Today we’d like to introduce you to Pops And Isabelle Gifford.
Hi Pops and Isabelle, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
While on a walk in Oregon, Pops and I found ourselves reminiscing about some of our family’s funniest stories. I had already started writing them down and had built quite a collection when I asked him, “If you could have done anything in life, what would you have chosen?” He said he would’ve drawn comic strips. I had always wanted to, too, but never felt I was creative enough. We didn’t know this about each other! I said we should try, and that our worst-case scenario was that we made great memories together, and our best-case scenario was out of this world. Pops started sketching, and I started figuring out how to make it digital. Since then, we’ve made over 100 mini animations, we have about 1,300 ideas written down, 12–15 animations in the works, and part of one of his kids’ books done.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It took us several years to get started. I think we both needed to build up our confidence that it didn’t matter what others thought, or what we actually put out, as long as we had a good time making it. We also tried being restrictive, but we realized we didn’t just want to make one kind of comic — we wanted to make whatever we were in the mood for. Now that we have a collection, we can see how it fits us both. The other struggle has been marketing, merch, and getting it out there. I’ve been so focused on doing the animations and adding all the little details to them that I haven’t figured out the rest. We would love to meet local merchants who’d be interested in carrying our shirts, and we’re so grateful for this — our first interview to get us out there!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We make mini animations. Pops comes up with an idea and draws it out. We do some minor editing, and then we create our voiceovers, which is probably our favorite part of it all, as we spend so much time laughing about it. I piece it together by animating it and adding in additional sound effects and music. We don’t really storyboard like others do — I start with some basic ideas, and then we add where we think something is missing. We also do 15-minute challenges, where we find a random topic to draw, new to both of us, and we each spend 15 minutes drawing it out. We also have a number of other ideas for series and books, but this is where we’ve started.
What were you like growing up?
Pops was clever, crafty, feisty, and—when the moment called for it—delightfully petty. It was always comical. We really need to turn some of his childhood stories into comics or convince someone to make a show out of them. He also loved art. I was shy, goofy, and awkward. I wanted to make people laugh, but I didn’t want anyone looking at me while I did it.
We both grew up loving Saturday-morning cartoons. His favorites were Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, and Superman; mine were Tex Avery, Looney Tunes, and The Simpsons. We even found a drawing of The Simpsons that I made when I was five, back in ‘91. During our walks, we discovered that we had both spent our childhoods copying cartoon characters and imagining our own comic strips—without ever knowing the other had done the same. He drew The Flintstones and Snoopy; I drew Snoopy and characters from Jon Scieszka’s books.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/achysides?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093402319646
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@achysides?si=_JWppvjcN9r09n47
- Other: https://achy-sides-productions.printify.me
