TB: I've been drawing since I was a kid and my earliest influences were of a science fiction nature. I can remember playing Star Trek in Kinder Garden and seeing Star Wars sixteen times when I was eight years old. Each time Luke flew his X-wing down the Death Star Trench, the hairs on my arm stood and still do stand up. Shortly after of course, came Battlestar Galactica which was another huge influence! Since then, I have been a very involved fan in all things sci-fi.

I graduated from college with a degree in Graphic Design and illustration as well as another in Philosophy. Throughout college, I colored comic books as a way to get myself through school on titles such as; the Tick, The Mighty Ducks, Solar, Power Rangers, Capt. America, X-men, Spiderman, and a few others. After School, I found myself as a freelance illustrator doing advertising and production work for various agencies.

My career as a sci-fi cartoonist started when Starlog began printing my cartoons in the Logtoons section. Since then, I have been on the Northeast Science Fiction convention circuit showing my cartoons. Now, I'm in it for the long haul and concentrating on the fan network. Recently I have begun doing cartoons for science fiction related celebrities and am looking to do a lot more. Most important to me however, is my goal to gain a good reputation as a science fiction cartoonist through humor, and all the things that I love best about Sci-Fi.

TB: Well, I've been drawing since I was a kid so I guess you could say that I began my career along time ago in what seems a galaxy far far away. But in print, I started drawing science fiction cartoons for Starlog in the June issue of last year. That issue also happened to be the Phantom Menace issue right before the movie came out so I was really happy because I knew that lots of people would see the two cartoons I had in that issue.

Interestingly enough, of the two cartoons I first had published, one of them was a Battlestar Galactica cartoon featuring Apollo and Starbuck standing over R2-D2. Starbuck says to Apollo, "I'm telling you Apollo, all we've got to do is hold this little guy for ransom. Then we contact that Lucas fella and we get our show back." (See Bottom of Page)

Even then I was pushing Battlestar Galactica and the revival! Another great influence in my career! Before that however, I was coloring comic books through college. That's where I got my coloring start and once I began drawing sci-fi cartoons, it was just a natural thing to carry over into my cartoons. It was Starlog though that influenced me to start specifically drawing sci-fi cartoons as I would get the magazine every month and one of the things I always looked at were the cartoons they would publish.

Eventually I began to get disillusioned with the comic book industry and started thinking about what other directions I could take with my artwork. I can recall reading an issue of Starlog and thinking how nice it would be to do some cartoons for the magazine. So, I began drawing cartoons and submitting them. Four or five submissions and one year later, I saw my first cartoons in print. The reason one of those cartoons happened to be a Battlestar Galactica toon, is because I get the impression that the editor at Starlog, Dave McDonnell, is very fond of Battlestar Galactica. Last year alone, one of Starlog's issues was almost entirely dedicated to Galactica cartoons.

But anyway, the name of the game as far as starting and even continuing a career as a Science Fiction cartoonist or any where if you're an artist of any kind is persistence, perseverance and ultimately; patience.

TB: First and foremost, I am a science fiction fan to the death. I firmly believe that my love of the genre is my well spring of inspiration. I have been a science fiction fan since I began drawing as a child and I'm very lucky to be able to draw my cartoons and have them published. I just love really good science fiction. I watch it, take it in and respond as a fan. Any success I've had or will have comes because I love what I do, and when you love what you do it will manifest itself in your work.

Movies also play a big part for me and everyone else in the inspiration department. Many contemporary movies are of a science fiction nature due to a rich and ground breaking movie history. From the original Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon played by the great Buster Crab, through Forbidden Planet, and on up to Star Trek, 2001, Star Wars and of course Battlestar Galactica. Generations of people have grown up with science fiction as not only entertainment, but specifically, as influence and inspiration. It's really nice to see how science fiction has become so mainstream.

As the world around us becomes what our dreams and imaginations have made it, partly through science fiction, people validate science fiction in the ways they live their lives. So many aspects of our lives today where, only a few decades ago, flights of fancy and stuff that geeks could only dream of. Yet the human race has touched the face of other worlds and peered into the depths of the Universe to the point where we think that we can see the origins of our celestial past. I firmly believe that this and much more is not only a product of the collective human imagination, but a testament to it. Me? I get my inspiration from my love of Science Fiction.

TB: I would have to say that the most important aspect of my cartoons would be the humor that is the most essential part to the good cartoon recipe. I really believe that it's important that we remember to laugh with each other and at ourselves. I really do think that there's room in science fiction for humor, as a matter of fact, humor is one more way that we can enjoy what we love best about science fiction. That's exactly what I try to do with The Lighter Side of Sci-Fi, I take all of my favorite aspects of Sci-Fi and I put them together in ways that complement each other.

Everyone loves the Star Wars cantina for instance, so why not put characters in there from Quark's bar. Maybe Quark or Rom are behind the bar and there's a sign hanging near the door that says "Under New Management." What might happen in that bar? Who might we see walking in? Maybe Ben and Luke can be talking to Apollo and Starbuck looking for passage off of the planet, etc, etc, etc....

It's all about enjoying our own imagination. It's all about laughter sometimes, not all the time, but when appropriate. Or perhaps, when needed. I know that when I finish a cartoon or think a new one up, I get a real kick out of it, and when someone else laughs at that joke we both feel good. And sometimes, a little thing like a good Sci-Fi joke can really make a stressed out and overworked every day Sci-Fi fan feel a little better. Works for me!

TB: There is no doubt about it, science fiction fans are a tough breed and they know what they like, and when they like it. I am actually very pleased with the reaction from the science fiction community as well as the general public. I've been lucky that my work has been accepted as nicely as it has. Fans have been very generous at all the shows and conventions that I've done as well as encouraging. Which is also a very nice feeling, it's nice to know that people want to see more of your work and are actually willing to buy a few prints or a collection of my work.

Partly, I think that something I have in my favor is as I mentioned before, my own identity as a science fiction fan. Most of the time at the conventions that I attend, I wind up talking Sci-Fi shop with the people that stop at my booth. I'm not just some artist drawing pictures randomly; I'm a fan!

People pick up on that and can relate to me as I relate to them. It's nice talking with someone for ten minutes about Battlestar Galactica, or Star Trek, or what have you. It's nice to mingle with people who know where you're coming from. I'm very happy with the reaction that I have received and continue to receive in regards to my work.

TB: Like myself or anyone else for that matter, my cartoons have definitely matured since I started drawing them a little over two years ago. For one thing, they're funnier now than when I first stared. I think they're cuter too. At this point, I'm really beginning to develop my own style of cartooning. And that naturally comes from doing and practicing ones trade for as long as I have. It's like when someone asks, "How do you get to Carnage Hall?" And the answer is, "Practice." That is absolutely true. I literally have my cartoons and drawing materials with me where ever I go. You never know when you're going to have down time to draw, come up with a new cartoon or bump into someone who can help you out in some way. So, just by my constant drawing and working on my cartoons, I've developed as an artist and cartoonist. I'm also beginning to get an ear for jokes as well as an eye for images that will make a good toon. I'm learning to recognize when a joke is way to complicated and when it needs a little something more. And only know have I really begun to embrace the K.I.S.S. principle, which is, "Keep It Simple Stupid".

Like my cartoons, I am also beginning to identify with "The Lighter Side of Sci-Fi", and I feel as if my cartoons are finding there own identity as well. I strive for my cartoons to continue to grow to the point where Sci-Fi fans will be able to look at a cartoon and say, "Hey look, that's a Lighter Side of Sci-Fi" joke. And if I work and sweat hard enough, I know that I can do it, just by virtue of my making it happen and hanging in there long enough. Being able to draw science fiction cartoons is quite literally a dream come true for me, and it happened because I believed in myself and didn't stop with the first two hundred rejection letters. If you want something bad enough, it's up to you to work for it.

At this point, my main goal for my cartoons is to continue to show and produce them. Cultivating a good reputation for both my cartoons and myself has always been and will continue to be one of my primary endeavors. I pride myself on always meeting deadlines, showing up on time and producing work of a professional nature. For my cartoons, this means that they need to look unique and professional while being timely and increasingly funny. Eventually, I want to make my cartoons into a larger wacky cartoon universe and at this point, what I need to do is continue working on them and keep the faith.

TB: The most important aspect of my cartoons would have to be the humor. We all need to laugh, and putting together those things that I like best about Sci-Fi and then have fun with them is what pushes my buttons. In the end, the fun that I'm having with my cartoons will, I hope, translate into a funny joke that people can see in Starlog, at a show, here on Battlestar Galactica.com or at my homepage. (thelighterside.homepage.com which Chris Feehan (www.CureMode.com)was nice enough to put up for me.)

Why shouldn't we laugh at those things that we love the most within science fiction? I really feel that my cartoons and all the other cartoons being produced by crazy people like myself throughout the Sci-Fi universe, give us a fresh way to look at not only science fiction, but also all those things that we like best about the genre. If nothing else, we can have yet another outlet for our Sci-Fi passions while getting a healthy dose of the giggles. I know, let's call it cartoon therapy. We can learn to laugh with and at ourselves in constructive and inexpensive ways. Why go to a therapist? Just come on down to where the Sci-Fi humor is and watch your tension and stress go away with each joke you read, at least for a little while.

Another interesting thing about Sci-Fi cartoons, is that not many people are doing producing them and as a result, people aren't laughing enough. This means that there is a humorous science fiction vacuum in this world. A disturbance in the force if you will, and by the Lords of Kobol I can no longer sit back and let humanity suffer!

Whenever I do a show, I am always the only person at the entire show that is displaying Sci-Fi toons. While this is actually good for my work, thousands upon thousands of poor underprivileged Sci-Fi fans go without their humor everyday. If every Sci-Fi fan could just laugh at one of my jokes a day, the world would I believe, be a better place. So in the end, I think that the 286th Ferengi rule of Acquisition sums up what I'm trying to say best, Profit is a worthy endeavor, but humor is worth it's weight in Latinum. In the end, the message is I think clear. Don't forget to laugh! It makes all the tough things we go through on a daily basis not so tough.

BGR: What is the process behind creating a cartoon, and how do you keep coming up with new cartoons on a regular basis?

TB: Coming up with a new cartoon is great. It's become part of my attraction and fascination with Science Fiction. My fiancé tells me it's because I'm a freak. And while that is true, I'm a really, really cool freak. And that is part of why she loves me! I am first and foremost a science fiction fan. As such, I live and breathe science fiction as often as I can. My cartoons are a product of my interests, so when I was starting to make cartoons, I was having fun. Throughout the entire process, I was enjoying myself. Since my cartoons have begun to be printed and increasingly seen and shown throughout the Northeast Science Fiction circuit, I've found even more passion for my cartoons. The more cartoons I create that are seen by fellow science fiction fans, the more fun it becomes. It has to be fun; it's a labor of passion, if it weren't fun, I wouldn't be doing it.

The cartoons themselves are there to be found, you just need enough imagination to see them. What I love best about "The Lighter Side of Sci-Fi", is the nature of its universe. Any character and any place, ship or rock in the entire genre of Sci-Fi is a part of it. As such, anything can happen and any characters within it can meet. The only people from our universe who have ever been to the Lighter Side dimension have been myself and a handful of science fiction character actors whom I have done cartoons for.

Plain and simply, I have an overactive imagination. I am always seeing dumb little scenes and situations in my head. I try to take things from real life as well. For instance, the other day I was at a gas station on the Hutchinson Parkway near my home in Harrison N.Y., I was putting ten dollars of gas in my car and achieved a "perfect pour" as Jerry Sienfeld called it, "WooHoo!!!" I began to yelp while I jumped up and down yelling, "Perfect Pour, YEESS!" One gentleman laughed at me; another gave me thumbs up, while the lady in back of me waiting to put gas in her car shook her head at me.

I got in the car feeling really good and a little uneasy about my uncanny ability to pump gas, and thought about how funny it would be to put a character such as Apollo or Starbuck in that situation. Positioned next to their vipers and in the same setting with other science fiction characters and vehicles from various shows and movies. The whole cartoon then becomes not just about the joke, but about the rich science fiction before you. And then you laugh and feel good.

The in between is all the grunt work and steps that you need to complete and get through that brings you to your final destination. A completely designed, sketched out, drawn, inked, scanned in, dragged into and converted in PhotoShop document. Colored for hours, tweaked and touched up, put on a disk, driven to a copy shop and output in order to be displayed at a science fiction or convention show. That's pretty much the way you make a Sci-Fi cartoon.

TB: I really love my cartoons; they are a part of who I am and one of the ways in which I see myself as a science fiction fan. They come from my kookiness and because they are an expression and extension of my creative personality, then I consider them special. Every Sci-Fi fan has a special relationship with his or her own obsession or addiction if you will, to the genre. Science Fiction fans are a pretty interesting bunch that takes their Sci-Fi very seriously.

I grew up with nothing but the best, and the worst, of what science fiction had to offer me, through out the 70's 80's and 90's. That means that I grew up at a great time to be a science fiction fan. One of the first things I can remember is the original Star Trek in syndication as well as the cartoon on T.V. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of Science Fiction. I can recall playing Star Trek in kindergarten, meeting Leonard Nimoy at about eight years old and seeing Star Wars thirteen times when I was nine.

Science Fiction is a part of me and will always be one of my favorite things in the entire world. That I am able to be a part of science fiction through my cartoons is wonderful to me. I get to draw cool stuff, make other Sci-Fi fans laugh, and meet all of my favorite and influential science fiction personalities. A good example of this was meeting many members of the Battlestar Galactica cast such as; Dirk Benedict, John Colicos, Anne Lockhart, Herb Jefferson and of course, Richard Hatch. When you meet a man like Richard Hatch, as a fan you are in heaven. Not because he played Captain Apollo, but because you can see in Richard Hatch, all of the things that made Captain Apollo so enduring and loveable.

I think that it's pretty safe to assume that I will be thinking and drawing up cartoons until my dying day. It's part of who I am and hopefully, that will be enough to let allow people to allow me to entertain them with my cartoons throughout my career.

TB: The future of my work is definitely more cartoons!!! But more importantly than that, I see constant growth for my cartoons and "The Lighter Side of Sci-Fi". As I keep drawing cartoons, I want to explore my humor as well as the universe that I want to expand upon and continue to create. I want to see the Lighter Side web site in the near future and continue to network my cartoons through out the Internet.

I also want to animate aspects of my cartoons. I think that my larger pieces with a variety of Sci-Fi characters and situations could certainly make for interesting short animations. I undoubtedly want to continue to get a good reputation as a science fiction cartoonist and as a result get to work with other great science fiction personalities. This interview for instance and the work, which I produced to accompany the piece, is an example of the kind relationships I want to forge and build upon within the field and industry. I want people to know what the "Lighter Side of Sci-Fi" is and think of my cartoons when they think of science fiction humor.

I definitely want to continue my relationship with Starlog as a leader in the science fiction media community. It's a great magazine that has become a staple of science fiction history along with and well before the Sci-Fi Channel (another place that I want to see my work featured in the future.) Lastly though, I see tons of funny cartoons, good laughs, great fun and lots of interesting fellow science fiction fans that I am going to meet along the way.

TB: Yes, as a matter of fact, I have done cartoons for several celebrities. This is one of the great things about doing my cartoons right now, getting to not only meet these celebrities, but do work for them as well. As a fan its very exciting and as a Sci-Fi cartoonist it's really good for me to be doing cartoons for science fiction personalities. The more personalities I can get to do cartoons with me, the more people will see my cartoons all over the country.

So far I've done a cartoon for Celeste Yarnall who played "Yeoman Landon" in the Classic Trek episode, "The Apple". I am also currently working on several others including one for Battlestar Galactica's very own Jack "Bojay" Stauffer, which can be seen in April on BattlestarGalactica.com if all goes well. I'm also working on rough ideas for Richard Leparmentier who played "Admiral Motti" in a little known movie called Star Wars, and lastly, Claudia Christian who played "Evaniva", from the Babylon 5 Universe. Again, I'm really enthusiastic about doing cartoons for Sci-Fi personalities and want to do many more. People really like them as well so I'm looking forward to see what lies ahead with my Sci-Fi celebrity cartoons.

TB: The funny thing about this question is that there aren't many artists in this field. Professionally speaking, I know of a handful of people who draw Sci-Fi cartoons and for the most part they're contributors to Starlog. I've seen a few others here and there, but that's it. In my opinion, they are all fantastic and creative individuals who live so far apart from each other that at this point it is impossible for any of us to step on each other's toes.

Two of the better cartoonists in my opinion are out in Australia, one of them is named Big Bad Bubba, believe it or not, and the other guy does the Star Trek cartoons. I've got a ton of respect for artists in general, but in my case, for anyone who tries to draw science fiction cartoons for a living, because right off the bat you know that you've got to be in it for the long haul. You've got to toil in obscurity for years and be tenacious in your ambition and drive to be recognized.

By the same token though, it's a good thing that there aren't many science fiction cartoonists. You can carve out or create the niche on Sci-Fi cartoons for yourself and you really won't have any competition, because the nearest guy who does these kinds of cartoons is probably hundreds if not thousands of miles away. So there is plenty of room for all of us and each of us has a style unique to his or her own self. I really am amazed at the toons my fellow Sci-Fi artists come up with, when they're funny, they're funny!

TB: The short answer to this question is perhaps the simplest one of all, Battlestar Galactica was one of my earliest science fiction impressions right up there with the original Star Trek and Star Wars. I saw Battlestar Galactica in the movie theaters a little after seeing Star wars and the two were just huge impressions on me at nine years old. I can honestly say that Battlestar Galactica has been and continues to be a huge influence on my life.

To a young child, the look, feel, and adventure of Battlestar Galactica were amazing, but more importantly, the show was also about human issues, struggles, hopes and dreams. And if I have anything to say about it, will soon be about those things again, once the right people realize that they really should resurrect Battlestar Galactica again.

This show has literally helped to inspire a generation of science fiction fans; to speak nothing of the effect the show has had on science fiction itself. To this day, Battlestar Galactica has a huge following and is far from forgotten. I myself owe a debt of gratitude to the show and all who took part in its creation, as I am who I am today with the help of shows like Battlestar Galactica. It shaped my young mind in amazing ways and left an impression that to this day still motivates me.

I am a huge Battlestar Galactica fan and am so happy to be taking a small part in it's universe by being able to work closely with some of it's staunchest advocates. Shawn O'Donnell's hard work in putting this interview and his Galactica web site bgresurrection.homepage.com together, Chris Feehan for using my cartoons on his Galactica site http://www.ifansci.com/battlestar/ and Michael Faries for all of his work along with Shawn on www.BattlestarGalactica.com, and of course Mr. Richard Hatch (www.RichardHatch.com) for being the shows biggest supporter and advocate.