You don't want to miss our artist of the day's interview, because he's been working with chickens for six clucking years now and that's clucking impressive (and a little obstinate too). Ladies, gentlemen, Chicken Little, I give you Doug Savage.

Hey Doug, we're glad to have you back, so, are you still into chickens?
Yes! I'm still drawing mostly chickens! But I have been branching out lately, into cows and pigs and dogs. And drunken llamas, of course.


Doesn't PETA cause you troubles, because you're always making fun of such lovely, but useless, animals?
Heheh yeah I haven't heard from them yet! But I do keep hearing from chicken farmers who say that my chickens are very much like the real thing. So maybe I'm unintentionally portraying chickens accurately. Who knew? I suppose they are inherently goofy-looking birds.

Is your job as an artist enough to pay the bills?
It's starting to pay a good percentage of the bills, but I still have a day job too. Working as an artist is always tough because it's so unpredictable. But I can now more easily imagine a time when this will be my full-time gig.

Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to raise real chickens and sell their eggs?
Maybe! And Vancouver recently changed the local bylaws to allow people to raise chickens in the city, so it's an option now. And I could train them to write their own jokes. Not sure if I could handle the smell though.

What are your projects?
The big thing that I've been working on these days is my book, which was just published by Perigee Books, an imprint of Penguin USA. It's called Savage Chickens: A Survival Kit for Life in the Coop, and it's a collection of work-related cartoons and activities to help you make it through the workday. It was so much fun to work on, I can't wait to do another book! Then there's the daily cartoon, of course. And I'm looking into painting and new animation projects too.

How doyou feel being one of the few lucky artists to get featured twice on FML?
It is a great honor! And to do it with a vomiting llama makes it even more special!

Do you think Shakespeare would have been proud of you?
I hope so! Shakespeare was amazing at being highbrow and lowbrow at the same time. He could say something insightful about the human condition in one line and then follow it up with a goofy pun in the next line, so everybody ended up enjoying his work. He's definitely a role model for me; I try to include a little something for everybody in my cartoons.

You did include a huge something for all FML readers. And I'm not being pervert, I'm talking about the laugh you gave us with your vomiting lama. What, you haven't see it yet?

CLUCK HERE TO SEE THE ILLUSTRATED FML

You only need to visit Doug Savage's if you want to have a good laugh (and some tips on how to draw farm animals without buying the useless but modern "Art Academy" on Nintendo DS): http://www.savagechickens.com/ 

If you want to be the next published artist, send me an email to alice [at] fmylife.com including a link to your website/blog/DA. But DON'T send your illustration right away! You need first to get in touch with me, and I'll tell you what you have to do!