Let's start at the beginning. The title implies that your comic is about poop first, a boy with no feet second. Yet clearly the boy with no feet is the subject, while poop is often present simply as a mess in a box. What is the role of poop in your work, and why is it given higher billing than the (perceived) subject of the comics?

i get that one a lot.

the true hero of the comics is the ubiquitous box of crap. the footless protagonist, while thematically more prominent, is merely a vehicle through which the poop makes itself known.

five: a comic about poop, and a boy with no feet. issue i : a morality play Visit five to see more comics.

the comic is narrated as if the reader knows what is going on at all times: as if they are aware of what "the thing" is, where "the place" is, and why the boy has no feet. it is naught but purposeful obfuscation. this same obscuring of reality is what confuses most readers into thinking that the comic is about the boy.

there is no real meaning to be derived from anything - more often than not it is intended to make no sense whatsoever - yet the goings-on of the comic are placed in such a sequence that they begin to seem rational when viewed in context with one another.

actually...that was a complete lie. i just thought it flowed better than "a comic about a boy with no feet, and poop".

Your email address comes with the header "footless protagonist." Are we to assume that you see yourself as the footless protagonist?

the comic is written in the first person, but it was never intended to be about me. with exception to the issue 'an epistle', none of the comics related to anything that was going on in my real life. that particular issue (though purely metaphorical) was the obligatory why-the-fuck-did-that-girl-do-that-shit-to-me comic.

i loathe those kinds of comics.

My email lists me as the footless protagonist simply because it comes from a fivecomix address: it seemed appropriate. i've never let onto the notion that i may actually have a real name, or that i even have a gender. i never sign the comics. i didn't want there to be any real association with the whole comic atmosphere and a actual human that was behind it. of course, that pretty much went out the window when i started doing the news updates which tend to talk about nothing BUT me, but i've never thought this thing out all that much.

Why is the footless protagonist footless? To suggest helplessness? Awkwardness? To heighten the sense that your protagonist is an outcast?

the footless protagonist's lack of feet are probably the one theme that has gotten more criticism and had more theories conjured than anything else. i had an honest-to-god amputee send me an email telling me that i was going to burn in hell because i was making fun of his condition. i also had someone tell me that they were profoundly affected by his lack of feet as a symbol of the crippling weight of the human condition, and man's struggle to lumber on to better days.

he doesn't have feet because when i started drawing the comic i didn't know how to draw feet. so i gave him stubs. sad, really.

What is the significance of poop in your comics?

the poop is symbolic of poop. seriously. it's mostly there for shock value.

Your answers lead to perhaps where I should have started: why? Why a footless protagonist, and a box of poop?

this is where it gets disappointing.

the only reason i began writing this comic was to one-up another crap rag that had been circulating around town. about 5 years ago my best friend gave me an eight page comic called "deep south" that he'd found at a club. it was all about siamese midgets smoking bongs through their vaginas, and people addicted to porn. it was repulsive. long story short i said, "i can do this."

so, i just tried to think of the most retarded things i possibly could. i was reading a lot of edward gorey at the time which accounts for the terse narration.

not long after that, i traveled out of state to go to college where i learned that people were willing to trade me things for the comics. being the lazy drunkard i was, i drew more and more of them, and by my last semester there i was getting a six pack of beer for a series of six little comics. it was beautiful.

The footless protagonist is five when these comics take place, but is narrating these stories as if looking back on childhood. From what perspective is the footless protagonist looking back on his (?) life?

the time sequence in the comics was designed to be entirely impossible. the footless protagonist is perpetually five, and every day is tuesday. he never ages. things happen but time never passes, and it is presented as if this is totally normal. it was a motif developed in the first issue when on a tuesday "it rained for three months in the same spot".

it's really quite pathetic how the whole thing got blown so out of proportion. boxes of poop which serve simply because i couldn't draw feet.

Why were/are you so concerned with keeping your human identity secret? Is it so people don't believe the comics are about you? Or the opposite? Or a third reason?

a single-letter name was something that i had adopted for myself (for any number of equally absurd reasons) a long time ago, but i think it somehow adds to the mystique of the comic's setting.

never knowing what's going on, never knowing why those things are happening, and never being able to trace it back to a creator with a first and last name. it makes it all the more intangible.

Editor's Note: There are more comics and more insight into e's character on his site. Please visit it.