I came across Michael Grover’s work through Super Punch, a website I frequent that shares fun and interesting things. It recommended the short webcomic, Hamburglar Goes To Hell.
It’s wonderfully creative and ridiculous. Everything you could hope for with that title. Michael’s webcomics are lightly animated along with a soundtrack that changes as you read. Pretty cool stuff.
I then tore through Deeply Dave. Sounds like I’m not the only one that loved it. Deeply Dave was nominated for an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award, and will be published as a graphic novel by Henry Holt (Macmillan) in 2025.
Michael lives with his wife and 4 kids and wants to make a lot of comics before he dies. Sounds good to me. He’s not on social media though so if you want to keep up with his work be sure to subscribe to his newsletter.
What was the book/comic that you fell in love with when you were a kid/teen?
Newspaper comics sucked me in as a kid. Specifically Peanuts. But I read ’em all. Getting the morning paper from the driveway to read the comics was such an ingrained habit that I tried to do it in my sleep once. Seriously. I was 10 years old and it was late at night and my dad heard the front door open and close. Alarmed, he went to investigate, and saw me sleepwalk back into the house. Still asleep (and empty-handed), I explained to him that I was, “getting the paper.”
What is your favorite part/step of the process?
When it’s done! Nothing beats the endorphin rush of finishing something substantial and sending it out into the world.
When I was an animation student I made a 40-page comic zine to hand out at a networking event in California. 40 pages was way too long and getting it done in time was a nightmare. I was slammed with college coursework, a job, and a newborn baby. I would pull late nights in a campus computer lab with a friend who was also making a comic for the event. We finally finished our zines and got them printed on the morning we were planning to drive to California. Despite the sleep deprivation, I remember feeling super energized and happy as I walked back from the copy center with a big stack of comics, still warm from the printer, ready to get in a car and drive for 10 hours. At that point it barely even mattered if the comics helped with my networking attempts…which is good, because they mostly did not help, haha. I get that same feeling of triumph now whenever I finish a big project.
If you had a genie to promote your work in any way, what would that look like?
Billboards. I want to see a billboard with my characters on it. But I can probably do better than that with a genie. How about this: a 200-foot tall cartoon wolf crashing the Super Bowl halftime show and howling “GROVERTOONS.COM” over and over.
You can find Michael and his work at:
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