MEET SQUANCH: ALEC ROBBINS (AKA MR BOOP)

Hey Squanchies,
It’s that time again! Wait, what time you ask? Time for another Meet Squanch installment! And if you don’t know what Meet Squanch is, that’s too bad for you. Maybe you should read our blog more…

Anyway, let’s talk about Alec Robbins! Squanch’s designated head writer, spouse to Betty Boop, book lover, comedy veteran, and begrudging hiker.

Read on to learn more about Alec!

Alec Robbins, Head Writer

What do you do at Squanch?

I’m the head writer - I figure out what all the little guys on your screen are going to shout at you. Justin has such a strong, well-known comedic voice and writing at Squanch is all about making sure that voice comes through and shines as bright as it can. All of our games have such fantastic lineups of big, memorable, funny characters and it's my job to wrangle them all into a cohesive story and help marry our innovative gameplay to an equally-innovative narrative. So, remember: when one of our little guys screams "Hey, you just shot me in the dick!" - I wrote it, and it was actually very smart.

What got you into the gaming industry?

I've been a lifelong fan of the games industry and I was making my own games as early as middle school via RPGMaker 95 and my TI-83 calculator, but I took the long route to getting here! Instead, I followed my other true love, comedy, and found myself in the TV industry. While working on funny TV shows, I squirreled away as much of my free time as possible to make my own bite-sized indie games like an unsanctioned Malcolm in the Middle Simulator (literally keep Malcolm in the middle of his two brothers as you walk down the sidewalk) or Heartbreak High (a reverse-dating simulator where you have to break up with everyone in school.) Comedy and video games have turned out to be two of the biggest throughlines in my life, so when the chance to join Squanch came up it felt like the perfect match.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Okay, I don't really remember "wanting" to be a writer, I just remember realizing I was already writing all the time for free and that other people out there were getting paid to do it. If you search hard enough online, you might even be able to find some old Neopets fanfiction I wrote when I was 10. They published it on their site so I think I’m owed some back pay now that I’m an adult and have to make rent each month.

That said, writing for video games has always been a very specific interest of mine: as an interactive medium, I've always felt it had way more potential for storytelling than, say, film. That’s not a knock against cinema, but when’s the last time a movie made you sit patiently in the back of a truck in Afghanistan for 15 excruciating minutes listening to a guy named “Skullface” monologue at you about how he wants to infect the world with a deadly virus that kills anyone who speaks English?

Have you always written comedy?

Basically! I started doing stand-up and improv in college, and then maybe five or six years after that I actually started to get good at stand-up and improv. Since then mostly everything I do would probably qualify as "comedy" even though I don't necessarily see what everyone finds so funny about my 200-page comic strip where I pretend to be married to Betty Boop.

Who is your favorite author?

Oh, okay, serious answer time. Ursula K. Le Guin or Taiyo Matsumoto. Le Guin has written all of the best sci-fi I've ever read - she's such a master at scoping out these fully-realized alien societies with intricate politics and complicated characters... stuff like The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness get my highest recommendations. And Matsumoto writes and draws these beautifully personal stories in his manga like Sunny (about abandoned children at a foster home in 1970s Japan) or Ping Pong, which is almost daring you to wonder how a comic about competitive high school ping pong nerds can be so incredibly moving. But neither of those authors are particularly funny! Shame on them!! So... comedy-wise, Douglas Adams definitely shaped my sense of humor as a child. There's a book-long gag in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency involving a couch and a stairway with an insane payoff that I don't think anyone in my lifetime will ever be able to top.

What’s one of the coolest projects you’ve worked on in your career?

Working in TV I've been really lucky to work on some of the weirdest alternative comedy shows on the air, like Comedy Bang! Bang!, On Cinema, and The Dress Up Gang. I Think You Should Leave is probably my personal favorite of any show I've had a part in, but The Eric Andre Show put me on TV in a gimp suit whipping Grimes while she gets cheese poured on her head so that's gotta be the number one.

Can you tell us about your Mr Boop comic strip?

Mr. Boop was a daily comic strip I made through most of 2020. It's about my marriage to cartoon legend Betty Boop. It is NOT safe for work, unless you really want to show your boss a drawing I made of Mickey Mouse's erection. I think the comic speaks for itself.

Where can people read Mr Boop for themselves?

You can read it all at mrboop.net or on my Twitter - there's some videos and a point-and-click game that go along with the story, so it's a bit of a multimedia experience. It's also available in book form!

If Trover came to Earth to hang out with you for one day, what would you do together?

Wow, what an honor. Listen, I'd let him lead the charge. I don't do much. I mean, I could show him what it's like to scroll Twitter or draw Betty Boop naked, if he's into that. Any time a friend visits me from out of town, they're always like "Let's go on a hike!" or "Alec, I've asked you if you want to go on a hike three times now. Don't make me go on a hike alone." So maybe Trover will be like that. I'll begrudgingly go on a hike with him.

Anything else you’d like to share with us?
No