Frequently Asked Questions
· Are you Bobbin? Are you Jane? Are you JaneBobbin?
In real life, I act and look more like Bobbin, but expect people to reply like Jane. There's no real-life Jane in particular.
· Who's Ping Ping in real life? How about Brett/Uni/DemonWoman? And why does Flora look suspiciously like someone I know? ... ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME?! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!
Ping Ping Guo and Flora Chan are my twisted extrapolations of actual friends (hopefully, they still will be after this). By the way, Flora Chan is the name of a Hong Kong actress who my sister hates, primarily because she looks like a crocodile (some people are superficial like that). Uni, DW, and Brett are just charicatures of the people you meet in school.
· What's your strip creation process?
I keep a little text file with all my strip ideas on my computer to refer to before "refining" the gags. If this file is lost, I will be dead.
I used to draw everything in Adobe Photoshop, but since I got a Wacom tablet (Graphire3, 4" by 5"), I've been enjoying the liberation!
· You used to draw everything with the computer?!
Yes. Mistress of the Mouse, I am.
· How long does it take you to finish a strip?
Depending on how detailed it is, and how much cutting and pasting I figure I can get away with (as Sarah Michelle Gellar said to Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions: "everyone does it, but nobody talks about it"), anything from 1 - 6 hours.
· If these are the New Adventures of Bobbin, then what about the old ones?
A long time ago, (in a galaxy far far away,) me and my friend (who might one day become an influential policy maker, so maybe it's time to consider migrating) made up a superhero called Crapman. He had a little trashcan logo on his chest, and a trusty sidekick called Shit. Bobbin looks exactly like Shit (when cartoonists learn how to draw something, they stick to it relentlessly).
A few years later, me and Cherie (drummer of the best band in the world) made a short animated film for school based on Crapman and Shit, but were told to "drop the toilet humour" by the teacher-in-charge (seriously, some people are just anal retentive). Thus, Shit came to be renamed Bobbin. (Get it? Batman and Robin, Crapman and ... ?) Just FYI, the film featured our entire school population AND the principal turning into squids. It was called "Crapman and Bobbin: The Attack of the Mutant Mother Squid from HELL". Yes, sometimes you have to speak up for the PEOPLE!
Jane was born after watching too much Daria for my own good. I was editor of the school magazine at the time and wanted to sneak my subversive comic jibes at "the (school) system" into it, but absolutely failed to succeed. The Bobbin and Jane strips that were rejected sublimated into the online version in Dec 2000.
· Is Jane Caucasian?
No. She's Jane Tan and she's Chinese.
· Then why is she a redhead?
Dye.
· Will you marry me?
That's sweet, but we really should take things slow.
· Ok. What things do you do in an undressed state?
Like I said, we really should take things slow.
· I love you!
Nice try.
About the Cartoonist
Joycelyn Yik
... is a girl who turned 21 on the 8th of February, 2005. (She was sad because she had to stop looping Urge Overkill's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon".) She is studying in the US but keeps dreaming about Singapore food. Because she's Singaporean!
Because it will not improve site traffic, she will not reveal her vital statistics. She has no qualms about borrowing from real-life situations and personal experiences to use as content for the comic. These include unfunny jokes she cracked in the real world which nobody laughed at. This is how she releases her pent up anger and disappointment.
Joyce likes mostly British music (The Cardigans (ok they're Swedish), Garbage (ok they're mostly American), Smashing Pumpkins (um... let's retract that whole British thing), the Foo Fighters, Ash, Suede, Blur, Mansun, Radiohead, Marilyn Manson, Rialto, Franz Ferdinand, "and many more".) She also plays in the greatest band in the world, THE GALLBLADDERS!!! <- unbiased opinion. She loves playing with the PS2, and grew up on Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games. Those were the good old days. Besides this, Joyce also loves her friends and family dearly. (Not the rest of you, though, because you are all strangers.)
Joycelyn now realises that talking in the third person is quite lame, but it's too late for regrets.
