Sam Spina: “Season 8 has a lot of good personal moments”
Regular Show storyboarder Sam Spina talked with this blog about his experience on working with the show’s final season. Also, he said there’s a chance to re-open the Regular Show’s Bad Art Contest and a super-secret project he’s working with.
How was the jump from being a waiter to storyboard on Regular Show?
It was a crazy jump! My wife and I moved across the country (I was in Atlanta) so I could work on Regular Show. It was a no-brainer decision though. Who wouldn't completely uproot their lives to live their dreams? Also, being a waiter was terrible.
What was the development of the last season like? You had quite interesting episodes you boarded with Benton Connor...
Benton is truly a master storyboarder, it was awesome getting to work with and learn from him. As far as the development goes, it was the same as any other season, we just got the premises from the writing team and fleshed out the scripts and drew the boards! We did have to deal with the over arching story for a lot of our episodes, so there was a little more to consider.
Continuing with season 8, what moments do you keep of this current season? (up to Christmas in Space)
Season 8 has a lot of good personal moments, I really liked working on the Christmas in Space episode. I did the theoretical mall story. I also love Recap Robot, he's the coolest new Regular Show character, ask anybody. But yeah, the end of Season 8 rules, I even got a few drawings in the very last episode. I can't wait for you all to see it.
Speaking of that, were you involved with the rocking bird?
Haha, nah, I think that was Ryan Pequin! He's really good at drawing birds, and some other stuff too I guess.
How did you come up with the Regular Show Bad Art Contest? How was that experience, which was very funny?
Ha, well, Regular Show was storyboarded on Post-it notes and I would go through TONS of them. Instead of throwing all of the mess ups away I started a pile of them and eventually started putting them in envelopes when I was done with the episode. I thought it would be fun to mail it to people! I would've loved to get a package like that when I was younger.
I wanted it to be a bad art contest because I want people to understand that drawing is fun no matter how 'good' you are. And the prize is a bunch of garbage drawings anyways! I haven't mailed out any of the Season 8 packages, I wonder if people would still submit if I brought it back. Sorry that I want to keep it within the USA, it's just so expensive to ship to other countries!
I saw the comic you posted today on spinadoodles and I want to know, if it's possible, what are you working on right now? I also saw you teamed with Owen Dennis, which is something interesting. Do you have any other projects you're also working with?
Me and Owen are currently on a new top secret show. I'm sure details of that will come out soon! I had a show in development at Nickelodeon for a few years called HOLE but it's been killed dead. Other than that I'm always drawing comics.
Thanks Sam for answering the questions, and you guys can follow him on @spinadoodles or @yeaboiiiii!
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