Interview:
Ian McConville and Matthew Boyd (Part 2)

Part two of our exclusive interview with the creators of webcomics Mac Hall and Three Panel Soul, Ian McConville and Matthew Boyd.

For the first part of this interview, please click here.

Alltern8: Has making this comic, and its success, has that opened any doors to you guys that might otherwise have been shut?

Matthew Boyd: Ian, you’re working at Three Rings now and your portfolio’s probably a big part of that.

Ian McConville: The comic has always allowed me to keep my illustration skills sharper than they would be had I not been doing the comic, because in my general profession I mostly work with polygons and scripting and such and that tends not to lend itself for organic advancement. I think it definitely helped me get in with my company and allowed me to have a fleshed-out portfolio of different styles and different stuff, so it certainly didn’t hurt.

MB: I don’t think the writing part has really opened any doors in the day job world, much. Tinkering with the website has, though. Hey, I know a little bit of HTML, and they’re like, ‘hey!’

IM: I know one comic that has closed at least one door for you.

MB: Yeah, there is that.

Alltern8: What comic was that?

MB: There was an incident a couple of years ago – and this might sound a little bit different in Britain – but I was thinking about buying a rifle to take up target shooting. So I was talking casually with my close friends about it at work – both of them ex-military, moving into the contracting world – and, well, I was a little too casual with what I was saying. I was way too casual with what I was saying. There was unfortunately a school shooting the exact same day. The conversation drifted over the cubical walls and somebody apparently told the higher-ups that I was thinking of shooting up the place, which got me marched out of the office pretty quickly. Basically the next day, they just called me up, took my keys, said, ‘alright, see you later, you’re out of here.’ Life of a contactor. But I made it into comics; that was the other thing, because that’s what we do, because, when you think about it, it is kinda funny. I thought it was some pretty funny comics, anyway.