At Fan Expo Boston 2025, web comic creator Brion Folke not only met fans, but also held a show. Sitting at the table, he silently lifted a card that reads “Hello” before revealing more about flipside in his longtime cartoon-inspired fantasy series. The simple trick wasn’t a playful icebreaker. It was a strategy that was inevitably born.
“When I lost my voice, I actually came up with it,” explained Fauk. “It worked so well. I kept doing it. It attracted people’s attention without screaming, saved my voice, and it’s fun. You have to do whatever you can, especially now, when webcomics aren’t as common and customary as the 2000s.”
First published online in the early 2000s, Flipside follows Maytag, the clown of split personality, and Bernadette, her knight’s guardian. Foulke deliberately contrasts Maytag as the speaker and Maytag as Bernadette as fighter jets, ensuring that both ensure a meaningful role in the story.
“The most important thing is not to get bored. Do something different, even if everyone else is doing it,” he said.
That philosophy drives his avoidance of the traditional good evil story. Instead, flipside thrives in a moral grey zone.
“Good and evil are subjective,” Foulke said. “I’m trying to make the character’s actions meaningful from my perspective. For a long-term story, depth and realism keep things interesting.”
His core storytelling approach remains the same, but Foulke’s art from over 12 volumes has grown with more confidence. However, changing genre trends has sparked new angles, such as unconventional take on classically heroic characters.
On Flipside, magic is not a mysterious power than everyday usefulness, but a functional part of life in his world. Deeperful mysteries exist in the background, but most characters take magic for granted. “It’s a useful tool for them,” he said.
“Frankly, I don’t think magic really needs to feel mystical. In fact, it’s purely thought in terms of form and function. But there’s a particular revelation within the story that touches on the overall mystery of what magic is and where it came from. Foule says, “I certainly have a mystery in my story, but it exists alongside the general magical society where people often take for granted.
Equally distinctive is what Flipside excluded. There are no elves, dragons or familiar fantasy races. “These things are overdone,” Fauk said. “Fantasy can do anything you imagine. The Tolkien style world has become so familiar and mundane.”
Despite the range of the series and its unique approach, Foulke maintains its Monday-ordered Sunday-Friday update schedule.
“Comics is a tough job,” he said clearly. “You don’t get around that. The most important thing is to have a good work ethic and love what you do.”
Fulke continues to prove that there is still room for something truly different, both in the crowded convention hall and the vast world of online comics, if you want to work and make it memorable.
