We’ve all seen interviews with nullos and videos of guys with shards of glass in their anus (I’m not going to bother linking that) - those things are fucking horrible but not really that creative, they’re just sex things. It’s the way God made those people, they’re just doing what comes naturally.

But what about when people just do stuff to wind people up? Stuff that’s just gratuitous, childish and willfully obnoxious. That’s where it’s not just your dick telling you what to do, it’s when you’ve got to think about the best way you can upset people with just your ‘being a dick’ skills alone.

The guy who runs the online comic Electric Retard (which has been around for a while if you’re a total internet guy - I know, I know) has those skills in spades. He is funny as shit and he’s even been banned in Germany. His comics are basically MS Paint versions of the worst things that could ever happen, like giant Hitlers fucking grandmas and stabbing frozen shit into people. They are laugh-out-loud hilarious, each strip starts out with a boring, normal situation and that situation gets completely ruined by something really, truly awful, which is pretty funny.

I spoke to him because I think he’s funny. His name is Eric and he’s an American (and he’s not a Nazi, he’s just a dick).

Hello Eric, How did you make these great comic strips?
I draw them with MS Paint. I don’t use a tablet or anything, just a mouse. I have never tried to make a masterpiece out of my comics, unlike some other people who are like Picasso with MS Paint. In fact, I have always intentionally tried to make them look very childish looking. As long as you can recognize a shit as a shit, a rapist as a rapist and a massive Hitler cock splitting open a grandma as a massive Hitler cock splitting open a grandma, then my job is done.

The only thing I pay particular attention to in the drawings are bodily fluids. I always try to make them look as realistic as possible within the confines of MS Paint. That way, a little girl getting her vagina cleaved open with a fire axe looks especially authentic. To be frank, I really enjoy drawing blood and gore. I work as a graphics designer for a games company I co-founded and the same amount of attention goes into my gore in the games as the comics do.

What inspired you to be so unpleasant?
For me it wasn’t exactly a case of being unpleasant. There is the shock value, of course, but for people like me, shock directly converts to massive amounts of hilarity. A lot of people have accused me over the years of just trying to be shocking, edgy or offensive, but that is just the cherry on top. I find the stuff that goes on in the comics absolutely hilarious. It makes me laugh. It makes a lot of other people laugh, and I suppose if you don’t think it’s funny then the least I can do is try and offend you. That way, everyone gets something out of the comic. If you don’t like my comics, then fuck you.

Where did you get your ideas from?
I usually begin drawing a comic without any particular ending or joke in mind. I simply start off with a few frames depicting everyday, suburban life. Once I have that done, I ask myself, “What would be the most fucked up thing possible to happen in this situation?” and usually it doesn’t take very long to think of something. The fact that I start the comics without a joke planned for the end makes them seem especially random, and if when I am finished with the completed comic the comic makes me laugh, then I put it up. I’ve made a lot of comics that I’ve either never published or taken down after a day or two simply for the fact that I didn’t think they were funny.

Do you get a lot of hatemail?
Surprisingly no, most of the mail I get is fan mail. Although I have received some pretty hilarious hatemail in the past. The best hatemail I ever got was from the German government, who demanded that I either take down the comics or add an age verification system. Obviously, I didn’t do a fucking thing, so now the comic is banned in Germany and I will never be able to visit that country. The felonies I have apparently committed according to German law carry a minimum five year sentence, so fuck you German cunts and die.

I’m not a psychologist but I reckon if you met one they’d say you were acting up or acting out or whatever, did you have a hard time getting along with kids when you were at school?
I was nearly expelled from one school for causing so much trouble, but my parents chose to remove me anyway and put me into another school. I did a lot of nasty shit. At school camp I walked around at night time and took a shit on other people’s tents, abandoned the camp and ran to the nearby road to moon people driving by and pretty much acted like a huge cock. I got sent home a few days early and my parents killed me. I also sent mass emails of goats to the entire school, hacked into the network and changed all the printers around to different rooms and once crashed the entire school network. Considering all the shit I did, I’m lucky I didn’t get expelled, but I could get by by throwing around that, “I have ADHD” excuse that people buy so easily.

Actually, that was just the first school. In the second school I sent bomb threats to my teachers and smeared shit all over the bathrooms regularly. I remember one time there was a competition to make an epilepsy support website design in computer class, so I just made it an animated gif of flashing black and white that said EPILEPSY in big letters. I think that was my first ever meme to have any success on the net.

My parents took me out of that school and put me in a special school where I pretty much slept all day and smoked weed. I didn’t really get up to much trouble in those days aside from drawing giant pentagrams all over school property and trying to fuck as many depressed and vulnerable goth chicks as possible.

Pretty much the entire time I was in school I was drawing pictures of people getting raped and killed and then passing them to other people in class just to see their reaction. I had to see the school counselor a few times because of this and they didn’t hesitate to call my parents.

Since then I have dropped out of three universities. I am never going to an educational institution again.

I haven’t really had too many people I would consider friends during my life. Almost everyone I know has hated me since I was a kid, even my parents. I got my social pleasure from fucking with people and being a cock, and that’s still how I get my social interaction to this day. It’s kind of like saying, “You hate me so I am your friend.” Other people’s contempt of me has always made me feel validation as a person. If people genuinely like me, I tend to ignore it for some reason. I realized a long time ago that I was probably really fucked up in other people’s minds, but it doesn’t bother me because I’ve always pretty much considered people no better than animals.

I suppose you could say that I am a nihilist. A lot of people tend to associate nihilism with desperation and negativity, but for me, nihilism represents the ultimate in spiritual freedom, which is why I can make comics about children being raped and not feel bad about it one bit.

Who are your favourite comic book artists?
My favorite artist is Mike Diana. I don’t like many other comics. To be perfectly frank I think most web comics suck ass. The only one I still read is Penny Arcade. I think it’s funny because I am a pretty huge gamer (although I barely ever talk to people about games) and actually understand the comics. I don’t need to read Tycho’s retarded explanations that accompany every one of them.

My comics aren’t like that. If you can’t appreciate the humor of a guy stabbing another guy with a frozen shit and then fucking the wound, then you are trying too hard to think that you are “grown up.” Growing up doesn’t take effort, it just happens as you get more experienced with life, and that doesn’t necessarily stop frozen shit rape from being funny.

I totally agree. Thanks Eric!

And here’s one of his strips, in full, to finish. Enjoy!

SIMULTANEOUSLY POSTED ON STREET CARNAGE.