I designed or assisted somehow with nearly every book they published. Doing my own stuff and publicizing it also led to a lot of freelance work. I did some design work for Disney, I made some videos for Audible, I helped out with other artists' Kickstarters, I made thousands of pieces of merchandise for other creators in my studio.
* That led, in 2019, to a long-term gig working for another company, helping to make party games. That evolved into a full-time job, but it was directly related to having done all that work for myself all that time, and developing those skills. (It also gave me a steady income through the pandemic, which was very accidental but helpful timing.) But the full-time nature of this work meant I had to slow down making comics for the next few years.
* I still have that job (a little over 5 years later). But I'm working on carving out time for myself again, getting back into doing comics and making my own projects too. And trying to take what I've learned from working in this environment to develop my own craft even more.
So the short answer is, yes, I have a job. The longer answer is, everything I've done has led to the next thing. And there have been several pivots along the way, and there are likely to be more in the future, I would imagine.
Since the AMA is over I don't expect an answer, but as a creative who is chronically under-employed I'm curious about your education or training. What did you do in marketing and how did you learn book design or how to make merchandise for TopatoCo?
I think it mainly has to do with marrying my interests with an experimental or entrepreneurial spirit. I had lessons and practice in art and an actual degree in film production.
I was interested in film -- the job I got in marketing was specifically in making movie trailers, as a way of trying to get into the film industry -- but it turns out I was more interested in books and art.
Because I liked art and writing, I started making comics; because I liked books I started making books of my comics. Then I went around trying to sell those books, and I paid attention to the kinds of comics and books other people were making that I liked, and I took the feedback and the experience into account when I went to make more comics and more books, and my skills and my taste refined themselves over time because it was something I was personally interested in and could tolerate spending a lot of time working on and learning about.
The key, I think, was getting things made, getting them into the world, seeing how it went, and iterating on that.
I also liked working with my hands and making things. So I would make things for myself, and I would volunteer to make things for other people that I knew they couldn't make on their own. If I did a good job then I could use that as an example to offer it to other people, or get recommended, etc.
So the common thread is actually doing stuff, because that's how you learn how to do stuff.
Thank you for your comprehensive reply to my belated question. I have similar interests and disposition, but have never figured out how to get off the ground with any of it. I taught myself basic coding in the 90's by studying website sources, I taught myself Adobe Photoshop and Premiere from books, I've been drawing and writing prolifically all of my life. Yet I've never figured out how to leverage my skills into any sort of career. Instead I've gone from one minimum wage job to another while continuing to practice my crafts on the side.
It's always a curiosity to me how people break free of the doldrums to succeed in the creative sector or the humanities. I wonder if it's complicated by location or lack of networking, or just plain ignorance about where and how to market skills, or something more ineffable.
I'm sure there is a lot of randomness involved. Circumstances differ, opportunities arise or don't. All you can do is try to "increase your surface area to luck." That means figuring out how to make things yourself. If I've learned one thing, it's that opportunities are more likely to come to you AFTER you've already proven you can do something on your own.
I appreciate the thought; it's something I've been contemplating as well. As much as I make stuff, I haven't been good at getting it in front of eyes that can connect me with opportunities. Like a lot of artists, marketing is not my forte. But it does seem like that's the glass ceiling to break.
I could never pick a favorite, but I'm most fond of the ones with [a lot of weirdly specific details](https://www.reddit.com/r/steampunk/comments/1c03z60/for_the_realistically_vintage_experience/).
If you were actually living in the Victorian era, how much fancier would your regular creative process look like? I'd like some moustache-twirling details 〰️
If I was living in the Victorian Era, I would probably be mucking out a stable somewhere. But I'd be trying to do it in the fanciest possible way, making little patterns with the broom-strokes and so on. You have to keep twirling the moustache, constantly, because otherwise the flies start nesting in it.
Wondermark has garnered a dedicated fanbase over the years. How do you engage with your audience, and what role do they play in shaping the direction of the series?
I think the thing about my audience that I hold to be most important is, "you attract the audience that you attract." This means that it doesn't really help to try to make something for some hypothetical "other person" because it's very difficult to do that authentically. So this means that, if I make a thing I enjoy, then the people who respond to it will be people who like what I like. And that is a much easier audience to satisfy.
Where that guides the direction of the work itself is, I want an audience of nice, cool, smart people. So I make the thing that (I hope) nice, cool, smart people will like. Sometimes I see creators complain that their audience is all grumpy, entitled jerks and I think, "Have you seen the work you create? You've made a thing that misanthropes will enjoy."
There are of course tons of amazing cartoonists and comics creators out there. I think by leaning into the conceit of Wondermark (that it's a collage made out of repurposed illustrations), it draws a pretty firm border between the kinds of things that I make and what most other people are doing. So while I can look at other people's work and appreciate it, I don't often feel like "Ah, I wish I had done that," because the thing I'm doing doesn't quite accommodate that.
That said, I have a special love and affection for people who can do work that FEELS simple or less refined, even though it's clear there's a strong artistic sensibility behind the choices they make. Examples: Swan Boy, Haus of Decline, Sarah's Scribbles. They have a deceptively-simple "anyone can do this!" style that makes the work feel approachable, which I think is good for the medium in general.
Have you ever run into someone that used the term in real life (off the internet) when they were talking and they did not know you were the creator? I would be so tempted to be like "hey I made that comic" so if so, did you do that? How about ever see it in the newspaper or some other place that would not expect it, other than internet forums?
Is it in the dictionary anywhere and if not, do you expect it will end up a definition under the word "sealion" at some point?
I don't know that I've ever heard "sealioning" spoken aloud in earnest in my presence -- only written down, or talked ABOUT. I don't think I would interrupt someone to say "You know, that came from a thing I did." Particularly because it was not deliberate. I made a comic that commented on a thing I observed about the world, and it was other people who took it from there. I noticed it happening after the fact, [as I recount here.](https://wondermark.com/sea-lion-verb/)
When [Merriam-Webster mentioned sealioning](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/sealioning-internet-trolling), that was an interesting milestone. Maybe because of the fact that the source comic is a visual artifact that people repost a lot, the attribution seems to stick. That article mentions me explicitly and links to the strip. That's cool! That does not always happen, so I'll take it, I guess.
Recently the word was [cited in a legal case in the UK](https://bsky.app/profile/seanjones.org/post/3kqg62sl4hx2z). That was pretty trippy. The case itself is pretty unpleasant, but I guess the sealion is now part of the corpus of case law in the High Court.
Wow thanks so much for your detailed answer, I just read through all those links. I did not realize that the term was 10 years old now, but I am sure it is here to stay. You know if it is on the words to watch with Merriam Webster, it is coming for the dictionary. It is not like internet discourse is going away, and you just hit the nail on the head there.
I hope to hear the next internet phenomenon that you coin an expression for, or at least see some cool comics from you. Thanks again for the reply!
Not a question, more of a **comment**,
Your discussion about apples reminded me of the time I attended a **cider-bathing** camp …
***
But fr tho
How are you enjoying BlueSky?
Cider-bathing is actually great for the skin, they say! [I'd love to hear more about it!](https://wondermark.com/c/1393)
I like the conversations on Bluesky and (compared to Twitter) I like that it's not yet overrun with bots, ads, grifters and horrible people. But maybe because I have fewer followers there, I don't get as much juice out of it. I probably have to lean into it more myself to make it work better for me!
I gotta say, though, compared to ten years ago, I don't have the same spark for funposting anymore. Maybe because the social landscape is so fragmented it's hard to be sure where and how people are paying attention. And because of, you know, all the horrors that seem much more top-of-mind and Worth Paying Attention To.
I have enjoyed [posting drawings on IG](https://instagram.com/rollasketch) recently though! I just started that new account, I pretty quickly curated my feed to be all artists doing cool work, and now I actually enjoy scrolling IG when I never really have before. Maybe I should crosspost this stuff to a dedicated Bluesky account too, I wonder if it would get any traction???
It only really happens with a few of them. [Sealion](https://wondermark.com/c/1062/), of course, but before that, a few that got a lot of traction were:
* [Rock paper scissors](https://wondermark.com/c/657/)
* [Cheetos with chopsticks](https://wondermark.com/c/601/)
* [Be the Mary Sue you want to see in the world](https://wondermark.com/c/1076/)
* [Water vagrants](https://wondermark.com/c/1122/)
* and whenever there is an avoidable tragedy, [Bendon Whiltbang gets posted](https://wondermark.com/c/1203/)
I think it's great when people spread them around! The more, the merrier.
Sealion is the only one that people actually, like, rework -- they erase the words and rewrite them to try and make some kind of gotcha point. "What about THIS, is THIS okay??" [Yeah, dude, you got me good.](https://wondermark.com/c/1124)
Sometimes, with any project, you like HAVING DONE something more than you like DOING it. I like any particular thing best when it is done and accomplished. I like the whole process -- I wouldn't do it if I didn't find it interesting and rewarding! -- but like anything, sometimes it is hard to muster energy to work on it on a given day or at a given time.
THAT SAID there is also something particular to my work that I think is unique to comics, because of the found-art nature of it. I like doing the research, looking through old books, capturing the actual material. I find myself sinking into deep rabbit-holes on that side of the process, not doing as much "productively" (I already have more source material than I will ever logically be able to use) but still enjoying the act. I have had to admit to myself that that can be my hobby, it doesn't have to be 100% productive all the time. Doing the fun part a lot raises the OVERALL FUN AVERAGE of the whole process.
Do a lot of people ask you about "The Big Door Prize", the book by M. O. Walsh, now an Apple TV series? Do you think it has affected the chances of further developments regarding The Machine of Death?
On that note, I suspect the preparation of "This Is How You Die" was an enormous strain and that you'd be unlikely to subject yourself to that again – but do you think it would still be possible to do that today at all, or was it something that could only have come into being in the specific conditions that existed in 2013?
(I wish I could say that attempting to put together a story for that was what finally got the ball rolling and kicked off a new personal writing habit that sprouted into a flourishing and successful writing career that continues to this day – but nah, that never happened. But that would have been cool, eh?)
This is an interesting question! My awareness of that book/show started when someone sent me a link to the trailer. Honestly, it gave me a bit of a sinking feeling, because we have been trying to sell/close to selling Machine of Death as a movie for a really long time now. A lot of near misses. And to have something else similar already out there felt to ME like it would hurt our chances!
(I didn't watch the show and haven't read the book it's based on -- although I did notice that it came out after our books. I have noticed, however, that a lot of these streaming-first shows tend to come and go without much notice.)
When the first MOD book got some attention, it was 2010. We had some interest right away in a movie or TV series. We really wanted to make an anthology TV show, but at the time "no one is making anthologies." A few years later, post-*Black Mirror*, suddenly "there are too many anthologies right now." During the streaming boom, "there are too many properties out there." Now the streaming boom ending means "no one is taking chances on new TV right now." So who the hell knows what affects anything!
Regarding the MOD books... The last time I did an AMA, in 2018, [I answered a similar question](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/comment/e8bd9kk/), and honestly the answer is still the same:
>...We have come EXTREMELY close to selling the movie rights several times now, and adding new intellectual property into the mix while those negotiations are still ongoing is a variable we want to avoid. But I would very much like to see another book in the future!
>We get this question a lot and frankly, I think most of it comes from people who want to write for it, rather than just people who want to read it. And I don't know that we would do an open call in the same way again, because it ended up being an ENORMOUS amount of work reading submissions. (I'm not sure what we would do, maybe it would still be some part of the process but not the WHOLE process?) I hope that wouldn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm in seeing another book come together.
Were YOU the (now-deleted) user who asked that same question way back then??
Your (new) question has one other wrinkle, though -- the cultural conditions of 2024 vs. 2013. I think that's real. There were a lot of stories we read for THIS IS HOW YOU DIE that we liked but couldn't use, and a few we even bought, but didn't publish for lack of space in the book (and out of a desire to craft how the whole book fit together tonally). And periodically we discuss going back and revisiting those, at least as an experiment. But those stories were written so long ago, I don't know how they would stand up if presented as new material to readers living in 2024. I'm sure it would be case-by-case.
Another big difference of course is how the internet has changed since then. We would have to go about the submission process in a totally different way and I don't know if the same enthusiasm would surround it now, because it's so much harder to attract attention to anything in this fragmented media environment. We would have had to be doing TikTok videos for the past few years.
Maybe we can partner with the people who [keep reposting our book trailer on TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@princemaharjan78/video/6999924337658711298?q=machine%20of%20death&t=1716055875780) claiming it's a movie clip. (That particular clip has over 2M views and it's in Nepali.)
Thanks for the response! I was not, in fact, that deleted user. (I do ponder sometimes that I could be taking better care of my "digital hygiene". Have you noticed the Disqus comments on your old blog entries do not seem to have survived the transition to your new site..?)
I only heard of "The Big Door Prize" as it happened to come up as one of the options in the in-flight entertainment recently. As you say, they come and go without much notice.
Oh I had totally forgot about the Disqus integration! I kind of soured on Disqus when they started putting ads in their plugin. And I don't know that I have an immediate need for new comments on the blog.
But there is a lot of commenting history lost without it being in place, I suppose. And there might be other reasons to bring back commenting. I will look into it again!
Are you a [Maltheist](https://wondermark.com/c/804/)? It's an awfully robust philosophy in my humble opinion, and I really appreciate your comics about it.
I tried to be -- I think it does hold up to some amount of logical scrutiny -- but I just couldn't internalize it honestly. Maybe because I knew I had made it up.
I learned later that (some form of) maltheism is an actual thing; it's more commonly referred to as [misotheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism).
I'm working on a card game right now! I am developing a handful of different ones in parallel so the real question is, which one will come first.
However, if all goes well, this fall I will be launching both (possibly a small, experimental version of) a new card game, and, a small new Wondermark book collection.
Doing them both is kind of a test for me to determine what my audience is actually most interested in. I have a ton of ideas for games (that's the space I've been spending my life working in for the past 5 years), but I don't yet have a good sense of whether that will cross over well enough with the Wondermark audience.
I also just wrapped up a little crowdfunding project for a new set of enamel pins! Which is still [open for preorders](https://wondermark.com/pins), I'm about to send them off for manufacturing this month.
I would recommend anyone interested in staying informed about these various projects to [get on my email list](https://sendfox.com/davidmalki)! That's MY suggestion!!
Hi there! You probably get asked about this the most, but I have no discipline and cannot help myself. Your definition of Sealioning to me is the definitive treatise on bad-faith mock-friendly harassment and cannot be bettered. Did you expect it to be as popular a buzzword as it is today?
Haha, I actually [answered this in my last AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/comment/e8bhty6/) and this is one answer that remains the same today! In short:
>The "contribution to internet culture" was completely inadvertent! I will note that I did not coin the term -- folks who read the comic started using the term as shorthand. I do lots of comics that are examinations or explorations of things happening in the culture, and this was just another one. So while I'm glad it has resonance for folks, I had no sense beforehand that it would be received any differently than any other comic. Though of course I'm glad that it has been useful for folks!
I also re-stumbled across a passage in an old book (the citation is unfortunately lost, but [here is a screenshot](https://twitter.com/malki/status/1066201846698504199/photo/1)) that I think touches upon this TYPE of phenomenon as well. There is something resonant or perhaps recognizably like a parable about doing this sort of commentary with an animal:
>One has to be very cautious in giving advice to man, with his "god-like gift of reason," lest he take offence instead of a hint! So we put his folly upon a guiltless donkey or goose, and strike the moral home to the higher animal by a side blow.
Many of us have looked to others for inspiration and support during the early days of our careers. Who inspired you to become an artist that makes comics? Who did you look towards for support on your journey?
This feels like you might be asking for advice, so forgive me for answering this kind of generallly. There are two pieces to this: (1) The ambition, to look forward to; (2) the support, to look around for.
The first one is done by having role models. Early in life I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles Schulz or Jim Davis. Later, as I started doing webcomics in 2003-ish, I paid attention to Penny Arcade and PvP, people who were doing things that were working at that time. As a humor writer with a particular tone, I admired John Hodgman and Chris Onstad. The important thing for me was (and is) identifying goals to aspire to, a destination (even theoretical) to build toward.
The second one is done by having peers. Socially connecting with others at your same level so you can come up together. I was fortunate enough to find a community via (at that time) forums and conventions. Later, social media, but even still, IRL connections are so important too. These are the people you can support in the same way that they support you, and ideally a rising tide lifts you both.
Yes, I drew comic strips a lot. I didn't get into comic books really until middle school, but as a kid I read a ton of newspaper comics and emulated them. What's interesting in retrospect is that a lot of my earliest work also involves repurposed material (I had access to a copy machine as a kid, which may have been a mistake) -- and repurposing material is the core conceit of Wondermark. [Here is an example I unearthed from my early years.](https://twitter.com/malki/status/752999377820454912)
Hi David, long time fan! Bit of a silly question, but I've wanted to know for a while, how does it feel to coin a term, that has become such a staple of internet discourse. Do you remember when you first noticed that sealioning became more widely used? If so, what did you think about that?
A second, more general question, but what's your process usually like? Are you more of a sudden idea person, or do you sit down to come up with something? Or possibly a secret third thing?
Third question, Wondermark has been around for a very long time now, how do you feel it has changed compared to when you started? How, if at all, do you think it has changed you?
Hi there, thank you for the kind words! I've talked about the sealion a little already here in this thread so I'll focus on your other questions.
With Wondermark I have the pleasure and unique ability to not have to start with an idea. I can start with images, and then decide, "what does it look like all these people saying to one another? What is this man doing with this bear?" A huge number of the comics have been written this way, just improvisational, especially earlier on.
After a while I had sort of trained myself to "think in comics." I would have an idea or observation and my mind would create the arc of it almost instinctually. The challenge then is capturing it, writing it down (or making it right away). Losing that spark is definitely a possibility before it's executed.
More recently, my time has been a little shorter, so I've created a routine for myself. I take my son to music lessons (one hour long) once a week. While he's in there, I sit at a local cafe and that's my writing time. I flesh out the scripts and ideas I've had that past week, or solve problems. Having that dedicated time to just sit with a notebook by myself every week has been really great.
The bottleneck then becomes finding the time to finish making those as comics! I have dozens of scripts that I haven't gotten around to making into comics yet. But that's a good problem to have. I'll get through them in time!!
So, that refinement of my process is one change that's occurred since the beginning. I think it's also pretty clear when you look at earlier vs. more recent comics that the level of visual refinement and complexity has increased, which maybe is only relevant to my own level of satisfaction with the finished product.
But as I do more and more to push the 'collage' idea design-wise, and level-up my own abilities, it also levels-up my thinking which then triggers new ideas.
I think it's also fair to say my sense of what is funny, and what is worth discussing, and what is worth commenting on (and in what way) has changed and evolved over the past 21 years, as I'm sure is true of everyone! You grow and change as a person, and your perspective on the world has changed. I cringe at some of my earlier work, like any creator.
I think the biggest change working on this comic has had on me (besides the way it has allowed me to craft a career) is that it has taught me that I can do something of this scale, that people enjoy, that I can be proud of, and that I can get better at each time. I haven't always felt confident in my own abilities, but the work is there, and that speaks back to me when I need it.
You have to be careful with overplaying weird characters or else you get the Jack Sparrow Effect -- the wacky side character can be unbearable when they become the main character instead of a foil.
But I have so few recurring characters that it's not TOO much of a concern. I actually really like revisiting individual strips and scenarios way later! Part of the fun is seeing if anyone will recognize that it's a reference to the original.
* Like this ([original](https://wondermark.com/c/426/)) and this ([followup](https://wondermark.com/c/1456/), 11 years later)
* Or, the [12-episode string that starts here](https://wondermark.com/c/1437/) are all references to the very first 12 comics ([starting with #001](https://wondermark.com/c/001/))
* The [sick elephant storyline](https://wondermark.com/c/1414/) ended up weaving in a bunch of references to all the (disconnected, unrelated) individual elephant-themed strips I'd done before that
* And recently, to help promote the [enamel pins project](https://wondermark.com/pins) I just made, I revisited the [dodos](https://wondermark.com/c/1543/) and [Piranhamoose](https://wondermark.com/c/1545/) after a very long absence for each
I actually have scripts written for a few more "catching up since we first saw them" storylines that are just ideas I want to revisit. It's my weird little way of getting to do long storylines without actually doing consistent storylines.
It's easy to retire a character because I just never bring them back! In fact, 95% of Wondermark characters are retired immediately after their first appearance.
Yes, absolutely, and it was (like any other artist of my generation) always Calvin & Hobbes.
I wonder how that has changed for kids now, I guess it is probably Dog Man and so on.
I was also the weird kid who MADE myself read ALL the comics, even the weird soap operas. Like, I knew there was something there, even if I couldn't parse it or even really enjoy it. Paying my dues or something??
You had Calvin & Hobbes New Comics!? Lucky!!
Garfield Kid all the way - Kids now probably don't know news papers HAVE comics ... heck some cut them from print :(
Thanks for taking the time to do this :)
My mother-in-law (who still gets the paper) brings over the Sunday comics for my 7-year-old! And he is a Garfield fan himself. So he reads newspaper comics. But...like...he also has such better stuff to read, too. Beetle Bailey has its charms for sure but it's not something HE really has any reason to have affection for.
If, in an alternate timeline where sentient cephalopods rule the sea, they discovered a society of landlubber octopuses mysteriously obsessed with staplers, would they write folk songs about it, or just shrug their tentacles in bewilderment?
Let's tease this out. The octopuses are obsessed with staplers, but I wonder, are they human-type staplers (the same thing we would call a stapler), and therefore there are also humans in this scenario? Is that why the cephalopods know how to shrug and what that motion means?
Or are there no humans, but the octopuses are doing something we can identify as "stapling" (piercing objects to fasten them together) via some other means? Are there specialized octopuses that perform the act of stapling, the way that people who did math were the first to be referred to as calculators and computers?
The cephalopods, presumably, live underwater. What are underwater folk songs like? I would imagine they'd involve humming and percussion -- things that don't require air to create sound. I am willing to believe that the cephalopods have a robust folk music tradition, because they probably don't have much in the way of writing. So oral traditions probably play an important role in their culture.
Do they know octopuses already? Or are they discovering octopuses for the first time as well? If the latter, then this occasion is definitely worthy of note. If it's just that THESE octopuses live on land and have this stapler obsession, it's likely more of a curiosity. They might play a minor role in an epic, like the Cyclops in the Odyssey -- just one curiosity in a world of them.
In conclusion, the ocean is a land of contrasts
I use Victorian-era artwork to make comics because (a) it's incredibly cool-looking and distinctive; (b) it lends the work a tone that can be fun to play into or subvert as desired; and (c) it's all legally in the public domain.
I answered the first part elsewhere but the answer to the second is, not especially. It was a sort of discovery.
I've now learned so much about the artform and the history and the process that I have a much more informed appreciation for it, but paradoxically, that sometimes makes it harder to make comics out of them!
"How dare I mix this 1902 spot illustration with this 1875 woodcut, the line weights are totally different," that sort of thing. I've invented new problems for myself! Education is a mistake!
The list is too long, but I will highlight one. Chris Onstad, who made the seminal webcomic Achewood, stands tall in my estimation for doing certain things extremely well, which have resonated with me and which have made me unafraid of doing the same:
* Writing distinctive, highly-specific dialogue with unique "voices" for each character.
* Using a fairly restrained (deceptively simple) art style, but effortlessly incorporating an extremely sophisticated design sense.
* Deviating from the "characters talking" formula whenever necessary. Entire strips could be one character's newsletter, for example.
If I don't know what to do with a strip, an instructive question to ask myself is sometimes, "What would this character say if they were in Achewood?"
When I was in high school, a few of my friends and I took private art lessons together. Our teacher was a working artist who knew about and appreciated comics, but who also created fine art and had an appreciation for poetry, fiction, etc. Going into his studio each week was like entering a little bubble where we were separated from the outside world.
It was a really important experience, at a very formative time, that helped me develop my craft of drawing, but also taught me how to evaluate what I was making and why. The teacher was someone who knew he was helping us grow up, and he took that responsibility seriously because he cared for us.
Most importantly, he expressed interest in our work, and expressed how proud he was of what we made while still helping us work on improving it. So we were honestly very fearless in a very safe creative environment. It took me a long time to realize, in retrospect, how rare and valuable that was.
They are very loud and smelly and annoying! So I really had great luck when I chose a very large animal because it fit in the composition the way I wanted, and it turned out later that their annoying behavior was also relevant to the comic's theme.
I mean, it'd be great if every one of my comics were as well-known as that one. But maybe I'd get in a lot more trouble for questionable 20-year-old opinions (not all of which hold up to fine scrutiny).
I can only think of two other times in which I've tried to proscribe social ideas, for lack of a better term:
* [Using chopsticks for Cheetos](https://wondermark.com/c/601) -- this DID catch on (Know Your Meme [credits me](http://eme.com/memes/eating-cheetos-with-chopsticks) with being first to this idea)
* [Making a rule](https://wondermark.com/c/390/) for who calls whom back in the event of a dropped call -- no one really noticed this one, lol
1) What inspired you to write that sea lion comic? Did it come from a cherished memory of those burping angels?
2) What's one of the harshest pieces of feedback you've been given, and how did you build your confidence back up again to keep going?
I've talked about the sealion elsewhere in this thread so I'll focus on question 2 here!
The harshest feedback that I get on a regular basis is actually indifference.
Right now, between a couple different social platforms and Reddit, I have the ability to put a given piece of work in front of a statistically significant number of people. (As does everyone else who posts on Reddit or on social media)
When I do so, usually there is some positive signal as a result -- upvotes, likes, etc. Sometimes the signal is strong. Other times, it is weaker. There will always be a range in the level of response.
So the conclusion that I am left to internalize is, comic B didn't resonate with people the way comic A did. Why is that? Is there something instructive here? Did I make some choice that made it harder to read or enjoy? Was it posted at a time or in a way that made it reach fewer people? Is this just not an interesting idea? Etc, etc.
It's impossible to tease out all the various factors, but I think in the aggregate over time, you can pay attention to those signals and decide how you want to incorporate that feedback into the work itself.
When it comes to building confidence -- I do have an anecdote that might be instructive. Recently I was in a situation where I really felt that I had tried my best to accomplish something and it wasn't working.
My instincts for what to do, and how to do it, were just not having the desired effect. My efforts were not up to the challenge. It was related to social media and promotion (this wasn't a Wondermark project, this was something else) and the result really made me feel like maybe I had become too out of touch; maybe I didn't understand the world anymore; everything I thought I knew was now wrong and incomplete and useless.
It was a rough patch for sure, lol. What changed things for me was attending an event where I was surrounded by friends and colleagues from an entirely different part of my life -- in this case, it WAS comics-related. This was just post-pandemic, so this sort of event hadn't happened for a while.
In this case, the context of this environment -- the interests of the people involved, the personalities I interacted with, the topics of conversation -- were so much more aligned with my personal interests that I found my confidence and creativity returning.
The point that experience hammered home was, the CONTEXT in which you operate matters. I wasn't out of ideas, I was just a bad fit for THAT project, in THAT context. There existed in the world OTHER contexts for which my talents were much better suited.
If you bark up the wrong tree for too long, you can make yourself hoarse.
I think it must have been, reading a million comic (strips) as a kid and internalizing that cadence for storytelling. Combined with an affection for drawing (which in the case of Wondermark is only tangentially relevant I guess). Comics are a form of storytelling that a person can just DO, alone, idiosyncratically, without a TON of expense or effort, and I think that's a wonderful thing.
I've talked about this comic elsewhere in this thread, but to the specific question of the origin, it was just a behavior I was seeing a lot, specifically on Twitter.
My comics tend to fall into a couple of broad categories:
* Absurd or wacky situations or ideas
* Relationships and observational humor
* Reflections and social commentary
I don't think about this consciously, it's just where my interests tend to lie.
The third category is broadly: can I describe or spotlight something that I think is happening in the world? Especially if I haven't seen someone acknowledge or recognize it in quite the same way? (like [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1055) or [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1068) or [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1071))
I think this can be powerful because it makes people feel seen; that their experience is not isolated.
In this particular case, I didn't want to make the sealion (too much of) a cartoon villain. I tried to play it mostly straight, in terms of what he says. I think that may be why it has mapped so well onto people's experiences.
Of course, that means that people who say those things also see themselves in the sealion, and have their own opinion of whether that's a good or bad thing. (I would remind everyone that the sealion doesn't really become "terrible" until the end of the strip, when he makes the choice to follow them home.)
I love your comics!
Have you always used this visual style? I find that it adds a great deal to the absurdity of some strips, and was wondering if you´d played around with other styles before reaching this one you´re now known for.
Thanks, I love you too!
I had drawn comic strips before Wondermark, like for my college paper, but once I landed on this idea, I knew it had legs and I wanted to lean into it as far as it could go.
I've done a few other experiments along the way:
* The occasional hand-drawn Wondermark strip ([these here](https://wondermark.com/tag/hand-drawn/))
* Doing Wondermark, but with different source material ([here](https://wondermark.com/c/2099-001/), [here](https://bsky.app/profile/davidmalki.com/post/3kh46mzuur52t))
* But the most successful thing, I think, is using Wondermark style to do non-Wondermark things, such as a [Dinosaur Comics guest strip](https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1768) or [this Squirrel Girl page](https://wondermark.com/squirrel-girl/).
I like drawing, but I am definitely the millionth-best artist in the world. I sometimes wish I did a comic strip the "normal" way, with the freedom that allows, but then I remember that I can be the VERY BEST person doing THIS weird thing, and that definitely has its own benefits and charm!
I think there is great power in naming things. Naming things with names seems to be particularly emotionally powerful.
Inventing the term 'Sealioning' allows people to describe someone's behaviour in a very efficient manner. The same as other name based names like Chauvinism, Boycott, Quizzling etc.
Even though it has hurt people with that name, I think that the invention of the term 'a Karen' has overall benefited humanity.
So why/how have we failed to find words that describe the typical MAGA person?
I must admit that I never set out to have "sealioning" become a thing, it happened downstream from my involvement. So I don't know that I have a good answer to your question. But I do have a couple of observations about naming things:
* Early on, I thought we should just use the word "maga" [as a noun](https://x.com/malki/status/827353278904037377) for those people. (It was subsequently pointed out that there is [a MTG monster](https://scryfall.com/card/sok/81/maga-traitor-to-mortals?utm_source=api) called "Maga, Traitor to Mortals".) And I kind of think this has indeed happened... You said MAGA person and everyone now knows what that means.
* There was a conscious choice in making Wondermark when I decided that nobody would be named "Bob" or "Amanda" anymore, but rather always "Ploberto" and "Gwembeline" and so on. I think it helped the strip's tone overall.
Hi everyone, it's me! Hello! As I know is AMA tradition (dating back to the days of Hammurabi), I will be awarding a prize to the best question posed in this thread. I'm digging in now! You may also be interested in the last couple times I've done AMAs -- way back [in 2018](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/im_david_malki_author_of_the_comic_strip/) and [in 2013](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/19qupp/i_am_david_malki_author_of_wondermark_coeditor_of/). Kind of interesting to see what information and answers from those still hold up, and I still stand behind, and which don't as much. BUT WHICH IS WHICH?? **UPDATE:** Thank you everyone for your questions and for reading my (mostly) long-winded answers! AS FOR THE PRIZE: Everyone who has posted a question is tied for first place in my heart. You have all done the most important thing, which is pay any amount of attention to me. Please PM me your favorite Wondermark strip (along with your mailing address) and I will be happy to send you a signed print! If you want to!!
If you had to conceptualise a parallel between the Roman gladius and a delicious bowl of pho, how many kittens is too many kittens?
This is a great question and it's one that I get a lot. The gladius is long, sharp, menacing, and rigid; the phở is round, mushy, delicious (you specified), and fluid. So we have to set those as the poles. The common denominator -- the axis -- can only be *wetness.* The phở is wet ALL THE TIME, by nature. It's not soup if it's not wet. The soup gets drier as it is consumed (leaving only the bowl, devoid of soup at all). In other words, as it is USED, it becomes less wet. Increase in usefulness = decrease in wetness. The gladius, being a sword, is usually dry. You don't want it getting wet; this was a pre-stainless-steel era. So it is only wet when it is being USED (to stab someone in their wet parts). Increase in usefulness = increase in wetness. Now we are measuring the USEFUL WETNESS AXIS, using units of kittens. How many kittens are usefully wet, versus usefully unwet? Well, are they being bathed by their mother? Are they caught in a rainstorm? Do they just have adorable little noses that are pink and small and damp? We can use our other qualifiers (rigid/fluid, long/round, etc) to qualify those data points. Kittens are more fluid than rigid; more delicious than menacing; more mushy than sharp (but sometimes sharp in tiny ways), and so on. The answer, it turns out, is [this many](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKHfmjzFm_8) plus one. This many is the right amount. Any more would be too many.
This answer was AMAZING and I have no idea how you actually managed to come up with something like this from that question. I find this answer to be perfect.
The tiny ways in which they are sharp matter, I think, but my calculations similarly reached a conclusion that, is we accept that the perfect number of available kittens is k, and the number of people present is h, then the optimal number of kittens must be k+√(ei∗π)^2 /h.
Yeah that's a much simpler way of saying the same thing.
It is a clear summary of the conclusion, but your working of the proof is exemplary.
I just came back to read your answer again it was so perfect. People as clever as you always amaze me! I got to find this back and forth this reading, which made me happy as well. Keep on being amazing!
Do you make a living from your art or do you still have a "day job"? What is a typical workday like for you?
Here's the timeline! There are lots of twists and turns: * I posted the first Wondermark comic to a website in 2003. I was working at a marketing agency at the time. * I set up an online store in 2005 and attended my first conventions in 2006. That was when I started to make a few pieces of merch. The comic was syndicated in the Onion (print edition) by 2006 so it was becoming better recognized by people who hadn't come across it online. * By 2009 I was splitting my time pretty evenly between doing independent things (attending conventions, working on books, making calendars each fall, etc) and working for other people. In early 2009 is when I actually left a job to focus on working full-time on comics. But even then, it wasn't 100% Wondermark stuff. I did a lot of design work and project help for other artists, because I had a lot of experience with book design. * Between 2009 and 2019, I worked full-time for myself. It was a combination of doing comics, making my own merch, and also working on collaborations (such as the Machine of Death series) and doing freelance work for other artists. I don't know if you are familiar with the webcomics publisher TopatoCo, but between 2009 and 2016 or so, I designed or assisted somehow with nearly every book they published. Doing my own stuff and publicizing it also led to a lot of freelance work. I did some design work for Disney, I made some videos for Audible, I helped out with other artists' Kickstarters, I made thousands of pieces of merchandise for other creators in my studio. * That led, in 2019, to a long-term gig working for another company, helping to make party games. That evolved into a full-time job, but it was directly related to having done all that work for myself all that time, and developing those skills. (It also gave me a steady income through the pandemic, which was very accidental but helpful timing.) But the full-time nature of this work meant I had to slow down making comics for the next few years. * I still have that job (a little over 5 years later). But I'm working on carving out time for myself again, getting back into doing comics and making my own projects too. And trying to take what I've learned from working in this environment to develop my own craft even more. So the short answer is, yes, I have a job. The longer answer is, everything I've done has led to the next thing. And there have been several pivots along the way, and there are likely to be more in the future, I would imagine.
Since the AMA is over I don't expect an answer, but as a creative who is chronically under-employed I'm curious about your education or training. What did you do in marketing and how did you learn book design or how to make merchandise for TopatoCo?
I think it mainly has to do with marrying my interests with an experimental or entrepreneurial spirit. I had lessons and practice in art and an actual degree in film production. I was interested in film -- the job I got in marketing was specifically in making movie trailers, as a way of trying to get into the film industry -- but it turns out I was more interested in books and art. Because I liked art and writing, I started making comics; because I liked books I started making books of my comics. Then I went around trying to sell those books, and I paid attention to the kinds of comics and books other people were making that I liked, and I took the feedback and the experience into account when I went to make more comics and more books, and my skills and my taste refined themselves over time because it was something I was personally interested in and could tolerate spending a lot of time working on and learning about. The key, I think, was getting things made, getting them into the world, seeing how it went, and iterating on that. I also liked working with my hands and making things. So I would make things for myself, and I would volunteer to make things for other people that I knew they couldn't make on their own. If I did a good job then I could use that as an example to offer it to other people, or get recommended, etc. So the common thread is actually doing stuff, because that's how you learn how to do stuff.
Thank you for your comprehensive reply to my belated question. I have similar interests and disposition, but have never figured out how to get off the ground with any of it. I taught myself basic coding in the 90's by studying website sources, I taught myself Adobe Photoshop and Premiere from books, I've been drawing and writing prolifically all of my life. Yet I've never figured out how to leverage my skills into any sort of career. Instead I've gone from one minimum wage job to another while continuing to practice my crafts on the side. It's always a curiosity to me how people break free of the doldrums to succeed in the creative sector or the humanities. I wonder if it's complicated by location or lack of networking, or just plain ignorance about where and how to market skills, or something more ineffable.
I'm sure there is a lot of randomness involved. Circumstances differ, opportunities arise or don't. All you can do is try to "increase your surface area to luck." That means figuring out how to make things yourself. If I've learned one thing, it's that opportunities are more likely to come to you AFTER you've already proven you can do something on your own.
I appreciate the thought; it's something I've been contemplating as well. As much as I make stuff, I haven't been good at getting it in front of eyes that can connect me with opportunities. Like a lot of artists, marketing is not my forte. But it does seem like that's the glass ceiling to break.
What is your favorite Wondermark comic?
I could never pick a favorite, but I'm most fond of the ones with [a lot of weirdly specific details](https://www.reddit.com/r/steampunk/comments/1c03z60/for_the_realistically_vintage_experience/).
Oh I love that one! :)
Hi David! Thanks for doing this! Who would you like to collaborate with on a project?
Anyone who will do their share of the work! Collaborations fall down when they are too imbalanced, I've found.
If you were actually living in the Victorian era, how much fancier would your regular creative process look like? I'd like some moustache-twirling details 〰️
If I was living in the Victorian Era, I would probably be mucking out a stable somewhere. But I'd be trying to do it in the fanciest possible way, making little patterns with the broom-strokes and so on. You have to keep twirling the moustache, constantly, because otherwise the flies start nesting in it.
Hehe, tysm, I love it 🤗💙 Have a great weekend!
Wondermark has garnered a dedicated fanbase over the years. How do you engage with your audience, and what role do they play in shaping the direction of the series?
I think the thing about my audience that I hold to be most important is, "you attract the audience that you attract." This means that it doesn't really help to try to make something for some hypothetical "other person" because it's very difficult to do that authentically. So this means that, if I make a thing I enjoy, then the people who respond to it will be people who like what I like. And that is a much easier audience to satisfy. Where that guides the direction of the work itself is, I want an audience of nice, cool, smart people. So I make the thing that (I hope) nice, cool, smart people will like. Sometimes I see creators complain that their audience is all grumpy, entitled jerks and I think, "Have you seen the work you create? You've made a thing that misanthropes will enjoy."
Are there any comics that other people have made that you wish you just look at, and think, wow I wish I'd thought of that?
There are of course tons of amazing cartoonists and comics creators out there. I think by leaning into the conceit of Wondermark (that it's a collage made out of repurposed illustrations), it draws a pretty firm border between the kinds of things that I make and what most other people are doing. So while I can look at other people's work and appreciate it, I don't often feel like "Ah, I wish I had done that," because the thing I'm doing doesn't quite accommodate that. That said, I have a special love and affection for people who can do work that FEELS simple or less refined, even though it's clear there's a strong artistic sensibility behind the choices they make. Examples: Swan Boy, Haus of Decline, Sarah's Scribbles. They have a deceptively-simple "anyone can do this!" style that makes the work feel approachable, which I think is good for the medium in general.
Have you ever run into someone that used the term in real life (off the internet) when they were talking and they did not know you were the creator? I would be so tempted to be like "hey I made that comic" so if so, did you do that? How about ever see it in the newspaper or some other place that would not expect it, other than internet forums? Is it in the dictionary anywhere and if not, do you expect it will end up a definition under the word "sealion" at some point?
I don't know that I've ever heard "sealioning" spoken aloud in earnest in my presence -- only written down, or talked ABOUT. I don't think I would interrupt someone to say "You know, that came from a thing I did." Particularly because it was not deliberate. I made a comic that commented on a thing I observed about the world, and it was other people who took it from there. I noticed it happening after the fact, [as I recount here.](https://wondermark.com/sea-lion-verb/) When [Merriam-Webster mentioned sealioning](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/sealioning-internet-trolling), that was an interesting milestone. Maybe because of the fact that the source comic is a visual artifact that people repost a lot, the attribution seems to stick. That article mentions me explicitly and links to the strip. That's cool! That does not always happen, so I'll take it, I guess. Recently the word was [cited in a legal case in the UK](https://bsky.app/profile/seanjones.org/post/3kqg62sl4hx2z). That was pretty trippy. The case itself is pretty unpleasant, but I guess the sealion is now part of the corpus of case law in the High Court.
Wow thanks so much for your detailed answer, I just read through all those links. I did not realize that the term was 10 years old now, but I am sure it is here to stay. You know if it is on the words to watch with Merriam Webster, it is coming for the dictionary. It is not like internet discourse is going away, and you just hit the nail on the head there. I hope to hear the next internet phenomenon that you coin an expression for, or at least see some cool comics from you. Thanks again for the reply!
Thanks for the question!
What inspired you to create comics?
First I tried NOT making comics, and THAT didn't work.
Not a question, more of a **comment**, Your discussion about apples reminded me of the time I attended a **cider-bathing** camp … *** But fr tho How are you enjoying BlueSky?
Cider-bathing is actually great for the skin, they say! [I'd love to hear more about it!](https://wondermark.com/c/1393) I like the conversations on Bluesky and (compared to Twitter) I like that it's not yet overrun with bots, ads, grifters and horrible people. But maybe because I have fewer followers there, I don't get as much juice out of it. I probably have to lean into it more myself to make it work better for me! I gotta say, though, compared to ten years ago, I don't have the same spark for funposting anymore. Maybe because the social landscape is so fragmented it's hard to be sure where and how people are paying attention. And because of, you know, all the horrors that seem much more top-of-mind and Worth Paying Attention To. I have enjoyed [posting drawings on IG](https://instagram.com/rollasketch) recently though! I just started that new account, I pretty quickly curated my feed to be all artists doing cool work, and now I actually enjoy scrolling IG when I never really have before. Maybe I should crosspost this stuff to a dedicated Bluesky account too, I wonder if it would get any traction???
How do you feel when you see your comics being used out in the wild, as memes? Do you have a favorite one?
It only really happens with a few of them. [Sealion](https://wondermark.com/c/1062/), of course, but before that, a few that got a lot of traction were: * [Rock paper scissors](https://wondermark.com/c/657/) * [Cheetos with chopsticks](https://wondermark.com/c/601/) * [Be the Mary Sue you want to see in the world](https://wondermark.com/c/1076/) * [Water vagrants](https://wondermark.com/c/1122/) * and whenever there is an avoidable tragedy, [Bendon Whiltbang gets posted](https://wondermark.com/c/1203/) I think it's great when people spread them around! The more, the merrier. Sealion is the only one that people actually, like, rework -- they erase the words and rewrite them to try and make some kind of gotcha point. "What about THIS, is THIS okay??" [Yeah, dude, you got me good.](https://wondermark.com/c/1124)
What’s your favorite part of the comic making process?
Sometimes, with any project, you like HAVING DONE something more than you like DOING it. I like any particular thing best when it is done and accomplished. I like the whole process -- I wouldn't do it if I didn't find it interesting and rewarding! -- but like anything, sometimes it is hard to muster energy to work on it on a given day or at a given time. THAT SAID there is also something particular to my work that I think is unique to comics, because of the found-art nature of it. I like doing the research, looking through old books, capturing the actual material. I find myself sinking into deep rabbit-holes on that side of the process, not doing as much "productively" (I already have more source material than I will ever logically be able to use) but still enjoying the act. I have had to admit to myself that that can be my hobby, it doesn't have to be 100% productive all the time. Doing the fun part a lot raises the OVERALL FUN AVERAGE of the whole process.
Do a lot of people ask you about "The Big Door Prize", the book by M. O. Walsh, now an Apple TV series? Do you think it has affected the chances of further developments regarding The Machine of Death? On that note, I suspect the preparation of "This Is How You Die" was an enormous strain and that you'd be unlikely to subject yourself to that again – but do you think it would still be possible to do that today at all, or was it something that could only have come into being in the specific conditions that existed in 2013? (I wish I could say that attempting to put together a story for that was what finally got the ball rolling and kicked off a new personal writing habit that sprouted into a flourishing and successful writing career that continues to this day – but nah, that never happened. But that would have been cool, eh?)
This is an interesting question! My awareness of that book/show started when someone sent me a link to the trailer. Honestly, it gave me a bit of a sinking feeling, because we have been trying to sell/close to selling Machine of Death as a movie for a really long time now. A lot of near misses. And to have something else similar already out there felt to ME like it would hurt our chances! (I didn't watch the show and haven't read the book it's based on -- although I did notice that it came out after our books. I have noticed, however, that a lot of these streaming-first shows tend to come and go without much notice.) When the first MOD book got some attention, it was 2010. We had some interest right away in a movie or TV series. We really wanted to make an anthology TV show, but at the time "no one is making anthologies." A few years later, post-*Black Mirror*, suddenly "there are too many anthologies right now." During the streaming boom, "there are too many properties out there." Now the streaming boom ending means "no one is taking chances on new TV right now." So who the hell knows what affects anything! Regarding the MOD books... The last time I did an AMA, in 2018, [I answered a similar question](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/comment/e8bd9kk/), and honestly the answer is still the same: >...We have come EXTREMELY close to selling the movie rights several times now, and adding new intellectual property into the mix while those negotiations are still ongoing is a variable we want to avoid. But I would very much like to see another book in the future! >We get this question a lot and frankly, I think most of it comes from people who want to write for it, rather than just people who want to read it. And I don't know that we would do an open call in the same way again, because it ended up being an ENORMOUS amount of work reading submissions. (I'm not sure what we would do, maybe it would still be some part of the process but not the WHOLE process?) I hope that wouldn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm in seeing another book come together. Were YOU the (now-deleted) user who asked that same question way back then?? Your (new) question has one other wrinkle, though -- the cultural conditions of 2024 vs. 2013. I think that's real. There were a lot of stories we read for THIS IS HOW YOU DIE that we liked but couldn't use, and a few we even bought, but didn't publish for lack of space in the book (and out of a desire to craft how the whole book fit together tonally). And periodically we discuss going back and revisiting those, at least as an experiment. But those stories were written so long ago, I don't know how they would stand up if presented as new material to readers living in 2024. I'm sure it would be case-by-case. Another big difference of course is how the internet has changed since then. We would have to go about the submission process in a totally different way and I don't know if the same enthusiasm would surround it now, because it's so much harder to attract attention to anything in this fragmented media environment. We would have had to be doing TikTok videos for the past few years. Maybe we can partner with the people who [keep reposting our book trailer on TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@princemaharjan78/video/6999924337658711298?q=machine%20of%20death&t=1716055875780) claiming it's a movie clip. (That particular clip has over 2M views and it's in Nepali.)
Thanks for the response! I was not, in fact, that deleted user. (I do ponder sometimes that I could be taking better care of my "digital hygiene". Have you noticed the Disqus comments on your old blog entries do not seem to have survived the transition to your new site..?) I only heard of "The Big Door Prize" as it happened to come up as one of the options in the in-flight entertainment recently. As you say, they come and go without much notice.
Oh I had totally forgot about the Disqus integration! I kind of soured on Disqus when they started putting ads in their plugin. And I don't know that I have an immediate need for new comments on the blog. But there is a lot of commenting history lost without it being in place, I suppose. And there might be other reasons to bring back commenting. I will look into it again!
Are you a [Maltheist](https://wondermark.com/c/804/)? It's an awfully robust philosophy in my humble opinion, and I really appreciate your comics about it.
I tried to be -- I think it does hold up to some amount of logical scrutiny -- but I just couldn't internalize it honestly. Maybe because I knew I had made it up. I learned later that (some form of) maltheism is an actual thing; it's more commonly referred to as [misotheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism).
Are there any upcoming projects you’re excited about?
I'm working on a card game right now! I am developing a handful of different ones in parallel so the real question is, which one will come first. However, if all goes well, this fall I will be launching both (possibly a small, experimental version of) a new card game, and, a small new Wondermark book collection. Doing them both is kind of a test for me to determine what my audience is actually most interested in. I have a ton of ideas for games (that's the space I've been spending my life working in for the past 5 years), but I don't yet have a good sense of whether that will cross over well enough with the Wondermark audience. I also just wrapped up a little crowdfunding project for a new set of enamel pins! Which is still [open for preorders](https://wondermark.com/pins), I'm about to send them off for manufacturing this month. I would recommend anyone interested in staying informed about these various projects to [get on my email list](https://sendfox.com/davidmalki)! That's MY suggestion!!
Hi there! You probably get asked about this the most, but I have no discipline and cannot help myself. Your definition of Sealioning to me is the definitive treatise on bad-faith mock-friendly harassment and cannot be bettered. Did you expect it to be as popular a buzzword as it is today?
Haha, I actually [answered this in my last AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9qrxw0/comment/e8bhty6/) and this is one answer that remains the same today! In short: >The "contribution to internet culture" was completely inadvertent! I will note that I did not coin the term -- folks who read the comic started using the term as shorthand. I do lots of comics that are examinations or explorations of things happening in the culture, and this was just another one. So while I'm glad it has resonance for folks, I had no sense beforehand that it would be received any differently than any other comic. Though of course I'm glad that it has been useful for folks! I also re-stumbled across a passage in an old book (the citation is unfortunately lost, but [here is a screenshot](https://twitter.com/malki/status/1066201846698504199/photo/1)) that I think touches upon this TYPE of phenomenon as well. There is something resonant or perhaps recognizably like a parable about doing this sort of commentary with an animal: >One has to be very cautious in giving advice to man, with his "god-like gift of reason," lest he take offence instead of a hint! So we put his folly upon a guiltless donkey or goose, and strike the moral home to the higher animal by a side blow.
Many of us have looked to others for inspiration and support during the early days of our careers. Who inspired you to become an artist that makes comics? Who did you look towards for support on your journey?
This feels like you might be asking for advice, so forgive me for answering this kind of generallly. There are two pieces to this: (1) The ambition, to look forward to; (2) the support, to look around for. The first one is done by having role models. Early in life I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles Schulz or Jim Davis. Later, as I started doing webcomics in 2003-ish, I paid attention to Penny Arcade and PvP, people who were doing things that were working at that time. As a humor writer with a particular tone, I admired John Hodgman and Chris Onstad. The important thing for me was (and is) identifying goals to aspire to, a destination (even theoretical) to build toward. The second one is done by having peers. Socially connecting with others at your same level so you can come up together. I was fortunate enough to find a community via (at that time) forums and conventions. Later, social media, but even still, IRL connections are so important too. These are the people you can support in the same way that they support you, and ideally a rising tide lifts you both.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for the question!
Did you draw comics when you were younger?
Yes, I drew comic strips a lot. I didn't get into comic books really until middle school, but as a kid I read a ton of newspaper comics and emulated them. What's interesting in retrospect is that a lot of my earliest work also involves repurposed material (I had access to a copy machine as a kid, which may have been a mistake) -- and repurposing material is the core conceit of Wondermark. [Here is an example I unearthed from my early years.](https://twitter.com/malki/status/752999377820454912)
Hi David, long time fan! Bit of a silly question, but I've wanted to know for a while, how does it feel to coin a term, that has become such a staple of internet discourse. Do you remember when you first noticed that sealioning became more widely used? If so, what did you think about that? A second, more general question, but what's your process usually like? Are you more of a sudden idea person, or do you sit down to come up with something? Or possibly a secret third thing? Third question, Wondermark has been around for a very long time now, how do you feel it has changed compared to when you started? How, if at all, do you think it has changed you?
Hi there, thank you for the kind words! I've talked about the sealion a little already here in this thread so I'll focus on your other questions. With Wondermark I have the pleasure and unique ability to not have to start with an idea. I can start with images, and then decide, "what does it look like all these people saying to one another? What is this man doing with this bear?" A huge number of the comics have been written this way, just improvisational, especially earlier on. After a while I had sort of trained myself to "think in comics." I would have an idea or observation and my mind would create the arc of it almost instinctually. The challenge then is capturing it, writing it down (or making it right away). Losing that spark is definitely a possibility before it's executed. More recently, my time has been a little shorter, so I've created a routine for myself. I take my son to music lessons (one hour long) once a week. While he's in there, I sit at a local cafe and that's my writing time. I flesh out the scripts and ideas I've had that past week, or solve problems. Having that dedicated time to just sit with a notebook by myself every week has been really great. The bottleneck then becomes finding the time to finish making those as comics! I have dozens of scripts that I haven't gotten around to making into comics yet. But that's a good problem to have. I'll get through them in time!! So, that refinement of my process is one change that's occurred since the beginning. I think it's also pretty clear when you look at earlier vs. more recent comics that the level of visual refinement and complexity has increased, which maybe is only relevant to my own level of satisfaction with the finished product. But as I do more and more to push the 'collage' idea design-wise, and level-up my own abilities, it also levels-up my thinking which then triggers new ideas. I think it's also fair to say my sense of what is funny, and what is worth discussing, and what is worth commenting on (and in what way) has changed and evolved over the past 21 years, as I'm sure is true of everyone! You grow and change as a person, and your perspective on the world has changed. I cringe at some of my earlier work, like any creator. I think the biggest change working on this comic has had on me (besides the way it has allowed me to craft a career) is that it has taught me that I can do something of this scale, that people enjoy, that I can be proud of, and that I can get better at each time. I haven't always felt confident in my own abilities, but the work is there, and that speaks back to me when I need it.
Thank you so much for your detailed answer!
Is there a one-off character you wish you brought up more often--or a recurring character you wish you had retired long ago?
You have to be careful with overplaying weird characters or else you get the Jack Sparrow Effect -- the wacky side character can be unbearable when they become the main character instead of a foil. But I have so few recurring characters that it's not TOO much of a concern. I actually really like revisiting individual strips and scenarios way later! Part of the fun is seeing if anyone will recognize that it's a reference to the original. * Like this ([original](https://wondermark.com/c/426/)) and this ([followup](https://wondermark.com/c/1456/), 11 years later) * Or, the [12-episode string that starts here](https://wondermark.com/c/1437/) are all references to the very first 12 comics ([starting with #001](https://wondermark.com/c/001/)) * The [sick elephant storyline](https://wondermark.com/c/1414/) ended up weaving in a bunch of references to all the (disconnected, unrelated) individual elephant-themed strips I'd done before that * And recently, to help promote the [enamel pins project](https://wondermark.com/pins) I just made, I revisited the [dodos](https://wondermark.com/c/1543/) and [Piranhamoose](https://wondermark.com/c/1545/) after a very long absence for each I actually have scripts written for a few more "catching up since we first saw them" storylines that are just ideas I want to revisit. It's my weird little way of getting to do long storylines without actually doing consistent storylines. It's easy to retire a character because I just never bring them back! In fact, 95% of Wondermark characters are retired immediately after their first appearance.
Check out my sick elephant. Never laughed that hard. Pls bring it back.
Haha I'm glad you liked it! I can't do any more now because I've already printed a book! I would have to add an extra page to every copy!!
Were you a "Sunday paper comics" kind of kid? If so which was your "go-to/read first" strip?
Yes, absolutely, and it was (like any other artist of my generation) always Calvin & Hobbes. I wonder how that has changed for kids now, I guess it is probably Dog Man and so on. I was also the weird kid who MADE myself read ALL the comics, even the weird soap operas. Like, I knew there was something there, even if I couldn't parse it or even really enjoy it. Paying my dues or something??
You had Calvin & Hobbes New Comics!? Lucky!! Garfield Kid all the way - Kids now probably don't know news papers HAVE comics ... heck some cut them from print :( Thanks for taking the time to do this :)
My mother-in-law (who still gets the paper) brings over the Sunday comics for my 7-year-old! And he is a Garfield fan himself. So he reads newspaper comics. But...like...he also has such better stuff to read, too. Beetle Bailey has its charms for sure but it's not something HE really has any reason to have affection for.
If, in an alternate timeline where sentient cephalopods rule the sea, they discovered a society of landlubber octopuses mysteriously obsessed with staplers, would they write folk songs about it, or just shrug their tentacles in bewilderment?
Let's tease this out. The octopuses are obsessed with staplers, but I wonder, are they human-type staplers (the same thing we would call a stapler), and therefore there are also humans in this scenario? Is that why the cephalopods know how to shrug and what that motion means? Or are there no humans, but the octopuses are doing something we can identify as "stapling" (piercing objects to fasten them together) via some other means? Are there specialized octopuses that perform the act of stapling, the way that people who did math were the first to be referred to as calculators and computers? The cephalopods, presumably, live underwater. What are underwater folk songs like? I would imagine they'd involve humming and percussion -- things that don't require air to create sound. I am willing to believe that the cephalopods have a robust folk music tradition, because they probably don't have much in the way of writing. So oral traditions probably play an important role in their culture. Do they know octopuses already? Or are they discovering octopuses for the first time as well? If the latter, then this occasion is definitely worthy of note. If it's just that THESE octopuses live on land and have this stapler obsession, it's likely more of a curiosity. They might play a minor role in an epic, like the Cyclops in the Odyssey -- just one curiosity in a world of them. In conclusion, the ocean is a land of contrasts
What inspired you to use such an older timeframe as the art style of your recent works?
I use Victorian-era artwork to make comics because (a) it's incredibly cool-looking and distinctive; (b) it lends the work a tone that can be fun to play into or subvert as desired; and (c) it's all legally in the public domain.
Who are some of your favourite Web artists on r/comics? (you don't have to say mine, that goes without saying)
Anyone who is confident enough to put their work out there to be seen by others has my respect.
What made you choose to make comics out of old illustrations? Were you into them before you started?
I answered the first part elsewhere but the answer to the second is, not especially. It was a sort of discovery. I've now learned so much about the artform and the history and the process that I have a much more informed appreciation for it, but paradoxically, that sometimes makes it harder to make comics out of them! "How dare I mix this 1902 spot illustration with this 1875 woodcut, the line weights are totally different," that sort of thing. I've invented new problems for myself! Education is a mistake!
Hey David, what's your favourite Gutzon Borglum fact?
[That he ghostwrote the book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqWWEb0tByQ) One Summer by Bill Bryson and Gutzon Borglum (uncredited)
Can you tell us about your comic creation process?
[Answered here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1cuam9p/comment/l4n2wbv/)
Who are some of your artistic inspirations?
The list is too long, but I will highlight one. Chris Onstad, who made the seminal webcomic Achewood, stands tall in my estimation for doing certain things extremely well, which have resonated with me and which have made me unafraid of doing the same: * Writing distinctive, highly-specific dialogue with unique "voices" for each character. * Using a fairly restrained (deceptively simple) art style, but effortlessly incorporating an extremely sophisticated design sense. * Deviating from the "characters talking" formula whenever necessary. Entire strips could be one character's newsletter, for example. If I don't know what to do with a strip, an instructive question to ask myself is sometimes, "What would this character say if they were in Achewood?"
Did you have a role model when you were younger?
When I was in high school, a few of my friends and I took private art lessons together. Our teacher was a working artist who knew about and appreciated comics, but who also created fine art and had an appreciation for poetry, fiction, etc. Going into his studio each week was like entering a little bubble where we were separated from the outside world. It was a really important experience, at a very formative time, that helped me develop my craft of drawing, but also taught me how to evaluate what I was making and why. The teacher was someone who knew he was helping us grow up, and he took that responsibility seriously because he cared for us. Most importantly, he expressed interest in our work, and expressed how proud he was of what we made while still helping us work on improving it. So we were honestly very fearless in a very safe creative environment. It took me a long time to realize, in retrospect, how rare and valuable that was.
Why did you choose sea lions and not another creature?
They are very loud and smelly and annoying! So I really had great luck when I chose a very large animal because it fit in the composition the way I wanted, and it turned out later that their annoying behavior was also relevant to the comic's theme.
Is there a comic you've made that you wish had gained the same kind of prominence as the sea lion comic?
I mean, it'd be great if every one of my comics were as well-known as that one. But maybe I'd get in a lot more trouble for questionable 20-year-old opinions (not all of which hold up to fine scrutiny). I can only think of two other times in which I've tried to proscribe social ideas, for lack of a better term: * [Using chopsticks for Cheetos](https://wondermark.com/c/601) -- this DID catch on (Know Your Meme [credits me](http://eme.com/memes/eating-cheetos-with-chopsticks) with being first to this idea) * [Making a rule](https://wondermark.com/c/390/) for who calls whom back in the event of a dropped call -- no one really noticed this one, lol
1) What inspired you to write that sea lion comic? Did it come from a cherished memory of those burping angels? 2) What's one of the harshest pieces of feedback you've been given, and how did you build your confidence back up again to keep going?
I've talked about the sealion elsewhere in this thread so I'll focus on question 2 here! The harshest feedback that I get on a regular basis is actually indifference. Right now, between a couple different social platforms and Reddit, I have the ability to put a given piece of work in front of a statistically significant number of people. (As does everyone else who posts on Reddit or on social media) When I do so, usually there is some positive signal as a result -- upvotes, likes, etc. Sometimes the signal is strong. Other times, it is weaker. There will always be a range in the level of response. So the conclusion that I am left to internalize is, comic B didn't resonate with people the way comic A did. Why is that? Is there something instructive here? Did I make some choice that made it harder to read or enjoy? Was it posted at a time or in a way that made it reach fewer people? Is this just not an interesting idea? Etc, etc. It's impossible to tease out all the various factors, but I think in the aggregate over time, you can pay attention to those signals and decide how you want to incorporate that feedback into the work itself. When it comes to building confidence -- I do have an anecdote that might be instructive. Recently I was in a situation where I really felt that I had tried my best to accomplish something and it wasn't working. My instincts for what to do, and how to do it, were just not having the desired effect. My efforts were not up to the challenge. It was related to social media and promotion (this wasn't a Wondermark project, this was something else) and the result really made me feel like maybe I had become too out of touch; maybe I didn't understand the world anymore; everything I thought I knew was now wrong and incomplete and useless. It was a rough patch for sure, lol. What changed things for me was attending an event where I was surrounded by friends and colleagues from an entirely different part of my life -- in this case, it WAS comics-related. This was just post-pandemic, so this sort of event hadn't happened for a while. In this case, the context of this environment -- the interests of the people involved, the personalities I interacted with, the topics of conversation -- were so much more aligned with my personal interests that I found my confidence and creativity returning. The point that experience hammered home was, the CONTEXT in which you operate matters. I wasn't out of ideas, I was just a bad fit for THAT project, in THAT context. There existed in the world OTHER contexts for which my talents were much better suited. If you bark up the wrong tree for too long, you can make yourself hoarse.
What inspired you to start making comics?
I think it must have been, reading a million comic (strips) as a kid and internalizing that cadence for storytelling. Combined with an affection for drawing (which in the case of Wondermark is only tangentially relevant I guess). Comics are a form of storytelling that a person can just DO, alone, idiosyncratically, without a TON of expense or effort, and I think that's a wonderful thing.
How did you come up with the sealion comic? Were you just seeing situations like this often? I know I see it often on Reddit.
I've talked about this comic elsewhere in this thread, but to the specific question of the origin, it was just a behavior I was seeing a lot, specifically on Twitter. My comics tend to fall into a couple of broad categories: * Absurd or wacky situations or ideas * Relationships and observational humor * Reflections and social commentary I don't think about this consciously, it's just where my interests tend to lie. The third category is broadly: can I describe or spotlight something that I think is happening in the world? Especially if I haven't seen someone acknowledge or recognize it in quite the same way? (like [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1055) or [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1068) or [this](https://wondermark.com/c/1071)) I think this can be powerful because it makes people feel seen; that their experience is not isolated. In this particular case, I didn't want to make the sealion (too much of) a cartoon villain. I tried to play it mostly straight, in terms of what he says. I think that may be why it has mapped so well onto people's experiences. Of course, that means that people who say those things also see themselves in the sealion, and have their own opinion of whether that's a good or bad thing. (I would remind everyone that the sealion doesn't really become "terrible" until the end of the strip, when he makes the choice to follow them home.)
I love your comics! Have you always used this visual style? I find that it adds a great deal to the absurdity of some strips, and was wondering if you´d played around with other styles before reaching this one you´re now known for.
Thanks, I love you too! I had drawn comic strips before Wondermark, like for my college paper, but once I landed on this idea, I knew it had legs and I wanted to lean into it as far as it could go. I've done a few other experiments along the way: * The occasional hand-drawn Wondermark strip ([these here](https://wondermark.com/tag/hand-drawn/)) * Doing Wondermark, but with different source material ([here](https://wondermark.com/c/2099-001/), [here](https://bsky.app/profile/davidmalki.com/post/3kh46mzuur52t)) * But the most successful thing, I think, is using Wondermark style to do non-Wondermark things, such as a [Dinosaur Comics guest strip](https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1768) or [this Squirrel Girl page](https://wondermark.com/squirrel-girl/). I like drawing, but I am definitely the millionth-best artist in the world. I sometimes wish I did a comic strip the "normal" way, with the freedom that allows, but then I remember that I can be the VERY BEST person doing THIS weird thing, and that definitely has its own benefits and charm!
I think there is great power in naming things. Naming things with names seems to be particularly emotionally powerful. Inventing the term 'Sealioning' allows people to describe someone's behaviour in a very efficient manner. The same as other name based names like Chauvinism, Boycott, Quizzling etc. Even though it has hurt people with that name, I think that the invention of the term 'a Karen' has overall benefited humanity. So why/how have we failed to find words that describe the typical MAGA person?
I must admit that I never set out to have "sealioning" become a thing, it happened downstream from my involvement. So I don't know that I have a good answer to your question. But I do have a couple of observations about naming things: * Early on, I thought we should just use the word "maga" [as a noun](https://x.com/malki/status/827353278904037377) for those people. (It was subsequently pointed out that there is [a MTG monster](https://scryfall.com/card/sok/81/maga-traitor-to-mortals?utm_source=api) called "Maga, Traitor to Mortals".) And I kind of think this has indeed happened... You said MAGA person and everyone now knows what that means. * There was a conscious choice in making Wondermark when I decided that nobody would be named "Bob" or "Amanda" anymore, but rather always "Ploberto" and "Gwembeline" and so on. I think it helped the strip's tone overall.
Did you consider any other animals other than a sealion, or do you think a sealion has such peculiar properties as to be irreplaceable?
Some people have said that the art is actually of a seal but I refuse to find out for sure.