SwanZeus Cover
"I DON'T THINK I'D WANT TO BE SWANZEUS, THOUGH HIS ABILITY TO BUST THROUGH WALLS WITH HIS KNOB WOULD BE HANDY."
"Hey you! Fancy reading about a horny swan?” shouts Claude TC of Gronk Comics. He's a comic artist / illustrator with a talent for creating obscene mini-comics (amongst other genres), most notably ‘SwanZeus’. He doesn't like being called a ‘drawer’ very much but it'll always happen. He's spent the last 7 years working on webcomics and small press. We recommend you read his work because it’s fucking funny. Here’s what Claude had to say about himself…
SS: Claude Trollope sounds like a comic book alias. Is it?
Claude: No, it’s my real name! Though I have written myself into my ‘Reckless Youths’ comics before. It a bit of an ego-feed. Super heroics and all that. A kind of wish fulfilment, perhaps?
SS: What makes for a brilliant comic?
Claude: Decent art, solid story, believable characters. It depends on genre really. There’s different genres like with any art – sci-fi, romance, action… people who don’t know much about comic art think there’s only super-heroics for a genre, but there’s load more.
SS: Do you follow the rules or subvert them?
Claude: So many artists have done that already. I tend to write running gags into some of my comics, which become more and more ridiculous. For kids or first time readers, my comics would appear to be subversive.
SS: Tell us more about SwanZeus. Did you sit there laughing as you wrote it?
Claude: If my neck wasn’t so sore I think I’d find the funnier parts more amusing and probably laugh.
SS: You feature loads of Greek Gods in the strip., like Hermes, Poseidon, and Zeus. Which god would you be?
Claude: SwanZeus! Actually, I don't think I’d want to be Swanzeus, too much incest that he's oblivious to. It'd be pretty handy to have his ability to bust through walls with his knob though. And he does get away with a lot based on his status.
SS: What about the other gods?
Claude: Well, Apollo is a Sloth in the sequel. Sloths are weird. People always expect them to be slow creatures but they’re actually pretty quick. A friend of mine saw one once and it was rapid. The zoo keeper said, “you’re very lucky to see this move, they only move twice a day”. He was angry because he thought it shouldn't be called a 'SLOW-th', so I suggested a 'Laze-th'.
SS: You censor SwanZeus’s cock out. Because its funnier? Or are there strict censorship rules when selling comics at fairs?
Claude: People always ask me that! It’s way funnier to have his penis censored. But yeah, there are some rules for censorship at fairs. They don’t check through your work, but if someone catches you selling X rated stuff, they tell you to pack it in. In small press there’s loads of obscene comics so no real laws against it. I really enjoy selling SwanZeus to people. “Hey you! Fancy reading about a horny swan?” As they walk away you shout even more. Haha.
SS: Where the hell can we buy your work?
Claude: Since I haven't got my online store set up yet, people can send me an email* if they'd like to buy copies of my minis or want commissions and we can work it out. I've also got an upcoming Show at the Pumphouse Gallery where you can buy my work.
SS: How long does it take to complete a mini-comic?
Claude: SwanZeus took roughly a month. It was my final degree project. Different projects take different lengths of time.
SS: Have you got a job lined up?
Claude: Nope. I wouldn’t mind working for a small press company like Dark Horse, Top Shelf or Image Comics – all small press publishing companies.
SS: Do friends and family bug you to immortalise them?
Claude: I say NO to friends now. Especially girlfriends. I just know it’ll all end in tears.
SS: Why?
Claude: Because Its pressuring if a friendship ends in tears, I'm stuck with this body of work hanging over my head.
"I LIKE MAKING MONSTERS LOOK AS UGLY AS POSSIBLE. ONE OF THEM HAD THREE SCROTUMS HANGING OFF HIS FACE."
SS: What do you parents make of your work?
Claude: They praise a lot but they don’t really look. I wouldn’t expect them to read several years worth of backlog. Dad enjoyed SwanZeus.
SS: Violence, apocalyptic themes, anti-heroes, imps and self mutilation – pre requisites for best selling comics or just the inner workings of your subconscious cellar?
Claude: Nah. You get comics for kids. I want to start writing more comics for kids. It’s a dying art. But I like making monsters look as ugly as possible. One of them had three scrotums hanging off his face. I enjoy dark material, yeah.
SS: What’s Camberwell like?
Claude: College didn’t teach me shit about drawing. I wasn’t classically trained. The teachers aren’t even real teachers, just young professionals and artists looking to use the facilities. They give you a project then tell you to piss off and get on with it. One teacher didn’t turn up for half our classes. We wanted to sue.
SS: What other comics are you a fan of?
Claude: Spiderman, mostly from when I was a kid. It was awful, really bad in places. There’s a cool parody of Spiderman I prefer now. I was into Beano and Dandy. Superhero and small press people now. Brandon Graham and his porn comics are good (http://royalboiler.deviantart.com/)
SS: What extremes are you prepared to go to? Ie, commercial and obscure.
Claude: Commercially, it depends on what comes along. If opportunities arise I won’t turn them down.
SS: And obscure?
Claude: I’m not as innovative as I want to be. Would like to be more kitch and innovative when I get the ideas into my head.
SS. You already have strong ideas, pretty zany ones. Your dreams must be wild!
Claude: I have really boring dreams! Probably because I write out all the weird stuff during the days. One dream I had, I was sitting on a bus next to a black family, feeling really awkward.
SS: God that is boring.
Claude: Did you ever see the film Happy Feet?
SS: No.
Claude: Good. It’s for the best. It was boring. Somewhere towards the end of happy feet, the Elijah Wood penguin gets captured and put into the penguin enclosure at the zoo, where they've painted an arctic landscape on the walls and he hallucinates seeing little penguin relatives in the distance, who he tries calling out to then starts slamming himself into the wall because his tiny penguin brain can't comprehend what's going on. He winds up screaming and yelling so much that he can't speak anymore. Then the voiceover cuts in with "after two days he lost his voice, after two weeks, he near 'nuff lost his mind. For me the movie should've ended there. But it didn't, and it's terrible.
SS: Why don’t you do that then? Re-write the film.
Claude: Yeah, I might just do that. Let me make a note…
"COLLEGE DIDN'T TEACH ME SHIT ABOUT DRAWING. THEY GIVE YOU A PROJECT THEN TELL YOU TO PISS OFF AND GET ON WITH IT."