If you have watched anime in the last 15 years, you know Sonny Strait's voice.







Bringing characters such as Krillin, Usopp, Maes Hughes and Lupin III to life, Strait also voiced TOM during Toonami's original run. Strait also creates comics including the fan-favorite “We Shadows” and contributions to the acclaimed “Elfquest.”







Strait is a guest of honor at The Sangawa Project, Dec. 4-6, at the Double Tree by Hilton in Greentree.







The Swerve Magazine: What first attracted you to voice acting?









Sonny Strait: I was a theater major in college. I planned on being theater professor. I was also working on comics, and I got a short comic story published. I dropped out of college and focused on comics for several years, and kind of gave up on acting. Then I started doing some theater just for fun, and Funimation moved to Texas, and had open auditions for “Dragon Ball Z.” I thought I'd give it a shot, and I got the part of Krillin. That was still a part-time job because, at the time, Krillin was dying quite a bit.





Cartoon Network liked what I did with Krillin and asked me to audition for Toonami TOM, and once I got Toonami TOM, I realized I had stumbled onto a career.







SM: You have been doing Krillin over the years with video games and “DBZ Kai,” but this summer was “Resurrection 'F.'” What did you think of how Krillin was handled in that?







SS: I thought that was amazing. I always said that Krillin should have been the one to go off, put on a superhero costume and leave the Z Fighters alone. He should just hang out in a city like Batman, and he would be worshiped as a god! Being a cop is pretty good too.







SM: That was a very fitting job for him because he's not going to get overpowered.







SS: Oh yeah, he's going to be king cop. I'm surprised he's just running a beat, he should be running the police department.







SM: You also mentioned Toonami TOM, which you just got to revisit with “Intruder.” What was it like coming back to him?







SS: It was really fun, but so many things that we do, we have to sign non-disclosure agreements. This was one that was really killing me, and I couldn't say anything because I signed a 10-page non-disclosure agreement. Originally, they wanted me to do it in early Summer, and they it kept getting postponed and postponed, I'm like, “Oh my god, I can't tell anyone about this?!” So I was very relieved this weekend when I could tell people about it.







It was so cool to return to Toonami at all, but in such a cool way as the villain that destroyed him. It blew me away because when they told me they wanted me to come back, I figured it would be like a “Doctor Who” episode where they get all the TOMs together, and it turned out to be something much more unique.







SM: On the subject of returns, how difficult is it to get back into a character after you have been away for a while?







SS: Luckily, we have it all recorded, so I can go back and listen to it all. I've been a mimic all my life, so I just have to do an impression of me. Also, to pick up a character years later, you've learned so much more, and you want to give to the character more than you did before as well. You have more things on your palette—oh my gosh, season 1 of “Dragon Ball Z,” I'm almost embarrassed to listen to now. He's evolved so much, and I've evolved as a voice actor after doing this for 17 years.







SM: When you came back to do “The Woman Called Fujiko Mine,” what was it like having to tackle such a different, darker Lupin?







SS: That was actually kind of cool. He's usually much goofier in the other Lupins we did. This Lupin was darker, the whole story was darker, so it gave it a fresh take for us as well. We're revisiting it in a new way.







SM: What for you is the hardest voice that you do?









SS: The hardest voice is Usopp from “One Piece.” Usopp talks with a hitch in his voice, and ouch, it hurts after a while. He's also one of my absolute favorite characters to do, even though he hurts my voice. He goes through so many emotions. I was doing one episode with Usopp where he had some money stolen, and it was the crew's money, and he realizes that it was stolen was because he's so weak. He's angry and crying all at the same time, and it was really emotional. I decided then that this is my favorite character.





SM: It seems like a great role to play because he is certainly not a static character.







SS: Oda keeps coming up with some great stories and keeps examining these characters and it gets more and more interesting as it goes along. I would have to say that is my favorite series in anime right now.







The cartoons I liked when I was a kid are those wacky Warner Bros cartoons, and this definitely gives you that, and it gives you a lot to emotionally chew on as well.







SM: When Funimation got the rights to One Piece, it was already hundreds of episodes in.







SS: The Japanese company didn't like the way that 4kids had taken it, and so they asked us to recast it. What they did was have Funimation do the auditions and pick their top five choices for each character, then they sent those recordings to Japan, and Oda and his crew decided who was going to be what. It's the one role where I say if you don't like the way I do it, I don't care because I can't do it better than what the Japanese creator thinks it should sound like.







I also heard somewhere that he envisions the One Piece cast speaking English in his mind when he writes it. So not only are we like the second Japanese cast, we're exactly what he wants us to sound like. If you don't like it, then you are really hard to please.







SM: Knowing it was such a long series, was it more good or bad taking a role requiring such commitment?







SS: That's always a good thing to have something that such longevity. Just career-wise, it gives you work, and if something lasts that long, it has to have a certain depth, and that keeps you interested and excited to go to work. I actually read the manga before I even knew there was an anime for “One Piece,” so to get on “One Piece” was very exciting.







SM: Behind the scenes, I've heard you're more physical that a lot of the other actors.







SS: Oh, who told you that? (laughs) I am a more physical actor. I've punched a lot of microphones. I tend to do whatever the character on screen is doing. I know a lot of really good voice actors who can sit on a stool and act. I can't. I have to be standing up, I have to be moving around, I have to be doing exactly what the character's doing on screen. Even if it's just something as subtle as having one hand on his hip, I'll do that because I think that affects my attitude when I speak.







SM: You have both recorded and directed performances, does your experiences in the booth affect how you direct others?







SS: Yeah, actually. Directing and writing anime is really good for voice actors because it helps you solidify timing better. Also, when you see people in the booth make certain choices, good and bad, it just adds something to your acting palette. It's like you're doubling your acting experience by directing somebody else. I've noticed some actors who I thought were okay, then they started directing, and I thought they became amazing within a year.







As an anime voice actor, you have to match those mouth flaps. If you write anime, which I've done as well, that will really give you a good sense of timing, so that when you're in the booth you can match flaps pretty easily. Also you can write on the fly, if the scripts don't match up exactly, you can suggest something, and it usually works.







SM: Moving from anime and into your work in comics, how did you first get involved with “Elfquest?”







SS: I was a self-publisher back in 1990. I had been published by some smaller publishers as well, but I always wanted to be a self-publisher. I always admired the independent publishers, and one of my favorite independent comics was “Elfquest.”







I was at Comic-Con for “Dragon Ball Z,” we were there to do a signing. Everyone at the convention kept talking about Wendy Pini, and I asked “Why do you keep saying her name?” “Because she's right behind you, dude.” I went, “What? Oh my god!” and I just nerded out on her. She told me that she was a fan of mine, and I said, “Oh, shut up!” “No, no, I love Dragon Ball Z.” I went, “Please. You, Wendy Pini the creator of 'Elfquest', likes 'Dragon Ball Z'?” “Every day. Me and my dog, Chewie, will take a break and go watch 'Dragon Ball Z'”







She started drawing pictures of our characters with her characters. I thought I would surprise her and draw her main character, Cutter, with our characters and gave it to her the last day of the con. She said, “I didn't know you could draw!” I said, “Yeah, I've actually been published a few times.” She said, “Do you want to draw for me?” I was just floored, actually the floor kind of fell out from underneath me, and I was floating in the air for what felt like an eternity. “Is that a trick question? Of course I want to draw for you.” She hired on the spot to do 'Elfquest,' which was cool because she hadn't seen any pages or anything, all she had seen was a drawing I had done.







When I got home, I called her up and I said, “I really appreciate this, but I want to change the terms on it.” She asked me, “Do you want more money or something?” I said, “No, I want to be your apprentice.” She said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah, I want to study under you.” She said, “Okay, move to California.” So I moved to California, I worked in her studio and I would draw a page a day. She would look at it and say, “this works, this doesn't work” and she would tell me why. It was the most amazing learning experience of my life, actually.







SM: That just sounds incredible.







SS: It was an amazing experience. Probably the most amazing thing to ever happen to me, and it just sort of fell into my lap.









SM: What was it like to come back to color “The Final Quest”





SS: That was really cool. 'Elfquest' is probably the only book that has been published by Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, and the creators own the rights to it still. Usually, you have to give that up, but they don't. Dark Horse asked her to do what she's calling “The Final Quest,” her final story wrapping up this 35+ year story. They asked, “What do you want us to do?” and Dark Horse said, “We want you to draw it, ink it and color it, and we want it to come out every other month.” She said, “I can do everything except the coloring in that amount of time” and they asked if she had a colorist in mind, and she said, “Yeah, I think I do.” She called me up and asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said I would love to.







SM: What is it about comics that you enjoy so much?







SS: It's more like a drug addiction, I think. I kind of have to do them. Sometimes I stop. This year I finally said, “I have so much on my plate, directing and acting and coloring 'Elfquest' that I'm going to stop drawing comics.” I gave up drawing comics for about a month (laughs). I got another idea, and started filling up all these sketchbooks with these ideas, so I'll probably be doing another comic soon.







If I'm going to say what I love about it, I love the medium itself. I like the way time works in comics. When you open up a comicbook page, you are looking at past present and future moments, all existing simultaneously. As an art form, it's amazing because you know that's part of it. The reader is part of this, and he can see all these things at the same time, so you can put things in the backgrounds that you couldn't in a movie because it would be too fast, at least if it was important. I just love the fact that it's an art form that relies so much upon the participation of the person looking at it as well as you creating it. I think it's the most intimate of art forms.







SM: Of you own work, what are you most proud of putting out there?







SS: Probably most proud of the book I did for Tokyopop called, “We Shadows.” That was actually nominated by the American Library Association for Best Graphic Novel of 2008. It was written up in Publishers Weekly. When I was starting out, I dreamt of being written up in The Comics Journal, and here I'm reviewed in Publishers Weekly. It was cool to have full control and to have somebody else pay me to do it.







I had one graphic novel in me, and that was it, but they wanted me to do three. I finished the first one, and thought, “What the hell do I do?” I came up with a plot for the second one, I really liked the plot and thought that as sequels go, this is pretty good. They approved it, and they paid me to do it. About two months after I finished it, and before it went to print, Tokyopop closed.







Luckily, I was one of the few artists who had signed contracts before, and so I had something in my contract that said, if they don't get it printed, then the rights go back to me, so I was one of the few artists to get my rights back. Still, it really sucked because I had spent a year of my life doing the second book, and nobody was ever going to see it. So I decided to put out a web comic and re-release all those pages that Tokyopop had published, and all the ones that they didn't.







It was really cool because, being a voice actor, I could print it myself and take it to conventions and sell it there. It was the easiest self-publishing I had ever done. I remember the hard days of self-publishing where I had to come up with the cash and hope that it sold, and set up at these conventions and shout like a carny barker, and embarrass myself. Now it's just like, “Hey, what's that?” “That's my comic” “Oh, I want one” It's pretty easy (laughs). They don't even know what's in it, they probably won't even like it, but they'll buy it.







SM: “Oh my god! Krillin did this, I need it!”







SS: Exactly. “I want to see what Krillin can draw like.”







For me, it doesn't really matter. I remember one publisher I worked with, I said, “Let's exploit the fact that I'm on 'Dragon Ball Z' and stuff like that” and they were hesitant to do that. As long as you are being true to your art, it doesn't matter how you promote it. If you've got some cool angle like, “This guy's also on 'Dragon Ball Z,' exploit it” For me as an artist, I don't care why you're buying my books. You're buying my books, which allows me to draw more books. And some people get it, which is cool.







SM: Avoiding non-disclosure agreements, do you have anything coming up that you can talk about?







SS: No. (laughs)







I can talk about “Intruder.” For the next few weeks, you'll see me on there. Or hear me on there. When I stopped doing Toonami TOM, they got Steve Blum to do it, and Steve Blum sounds a lot like me, his TOM sounds a lot like my TOM. When I showed my wife the “Intruder” episode this weekend, she thought I was Steve Blum's part, and I was like, “No, I'm the bad guy!”







Watch “Intruder.” Don't be confused. I'm the blob.





