Chris Allison, the artist behind "Toonhole Chris," is a creative person who balances his day job in animation with his offbeat comic creations. Known for his mix of dark humor and some rather interesting twists, Chris creates each comic with traditional materials, adding a touch of old-school charm to his sharp wit.
When he's not navigating the colorful chaos of animated features or changing diapers (he’s recently welcomed a newborn!), he’s busy taking creative risks in the world of comics.
More info: Instagram | toonholechris.bigcartel.com | x.com | Facebook | toonhole.com | patreon.com
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Image credits: toonholechris
Given the chance, Bored Panda once more reached out to Chris with some new questions regarding his life, work, and other pursuits!
Reflecting on how working with traditional materials influences his creative process, Chris shared, "Comics for me have been a passion project. My day job is working in animation on theatrical features (most recently I was a story artist on Despicable Me 4 and co-directed a short called Benny's Birthday). For my job, I'm looking at a screen all day, so to switch it up at night with analog materials keeps things exciting and fresh. Analog materials are a nice challenge. To get a flat color digitally is a single click, but with analog, it's a technical challenge. I like the limitations that analog presents, and unlike digital, sometimes once a color is down you have to move forward or you'll just ruin your painting by fussing with it too much. The challenge causes me to think in different ways and learn new skillsets, which feeds back into my digital work. It's just one way that I can grow as an artist. Also, it's been nice having a finished comic in my hands. I've been mounting the paintings and I just opened up a store to sell them if anybody wants the original comic that I painted: Toonhole Chris Store."
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Image credits: toonholechris
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Image credits: toonholechris
The artist also engages with his audience by sharing rough ideas from his sketchbook and incorporating their feedback. He explained to us, "There are constant surprises! Sometimes I'll come up with a comic that I think is so funny and it falls flat, or I'll put a comic out that I think is so basic but it goes gangbusters. I'm just so close to the work, it helps to have some feedback about what people like and what they don't like. I don't think it affects my writing process too much; I'm simply following what I think is funny and what I think would be funny to send to my friends. But having feedback on comics that the wide audience likes helps me to figure out which ones to put the effort into doing fully colored in analog materials. You have to be careful too. You have to be selective about the specific feedback you choose to listen to. Too many cooks truly do ruin a dish. So while it's nice to have lots of feedback, I still weigh feedback from some of my trusted colleagues significantly more. And there are comics that maybe don't do so well, but I love them so I do them for me."
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Image credits: toonholechris
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Image credits: toonholechris
Balancing his roles in animation and comics, Chris noted, "There's a huge amount of crossover. One of the biggest things is that animation is collaborative, and I bring that to my comics. I'm constantly showing WIP comics to the other Toonhole guys or getting feedback from other comic artists that I like (BeetleMoses, Hot Paper Comics, ExtraFabulous Comics, etc.). I think a lot of artists are similar and very few artists are true islands. It's so helpful to get extra sets of eyes that you TRUST to get feedback and make sure what you're drawing is communicating what you want it to. I think there are also huge differences. So many times I'll have an idea that just doesn't fit well into a couple of panels. The humor is in the WAY or pacing of an interaction between characters, and it's much more suited to animation. So I have to be a little aware of that and file those things away. Ultimately, comics are a nice balance too. Animation is the confluence of hundreds of creative and business people's hard work and any contributions to the projects are hard fought to be substantial. But I have complete control over comics. I think it makes me much more level-headed in my approach to my professional job to have comics as an outlet."
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Image credits: toonholechris
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Image credits: toonholechris
Looking ahead, Allison is excited about future projects. He shared, "I have a couple of projects in the works behind the scenes, but nothing that is ready to announce. My wife recently had a baby so we're busy taking care of a newborn, so some of those projects might need to be placed on the back burner for a bit. But as always, I love working on comics, animation, and some other wild things. Can't wait to find some time to finish more of them and share them, and hopefully, there'll be another Bored Panda article to discuss 'em!"
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Image credits: toonholechris
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