| Kristofer Straub | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 17, 1979 Los Angeles, California |
| Residence | Seattle, WA |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Kris Straub |
| Education | UCLA Alumni, Computer Science |
| Occupation | Cartoonist and Graphic designer |
| Known for | Creator of Starslip, Checkerboard Nightmare, chainsawsuit and F Chords |
| Website | |
| http://www.krisstraub.com | |
Kristofer Straub is the creator of webcomics Checkerboard Nightmare, Starslip, Time Friends, Origin Story, and more recently chainsawsuit and F Chords. He is also the co-founder of webcomics collectives Blank Label Comics and Halfpixel. Straub voiced the character of Brent Sienna in PVP: The series and co-creates Blamimations with Scott Kurtz, for Penny Arcade. He also manages and writes for the horror fiction site Ichor Falls.
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Starslip is a daily independent science fiction/comedy webcomic. Starslip Crisis was part of the webcomics cooperation collective Blank Label Comics,[1] until Straub split away from Blank Label to merge Starslip with his new collective, Halfpixel, in November 2007.[2] The comic initially ran under the name Starshift Crisis. The nearly identical Starslip Crisis appeared early in the strip's run, with its own website and associated content, differing only in that the term "starslip" replaced "starshift". The two ran in parallel, until a strip in August 2005 which definitively ended the plot of Starshift Crisis, but which played out differently in Starslip Crisis. Reportedly the name change was caused by a legal issue.[3]
Starslip Crisis was first set in the 3440s, aboard the starship IDS Fuseli, named after painter Henry Fuseli.[4] The Fuseli was a former luxury warship which has been converted into a starship museum. It is still capable of military activities. The Fuseli travelled from system to system with its exhibits (using a faster than light "starslip drive"), the comic chronicling the adventures of the crew. Much of the art featured upon the Fuseli dated from the 20th or 21st centuries.[5][6]
Much of the strip centers around the exploits of, and relationships between, the three main protagonists:
On January 12, 2009, Straub rebooted the artwork and modified the name of the strip after a storyline where the Fuseli, the ship the comic is set on, escapes from a Universe destroyed by the Future.
Starslip Crisis was nominated for five Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in 2006: Outstanding Newcomer, Outstanding Black and White Art, Outstanding Use of Flash, Outstanding Web Design, and Outstanding Science Fiction Comic (which it won).[10] Kristofer Straub was also nominated in 2006 for Outstanding Writer in the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards. The strip was nominated for three Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in 2007: Outstanding Black and White Art, Outstanding Science Fiction, and Outstanding Web Design.[11]
Checkerboard Nightmare was originally hosted independently, it moved to Keenspot for a time, before becoming one of the founding comics of Blank Label Comics. During 2006, it appeared monthly on the webcomic news site Comixpedia. The strip is self-aware, using metahumour extensively, and the title character, Checkerboard Nightmare (Chex) is obsessed with gaining fame as a webcomic character and is willing to do anything necessary to achieve it. The setup of the strip does not change beyond 'Chex wants new readers and concocts a hare-brained scheme to get them', satirising the strict adherence to format exhibited by, for example, sitcoms. Its targets expanded as the strip progressed, and shifted from satirising webcomics to the search for fame in general with the move to Keenspot.
Checkerboard Nightmare storylines have included Chex physically attacking other webcomic creators (drawn in each creator's art style) in an attempt to gain fame by getting rid of the competition, and a one-shot comic in which a character from Queen of Wands, which had just ended, was run over by Chex and another character in a car as a parody of a similar gag in the webcomic Something Positive.
Checkerboard Nightmare received an Honorable Mention in the Comedic category at the 2005 Cartoonist's Choice Awards, Honorable Mention in the Comedic category.[12]
Formerly titled indie comic by kris straub by kris straub, chainsawsuit was launched in March 2008 as a parody of badly drawn gag-a-day strips. Straub soon renamed the comic after one of its recurring characters so that it could expand beyond mocking indie comics. It ran for a few months on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, then began to update every weekday starting in August 2008.
Its topics range from current events to pop culture. Recurring characters include Chainsawsuit, a man with a series of chainsaws strapped to his body for self-defense against zombies, Lazy Cat, an ultraviolent send-up of Garfield; Two Cops, a police officer who was accidentally enrolled in the academy twice and is regarded by all characters as two separate people; H. P. Wuvcraft, a cuddlier version of Lovecraft; master pickup artist Huntyr Chase; and Straub himself, who appears in some autobiographical comics.
F Chords ran from July 29, 2008 to December 5 of the same year, ending along with its first story arc. Its main characters -- Ash and Wade, two Austin-area studio musicians who also play in an unknown local band named "Soft Operation" -- have gone on to make cameo appearances in both Starslip and chainsawsuit.
In May 2011 F Chords was relaunched as a daily comic. Its setting has been relocated to Los Angeles, and follows Ash and Wade's continued efforts to popularize their band.
In December 2006, Straub was named co-writer and co-producer on PvP: The Series, a series of animated shorts featuring the PvP characters.
Also in 2006 Straub launched the Halfpixel site, as a location for a variety of creative projects. The Time Friends series has proved popular with fans, with many making their own strips which are displayed on the site via a "creative framework" named Web You.0.
On Feb. 22, 2007, episode of Kurtz's PVP Livecast podcast, Straub announced his plans to relocate from Los Angeles to Dallas, Texas, to join Kurtz as office and creative partners.[13]
In a Daily Affirmation, a joint podcast between him and Scott Kurtz, Straub mentions being an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.[14]
Straub also hosted, along with David Malki, the podcast "Tweet Me Harder".
In 2007, to coincide with his move to Dallas, Straub repurposed the Halfpixel site to serve as a hub for his and Kurtz's joint creative projects. Halfpixel later expanded to include webcartoonists Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett of the comics Evil Inc. and Sheldon, respectively.
The four published How To Make Webcomics through Image Comics in the first quarter of 2008. The book covers a variety of topics of interest for beginning and intermediate webcartoonists.[15]
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