Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, HRL, kickstarter

A Drinking, Dancing Pig Explores His Weird World In 'Hamfam', Now On Kickstarter

By Adam Hammour, in conversation with Adam Hammour:

How the hell did you come up with some of that?

That might be what a lot of people think when I explain to them some of the stories, characters, and settings for Hamfam.

Inspiration and creativity can come from some really strange, random, and maybe even mediocre places. A passing comment or unexpected call could turn into a 12-series character arc, in three wags of a pig's tail!

First off – what is a Hamfam?

Well, Hamfam is fundamentally an in-development comic series that you can read more about at www.hamfam.co.uk. You can also follow our Facebook and Twitter pages @notorioushamfam.

In essence, it's about a humanoid pig, with eyes in his nose that loves to party, drink, dance, and generally go wild! But Hamfam is more than a pig, and more than a place — it's a way of life!

And so, I suppose at its most basic, Hamfam — like a lot of creative output — is an amalgamation of the many aspects of the author's (my) personality, as well as a means to communicate specific values and interpretations of the World.

A high-ranking general within a dystopian media society (I work as motion graphics designer within the TV industry), that runs an underground deviant underbelly of misfits secretly. (Once the weekend hits, will be getting up to some form of trouble either hitting the clubs or chilling in the local shisha bars.)

But a spark can be even more mundane than that, and that's the most interesting part about the randomness of creativity — yet also how it can lead to a whole load of insane and surreal stories.

https://vimeo.com/230216077

What REALLY inspired Hamfam?

Quite basically, about 20 years ago when my real-life family were ready to jump into the exciting and potentially dark world of the internet — my Mum came up with our username, which was quite simply based around our family name 'Hammour' — thus the name 'Hamfam'.

I continued to use this username on internet for forums and chatrooms, mainly out of laziness. The forums were mainly computer game and '80s/'90s animation based. Over time, Hamfam sat within a community of people that love vast gaming worlds and crazy animations, quickly evolving into a quirky, annoying, witty, and mischievous pig.

So where did it go from there?

From that, the Hamfam World just expanded. With inspiration for location, friends, adventures — all being similarly sparked by avatars and groups within the internet community. As well as, of course, eventually taking even more mundane, yet obviously exaggerated inspiration from real life. A unique username sat at the top of an empty mIRC channel could become almost anything, most notably:

• A Reindeer with large hands for antlers, that has the personality and power of Caligula
• A weed like plant that wraps itself about giant boulders, that abuses their power & authority
• Giant God-like demons that use magical (yet nano-technology based) power to vaporize those that don't follow their rules
• Rabbits with elephant trunks that obsess over money and tokens
• A time-traveling race of creatures from another planet that allows Hamfam to leave messages for himself in the past

All of which have their own sometimes interesting, often even mundane backstories! But maybe all those can wait to be revealed another time.

In the comments section, I'd love to hear where some of the inspiration for any stories or characters you've come up with has come from. Or even which ways current aspects of your life could come to life in the form of a comic or animation. So share away!

A kickstarter for Hamfam, where you can pre-order a digital copy of issue no. 1, can also be found here.

Oh, and once last thing. Why — going back to Hamfam himself — does he have eyes in his nose?

I just thought it'd look cool.

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