My friend Rene recently finished her terribly famous (and terribly good) webcomic, Anders Loves Maria. You shouldn’t read this interview with her if you haven’t read Anders Loves Maria from start to finish! Go and do that now, if need be.
If you are an Anders Loves Maria fan and you have so many questions for Rene just burning you up inside, hopefully I have asked them on your behalf in this interview — some of them, though, coated in a layer of my own sarcasm. Rene, meanwhile, is pure graciousness, as you shall see.
Rene Engström, doing a bit of an 'author photo'.
Patrick Alexander: Okay, let’s do this shit. Let’s poop it out.
Rene Engström: All right!
Patrick: Rene! Good evening! Hello!
Rene: Hello, Patrick!
Patrick: You have asked me to interview you about Anders Loves Maria, your famous webcomic, recently concluded. CORRECT??
Rene: That is correct.
Patrick: WHY COME.
Rene: Because there was no possible way for me to answer all the mail, comments and questions pouring in. I needed a way to get this all done at once, and I thought, “Why not do this in a fun way.” I also thought, “Patrick’s fun, I’ll ask Patrick to help me out.”
Patrick: Well, before I ask any questions, I should say congratulations on your accomplishment.
Rene: Thank you!
Patrick: It’s about 300 pages of comic, you said.
Rene: That’s right. Almost exactly 300 I think.
Patrick: In only a few years. I’ve read complaints about the irregularity of Anders Loves Maria’s updates, but it’s pretty clear you’ve been working very steadily.
Rene: I don’t think 100 pages per year is a bad rate at all. I think it’s quite average, actually.
There has traditionally been a pressure in webcomics to produce constantly, preferably every day. And while this is certainly helpful in increasing and keeping one’s readership, it doesn’t always work for everyone. You are starting to see a lot more successful webcomics breaking away from this trend.
I chose to sacrifice immediate readers for the sake of my health and family. I sort of knew that they would be back once the comic was finished anyway.
Patrick: Quite! Everyone seems to have come out of the woodwork to comment on the final update. There’s a lot of gosh-wow-thankyou, which must be gratifying.
Rene: Yes. It’s certainly better than an empty, echoing auditorium. But sadly I am kind of deaf to both praise and punishment at this point. I know that sounds sort of arrogant, but I am rather desensitised to it all. I’ve stopped reading a lot of the comments altogether. They drive me mental.
Patrick: I know what you mean.
Rene: It’s a lot different now that the comic is over because there isn’t any added pressure.
Patrick: How have you been feeling, since finishing the comic?
Rene: Good. At peace. The response has been wonderful and not too many people hate me for the abrupt ending. I have been diligently working on the book and completing sketch orders, all anxiety-free.
Patrick: Ah, so! Yes! I have been browsing the comments, and the main recurring question is: MAKE BOOK? YOU MAKE BOOK?
Rene: I am making a real, paper-book, yes. With pages and everything.
Patrick: Dang, fancy.
Rene: I am talking with the publisher about doing a fancy, over-sized hardcover, first. And then doing a regular paperback version.
Patrick: Rene, can we disclose to the proles who the publisher is? I mean it doesn’t really matter but I’m sure they’d like to know; they’re so excitable.
Rene: I am working with the lovely people over at [CENSORED]. No one [CENSORED] the [CENSORED] better than they do.
Patrick: [CENSORED]!
Rene: [CENSORED].
Patrick: No. But you’ve created something that a lot of people respond strongly to.
Rene: It seems I have. The strong emotional investment in Anders Loves Maria is something I never anticipated. I’m not sure how to feel about that. But maybe it’s because I am emotionally invested in it myself.
Patrick: Yeah, you shouldn’t be surprised, given how attached to the characters you are yourself.
Rene: I know. I guess I’m just surprised over the response in general. It’s just my little story, you know.
Patrick: You are probably the most famous Swedish cartoonist internationally, right now.
Rene: Arguably, yes.
Patrick: About the book again: From earlier conversations, I know two things:
One: You edited down the ending quite a lot before drawing it; it was going to be quite a bit longer.
Two: You’re adding some more material to the print version… but not to the ending! You’re adding stuff earlier in the story.
What’s up with THAAAAAT?
Rene: One: I planned on editing it down a lot, but in the end I changed my mind. There were over 30 pages left in my original ending and my original cut was going to leave me with an ending of 10 pages, but it ended up being around 20 or possibly more.
Two: There are some parts to the earlier half of the story that were originally cut because I was bound to a contract to update once a week, and the story wasn’t going anywhere at this snail’s pace. Nothing necessarily overly important to the plot, but plenty of the story, particularly with Yumi and Magnus, was left entirely unfinished and open. I might add some stuff to the later half, after some revision. We’ll see.
Patrick: Yeah, there are a quite a few comments expressing frustration at all the ‘loose ends’. Some of these complaints might be more valid than others, though. There’s one guy going, “We don’t even know why Anders and Maria are in love! We didn’t get to see that! UGGGHHH this comic is so FRUUUSTRATING, UGGGHHHHH!!”
Rene: I think sometimes it is best to let the readers fill in those gaps themselves. I would never insult my readers’ intelligences and I treat them as I expect myself to be treated by an author.
My answer to the reader you mention would be, “Is it so important to know?”
That being said, I will revise the story to see if there are some things that could be explained better.
Patrick: RENE WHAT HAPPENED TO MARIO AND BJORK’S BABY??
YOU DIDN’T SPEND FIVE PAGES EXPLAINING IT EXPLICITLY
Rene: They sold it on the black market to fund their boozing habits.
Patrick: Oh, that’s what I thought. But I can’t relax until I know what happened ‘canonically’.
Rene: Now you know. Sleep well.
Patrick: Also Rene, I couldn’t help but notice there was no dénouement in which Anders falls, weeping, to his knees, and declares to the heavens, “My philandering ways end this day, forever!” So I’m not satisfied; I need Hollywood-style moral justice.
Rene: Anders is a hopeless philanderer. I’m not sure this would even change his ways. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a responsible adult out of him in some ways.
Patrick: NOOO MY NEATLY RESOLVED CHARACTER ARC, NOOOOO
Rene: I’m sorry, Patrick. *pat pat*
Patrick: Throughout Anders Loves Maria’s serialisation, there have been a lot of readers waiting for Anders to be punished somehow. Reading between the lines, these readers were frustrated that you weren’t as willing to judge your characters as they were. So it seems to me.
Rene: Hmm. That’s odd, and here I think I punish Anders all the time by putting him in situations everyone knows he will fuck up in some sense.
But I think I know what you mean, I don’t judge Anders as a person for what he does. He’s not evil. I don’t think he has much of a mean streak either.
Patrick: No, he seems very easy-going, which is a strength in some ways and a weakness in others.
Rene: He is very easy-going and quite likeable, sometimes for very superficial reasons. He’s also rather unknowingly selfish. But in the end I think he’s very loyal and dependable when it comes to what he thinks is important.
Patrick: An odd but interesting criticism has come up a few times in these comments: that the ending is, er… I guess misogynistic is the implication. Because two female characters died so that the male character could develop.
Do you think, for example, that before killing herself, Tina should have taken into consideration what sort of literary precedent that would set?
Rene: That is interesting because I do see myself as a feminist. I think you can make a much stronger feminist statement without writing invincible women.
Another factor is that I don’t write genders. To me they are all genderless. Or to be more specific, they are all me. I guess I try to stick to writing genuine emotions and not political statements.
Patrick: How irresponsible!
Rene: Tja…
Patrick: Well I never. What are we supposed to learn about human nature from “genuine emotions”? The best stories come from writing the world as it should be, not as it is. That’s how you get masterpieces like Atlas Shrugged.
Rene: I like “as it should be” stories too. But I don’t like writing them. I think Swedes in general have a tendency to write “as it shouldn’t be” stories. I am a Canadian as well, so perhaps I fall somewhere in-between.
Patrick: Anders Loves Maria represents three years of your life. How do you feel, looking back? Your life has changed a lot.
Rene: It is mentally exhausting to think about the changes that have gone on. I’m surprised I’ve survived it all.
I’m not sure how much into detail I should go on about my private life, or if that is really interesting to readers. It seems to really only concern people when it comes to abruptions in updates. :)
Patrick: I was thinking, for instance: When you look at a page of Anders Loves Maria, you’re not just going to see the story — you’re going to remember where you were when you drew it; how you were feeling; maybe you had to interrupt it to make lunch for your children. You’re going to remember your children growing up. Anders Loves Maria is like a tangible artifact of a chunk of your life.
Rene: Oh I see what you mean. Yes it is a very private sort of diary for me. A lot of strips remind me of what was going on in my life at the time, and a lot of the events in the comic have coincided with a lot that was going on in my life, quite unintentionally.
This brings us back to what happened with Björn and Maria’s baby, and perhaps why I chose not to right-out draw them having an abortion, because I was painfully going through my own at the time.
Patrick: You and I wouldn’t be friends if it weren’t for Anders Loves Maria!
Rene: That’s true. I have made a lot of new friends in this close-knit, gossipy webcomics community! You being one of my favourites!
Patrick: Shucks and golly.
It’s a little strange that Anders Loves Maria has finished, because I am unfamiliar with pre-Anders Loves Maria Rene. You wouldn’t exist, for me, without the comic. So you and the comic are closely associated in my mind.
Rene: Well, Patrick, pre-Anders Loves Maria Rene is essentially the same, I think. I still lead a quite unglamourous, diaper-changing existence. I am not a ‘celebrity’ in any practical sense of the word. I do not have a luxury boat and I would have to queue to get into clubs, if I did indeed go to clubs at all.
Patrick: It’s true that you are not glamourous (although very lovely). But, you did maintain a modest living through Anders Loves Maria, which is pretty nice. As you said to me, you’ve already made more money from Anders Loves Maria than most published cartoonists make from their books.
Rene: I’ve made enough to (barely) get by on my art, which is a fortune for most cartoonists. I could have made more if I actually got into merchandising, but I could never really muster up the courage for that. I think I’ll be stronger for the next project though.
And it’s true, I know people that have had best-sellers and not made enough to cover the costs of their materials. Which is probably why I never considered not trying webcomics as a business model. It’s not as if it excludes putting your work in print.
Patrick: Yeah, there’s really nothing to lose and everything to gain, with webcomics, and that goes for publishers as well as cartoonists. I expect in the next few years, we’ll see more and more publishers dropping that “We won’t publish anything that has been published elsewhere before” nonsense. Reality has debunked that idea. Not just for cartoonists — for writers too.
Rene: I think so too.
I’m really curious about webpublishing for ‘proper’ books. It’s something I know very little about. I see adverts on my site for them every now and then. I would love to get some tips on some good stuff being published.
Patrick: Rene, before we finish, is there anything else you think your readers might like to hear from you? Anything obvious I haven’t asked?
Rene: Have we talked about future projects? I’m unsure. I did two interviews earlier today already so my head’s a little foggy.
Patrick: We haven’t! I was gonna ask, but I assumed the answer would be, “Well right now I’m just focusing on getting the Anders Loves Maria book done.” I shouldn’t have assumed! Tell me about future projects if you want to.
Rene: Well I did plan on just working on the book, but inspiration hit me for my next project. This is perhaps wrong of me, but I plan on it being a Big Literary Deal, and my hopes are for it to be one of the best Swedish graphic novels of all time. It will not be a relationship drama like Anders Loves Maria, but there will be plenty of drama and mystery and jumping between timelines. So readers will find themselves very familiar with the storytelling. But this time around it will be more organised, right from the start. And for the sake of a future book, I’ll try stick to one size.
Plot-wise I do not want to reveal too much, but it will deal with finding one’s place in the world.
Patrick: Wow, well, you sound all confident and energised!
Rene: I am. It’s a good story, that I know. I just hope I am capable enough to pull it off. It’s a messy story though, so I have a lot of sorting and planning to do.
I might try for an autumn release. That’s September, for you southern hemisphere types.
Patrick: You mean, for the whole thing?
Rene: No, for starting.
Patrick: Right. I was gonna say! Well, I’m excited for you.
Thank you for a pleasant chat, Rene! I hope you said everything you wanted to say.
Rene: Thank you, Patrick. This has been a big help!
This is Patrick Alexander. He does things. He lives in Melbourne. You can