Special Guest Fran Sundblad, creator of "Tiff & Eve"

Cartoonist Fran Sundblad, creator of Tiff & Eve, joins Brad for a wide-ranging conversation about creating character-driven comics, finding an audience on Reddit, and learning when not to chase the algorithm.

Fran traces Tiff & Eve from its beginnings in her sketchbook to a comic that regularly reaches thousands of readers. She explains how Tiff and Eve represent two very different impulses — Tiff as the superego and Eve as the id — and shares a terrific character-development exercise: Lock your character in a room and ask what they do next. If you don't know the answer, you probably don't know the character well enough yet.

Fran and Brad also talk about finding humor in the characters themselves rather than building every strip around a traditional punchline. That approach has helped Tiff & Eve explore Fran's experiences as a trans woman while remaining first and foremost a funny comic about two friends.

In this episode:

• How Tiff & Eve grew out of Fran's sketchbook
• Writing two characters as opposing parts of your own personality
• Fran's “locked room” test for determining whether a character is fully developed
• Character-driven humor vs. setup/punchline comedy
• Using comedy to make personal experiences relatable
• What happens when readers interpret your comics differently than you intended
• Why Fran refuses to explain a joke
• Surviving hostile comments, Reddit Cares abuse, and the stranger side of online audiences
• Why cartoonists should post comics to their Reddit profile, not only to individual subreddits
• Learning the culture of each subreddit instead of treating Reddit as one giant audience
• Formatting comics differently for different communities — including designing images so Reddit's mobile crop doesn't hide important information
• Why fewer clicks usually means more readers
• The danger of chasing trends, politics, and viral Reddit “meta” events simply for upvotes
• Why a huge viral hit may produce surprisingly few new followers or Patreon supporters
• Why effort and artistic complexity don't necessarily translate into social-media success
• The value of clarity, brevity, and consistency on Reddit
• Knowing when a topical comic is nevertheless necessary because it's true to the characters
• Sunday Comix, a webcomic collective and email newsletter designed to help cartoonists reach readers without depending entirely on social-media algorithms

Fran's experience offers an especially useful reminder for cartoonists trying to build an audience online: don't confuse attention with audience growth. A trendy comic might earn tens of thousands of upvotes, but the work that builds a lasting readership is the work that gives people a reason to come back for your characters.

Find Fran Sundblad and Tiff & Eve:

• Website: FranSundblad.com
• Bluesky / Instagram: @TiffAndEveComics
• Reddit: u/CrazyGnomenclature
• Sunday Comix: https://sundaycomix.com/

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Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the author of The Webcomics Handbook. He is available for personal consultations. Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive. He is the co-director of the comics documentary, Stripped.