Every issue of BOI Magazine we are lucky to have a great comic strip called Adam & Andy. Adam & Andy is the amazing work of a great guy named James Asal from the East Coast. With a full line of Adam & Andy collectables, such as calendars, coffee mugs, Tee-shirts and paperback books, James still has time for his life partner, his dog, his friends and a full time job. I was lucky enough to get some time from James to do this interview to find out just what motivated him to do this comic strip about a gay couple. Here is what he had to say.

James, have you always been able to draw?
Every Christmas list I ever left for Santa included "Paper and Pens" usually at the top. From a very early age, I found great satisfaction in bringing my ideas to life on paper. I was encouraged to draw by my family, teachers and friends. If there was a note with a doodle on it on the floor after class, it was a pretty good bet that I'd had my pen on it at some point. Drawing became a freedom from the pressures of the world of my youth, drawing, Comics and Sit-com TV. Without Wonder Woman, Dick Tracy, Lucy, Viv and Samantha Stevens the 60's and 70's would have been unbearable.

Were you like one of those great art students?
I was like one of those art students that quietly and carefully explored their own interests and abilities. Pencils and Pens were always my preferred medium. Art lessons learned: Adam & Andy was published IN COLOR for 52 weeks. It took that long for me to discover that I was not a talented colorist and should just stick to what I knew, Black and White, Pen and Ink on Paper. As an Artist I am always learning.

What made you decide to do a gay comic strip?
I wanted to draw sexy men and create comics that reflected my ideas and experiences. For years I had been creating comic characters in all sorts of stories. "Manroot- Superhero with bulging muscles and a muscular bulge", "Mrs. Duggins and the Great Library Crime", "Herda Gunschotz", "Hag Fag and the Dancing Queen" and "Major Helmet" to name a few. The characters are limited only by my imagination. My heroes were always comic strip or comic book artists. The genre hooked me from the first read. Expressing ideas and thoughts in a panel of comic art takes a lot of work. I like the challenge. And it's fun to create my own little world and populate it with people who say and do whatever I want them to.

What about your website?
adamandandy.com is the online home of the latest adventures "Adam & Andy" and "Zuma's Diner," plus archived strips and backgrounds of the characters. Readers can subscribe to e-delivery of each new episode of both comics as they are published, and purchase a copy of the trade paperback direct from me through a link on the home page. There is also a regularly updated personal Blog, contact info, and a page of web links to interviews and articles about my work, and other comic sites of interest. I maintain the Adam & Andy dot com site myself and it, like the comic strip series, is always evolving.

What else do you want our readers to know?
For anyone out there who feels they don't have a voice or anyone who thinks that their opinion doesn't matter, their vote doesn't count, or they have nothing to contribute... It's not true. There's just no good reason not to go after your own dream, make some noise. The payoff is priceless. Life isn't always fun, sometimes you have to create your own.