The Art of SquareBears

BWM: Tell us a bit about your background and how you got into creating art.

SquareBears: My name’s Brian! He/They; I go by SquareBears or SquareBuddy on the internet. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to NYC (Brooklyn) after I graduated from college and have been here for almost 15 years.

The earliest thing I can remember drawing is stick figure comics of Dragon Ball Z fights in my notebooks in middle school. I was really inspired by the early days of Toonami and Cartoon Network’s Cartoon Cartoons block, but it took me a long time to realize that if I really tried, I could learn how to make my own comics and cartoons. I started drawing more and more through high school and college but didn’t really take it seriously until my first job. I would get really bored between projects and I had an abundance of post-its, so I started writing comics with my free office supplies and posting them on the internet, and it snowballed from there.

BWM: What is it about bears that makes you want to incorporate them into your art?

SquareBears: Quite simply, bears saved my life. Growing up in the 90’s and 00’s as a closeted, fat Catholic kid, going to hell was kind of a given, and I wasn’t going to have a good time getting there. Gay representation on TV didn’t speak to my experience, and it seemed like there was only one type of gay person that existed. I would always be attracted to the football player, the big henchman, the side characters with big beards, body hair, and mass, the ones that would sooner beat up a gay dude than be one. It didn’t give me a lot of hope for a fulfilling romantic life.

I draw the people I wish I could have seen growing up, the people I now know exist, in the hopes that other people can feel seen and inspired and hopeful too. Also, they’re hot!

BWM: What initially drew you into the bear community?

SquareBears: It all started with my Beary Godmother. Back in college, I was trying to date women and after a particularly fraught date, I was feeling incredibly low. I reached a point where I knew I couldn’t keep the facade that I’d hoped to, to just hunker down and marry a woman and live a profoundly unsatisfying life. I resolved that I had to come out, even if I’d never find what I was looking for in the gay community (based on what I’d see on tv). I had to at least try dating the right demographic.

Like any closeted kid in the 2000’s I turned to the internet to try meeting people, starting, obviously, with gay.com. I don’t know what the site is now but at the time, it was kind of a mix of message board and chat room experience, and someone on there told me about another old internet gem, bear411.com, changing my life forever! Not only did I learn some new key words for my late-night internet searches, I met my Beary Godmother Marc on there, an older teddy bear that introduced me to a lot of things and people. I owe everything to him.

BWM: Are you professionally trained or self-taught? What mediums do you create with? Tell us about that.

SquareBears: In college I took a drawing 101 course and I’ve watched a lot of Bob Ross, but everything else I’ve learned through practice and internet tutorials.

As I mentioned, I really started working on my art when I shouldn’t have been, between meetings at my first desk job out of college. My main medium for the longest time was ballpoint pen on post it, but now I work in a wide variety of stolen office supplies as well as my iPad Pro, with a Pencil 2, in Procreate.

I’m a craft slut though so periodically I will try out new mediums; over the years I’ve done sculpture in playdoh, macrame, crochet, and most recently, cross-stitch!

BWM: Who are some of your artistic inspirations?

SquareBears: There are so many incredibly talented artists on the internet, and I’m so thankful I live in an age where I can see so much amazing work that both inspires me and keeps me humble! Hanna Barbera cartoons (Scooby Doo, Yogi the Bear, even the more obscure ones like Where’s Huddles?) are the biggest driver of my style development over the years.

In terms of subject matter of course the modern bara artists give me constant inspiration, especially Jiraiya and Seizoh Ebisubashi.

And of course, I’m constantly inspired by what I think of as the leaders of the modern American Bara School (TM TM TM), which there are too many to name, but I think immediately of D.J. Kirkland (ohheydj), the guys at BearPadArt, Woolybearz, and Drew Green (KingofSafari).

I’d be remiss to not mention the huge impact the furry art community has had on me as well! You’ll never find more talent or skill than you will on your twitter feed from some random dude drawing Tony the Tiger realizing he’s in love with the Trix Rabbit.

BWM: Where can we see/ purchase your work? Social media profiles? Websites?

SquareBears: My main art feed is my Instagram, @squarebears, and all my links are on my linktree.

I have a Patreon where I post some stuff I can’t put up anywhere else, so you can check that out too!

BWM: What big projects are you working on? What is coming next?

SquareBears: The biggest thing that’s coming soon is that I’m working on the posters/official shirt for Urban Bear NYC’s events this coming fall! I’m so thankful to Robert, Camilo, and everyone at Urban Bear that have decided to use a human artist for their promotional material. We’re working on creating materials that celebrate the whole of this diverse community, and I’m excited to be working on them. Too often now we’re seeing event organizers cut corners in their marketing with AI Generated shlock and try to appeal to the broadest base with the most boring, basic posters, which just makes their events look cheap, ugly, and depressing.

I can’t not use this opportunity to mention how important it is for event planners, the people making space for people in the queer community to celebrate, enjoy and meet each other, to use their platforms to support the other parts of the community. Use real models, use real artists, they’re worth it and it will create an even more successful event. Also, honestly, we’re probably not as expensive as you think we are, I’m at least personally a pretty cheap date!

Other than that I’m working on a new periodic comic series I’m calling Mythicc, about chunky mythical creatures living their queer little lives, and I’m going to start work on a new piece that’s a compilation of follower-submitted smut, so look out for that!

BWM: That all sounds amazing. Anything we have not covered that you would like to mention?

SquareBears: First, I do want to say thank you again for giving me the opportunity to say something on your platform.

Following up on the marketing materials point before, I want to just say something about the bear ethos. The bear community was created for the people that felt ostracized by the rest of the queer community, the dudes that don’t feel like they fit into the aesthetic constraints of the mainstream. I think that as the overall world and queer community has become more accepting (I know it doesn’t always feel like it has, but it has a bit), the bear community has unfortunately constrained itself more and more to a specific couple body types that have been defined as the bear archetype.

I am very aware that I’m a beneficiary of this shift, given my skin color, my beard, my body hair, etc. But I don’t think that what we have now is all there is or can be to the bear community and I do believe that each person that wants to participate in that community has the power to influence and change it. I believe in the original intent of the bears.

What I want to say is that in the age of the internet, it is within everyone’s power to build a platform and add their voice, their representation, their personhood, to the conversation and the community. If you want to see yourself represented more, you can both be the representation you want to see and (kindly) encourage those with a platform to promote other voices and perspectives as well. I have always viewed the bear label as something you choose for yourself. You are part of this community if you want to be, and you do have power. Use it.