In case you missed the many tweets and Facebook posts about this story over the weekend. The Chronicle Herald here in Halifax published an article about Starcrossed in the Saturday edition of the paper. Laura Fraser stopped by my home studio earlier this summer for a chat about my work, podcasting, an hopes for the future in comics.

JOEL DUGGAN spent more than a decade in the trenches, navigating Halifax’s mercurial dating scene; late in his quest to find the perfect woman, an alien named Sam appeared.

The Martian and his very human roommate, Charlie Decker, soon became the proverbial pair on the cartoonist’s shoulders as he hunched over his drafting table and mined his love life for comic inspiration.

“The people that are writing (comic strips) and being very successful, are writing what they know,” Duggan says from his Dartmouth studio. “You can tell that the two guys that write (the comic) Zits were obviously teenage boys at some point. They both have wives and teenagers of their own now, so they have the parents’ perspective and it is just absolute bang on.

“Why would I try to draw a strip about animals I didn’t know? I can’t do a dog and a cat strip, because I don’t have pets.”

Hence, Starcrossed.

Laura Fraser. September 3, 2011. The Chronicle Herald. Cartoonist Navigates Dating Hell.

The Chronicle Herald has removed access to the full article. If you missed it and would like to read the whole thing, please email me. I have a hard copy here in the studio. Legally I can not post the article here on the blog.