Tickle Artists #5: Interview with TheBandito

1) Do you want to tell us something about yourself and your art?

Hi, I’m TheBandito. I love creating artwork for this community! After drawing tickle artwork for as long as I can remember, and sharing it with this community for almost 20 years. I particularly love creating unique original characters and new universes.

2) What techniques do you use to draw? Do you have a favorite artist that inspires you?

Well, my style is more exaggerated than most. With a background in digital animation, I have always enjoyed incorporating animation ideas and techniques into my art. I like creating artwork that looks like it is moving. I used to create all my work by hand on 14 x 17 bristol with lead, and ultimately rapidograph technical pens. Then I would scan the inks and color them in Adore Photoshop. Finishing it in Adobe Illustrator for the lettering. Now, I use a Wacom Cintiq Pro and create the whole comic in Photoshop.

As for favorite artists…I have too many to mention. I tend to value artists that also create or bring to life original characters. Our genre deserves it’s own iconic characters: Like Yenny, Yoly, Lexi, Maggs, and so many more! The artists and writers that have brought us those legends have earned my eternal respect. I understand the allure to just drawing mainstream characters in a ticklish scenario…or creating nameless and generic characters without much soul to them. But those comics and artists tend to resonate less with me. Story matters as much to me as artistic skill.

It has also been such a great honor to be able to work with folks like Churin, Ponce, Rearte, Bordon, Bazan, Franco, Rocio, Ozzy, Vargas, Darkharp, Scavenger, Josh Flynn, Fantasy Play, Mandell, Doc Random and so many more in our little genre. I could not possibly pick a favorite. They all shine in their own beautiful light. Each of them is special in their own way.

3) How much was the passion for drawing born in you? And the one for the tickle?

I have been interested in both for as long as I can remember. :o)

4) I know you’re both a screenwriter and a comic artist. Which of the two roles do you prefer?

BOTH. Ha ha ha. I think they both inform each other. I think I have done every job there is in the tickle comic world. I have been a writer, an art director, a penciler, an inker, a colorist, a letterist, a financier, a publisher, and an avid consumer. I am not the best in the world at any of those things. But I have had so much fun and had the chance to work with so many talented folks.

I think that creating my own art makes me a little better at writing scripts for others. And I think directing the process with talents like Churin, Ponce, Ozzy, and so many others…it has forced me to challenge my own art and to improve there as well.

5) What are the aspects of tickling that you intend to represent with your art? Example: the laughing, the wriggling, the relationship between tickler and ticklee?

All of the above for sure. I love depicting the more erotic elements of tickling. And the transformative aspects of pleasure (sometimes with over use of metaphor…sometimes more subtly). I love the push and pull of tickling. The nuance. The desire to resist those sensations and our inability to do so. The intoxicating quality of laughter, pleasure, connection, pleasure, pain.

I love the physicality of tickling. The blushing of the skin. The hysteria of frenzied laughter. The bucking, wiggling, jiggling, and thrusting. The hard nipples (which I exaggerate to the nth degree). And that eruptive climax of repressed sensuality.

All. Of. The. Above.

6) Can you tell us about the process of making up a tickle comic story? Are there any requests to follow or do you follow your own preferences?

Most of my comics and series start out as a fantasy in my head. Some of them grow and find their way to the page. My amazing publisher, creative partner, and dear friend Morandilas has been instrumental in that process. We talk often. And bouncing ideas off of him, and hearing his creative ideas in return has shaped many tickling universes in my collection.

And yeah...I always love hearing from readers, supporters, and fans. My Patreon page is abuzz with fan feedback and I truly value it. I always love their input and it shapes what I do.

7) In your opinion, what makes tickling so interesting for fans of this phenomenon?

I wish I knew. Bottom line is that tickling hits most of us in a primal way. We rationalize that feeling in 1,000 different ways. Which is fine. But at the end of the day I believe it is just an inscrutable inexplicable deep feeling. Urge. Need. Passion. I don’t know if it requires more definition than that for me personally.

8) What are your works for MTJ Publishing of which you are most proud?

Honestly, all of them. Some of them are more present to me right now. Pepper Parker, Kyu, Joey Lynx, Val, Trish, and Larceny are all series that are very dominant right now.

But the Bounce Chix, Tickling in Space crew, Foul Play girls, Thompson Corporation babes…like all of them…literally all of them are special to me. And they will always be important to me. My hope is that one of the many series that I have had the honor of being involved with resonates with you. Because if you all love this genre the way that I do…then I encourage you to embark on a long, loving search for your own favorites.

9) Do you have any particular artistic goals for the future?

To keep doing what I love. I will let these characters and my passion for them write the future. As they have written the last 20 years.

10) Do you think AIs will end up enriching or impoverishing the art of tickling representations?

AI is a tool. I remember when poser programs first hit the tickling scene and a bunch of folks celebrated a new era, while another group worried that poser programs would ruin the genre. Neither of those happened. Because programs are a tool. AI is only a tool.

It can be a tool that is wielded masterfully. Or it can be a tool that folks use to cut corners and make shoddy work. I will always judge artwork based on its merits. Not the tools used to create it.

I personally have no interest in using AI. But that’s because I LOOOOOOOOVE creating this stuff. I put my whole spirit into it. Why would I let AI have most of the fun? As long as it doesn’t become sentient and create the rise of the tickle machines…I am good with AI.

Hey – that sounds like a good idea for a new tickling comic series. Ha ha ha.

Keep tickling, gang.

-Bandito

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