Who are you, and what do you do?
My name's Adam Koford. I'm a writer in the video game industry by day and a freelance cartoonist by pretty much all the other times. I've been freelancing for magazines, greeting card companies, apparel, films, and tv shows for a little over 20 years. I have a comic called the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats that's currently on indefinite hiatus, and a new strip called Haircut Practice that runs on gocomics.com. My illustration portfolio is here, though it's pretty much always a work in progress.
What hardware do you use?
As for my computer, it's whatever was on sale at Costco. It's a 64-bit Dell something or other and it runs Windows 10. Most game development, at least what I do, is on PC, so that's what I use at home too (though I have a much better work PC at the game studio). I have a family to help support so I tend to not get anything top of the line when it comes to hardware. And with the way I work it hasn't been a hindrance. For instance, I also use an ancient Intuos 3 graphics tablet. Most of my work starts as ink on paper, scanned in on a Epson WF-7610. It's crap for printing but it scans nice and clean and big.
As for physical hardware, I try not to get too accustomed to any specific brand of pen or pencil. I use a variety of dip pens and nibs, Kuretake and Tombow brush pens, ballpoint pens, and I try not to be too far away from my pen of choice: the Uniball Micro. I've also been using Microns for nearly 30 years.
And what software?
I start out most work as ink on paper, then scan into Photoshop for coloring and layering in lighting effects. Once in a while I'll lay out lettering in InDesign, but I prefer to do it by hand. I prefer working in ink and watercolor, but they can be tricky to scan properly.
What would be your dream setup?
Like I said, I love watercolor but it's difficult to scan accurately without a proper camera setup, so that's always been a distant goal. As far as hardware and software, I've learned to adapt and go with the flow for a long time now, so I'm happy to keep doing that.