Q and A

Sort of a “Quasi-FAQ” in that a lot of these questions were only asked once, if asked at all, I hope this sheds some light on this little project of mine. Questions generally come from the LiveJournal Community or people’s habits for bugging me in IM for spoilers. If you want to ask a question email me at msbluesky AT gmail DOT com and there’s a good chance it’ll end up here.

Q: I thought you said you weren’t doing anymore webcomics!
A: Well, I did…then I got really really bored at times where I had to listen to lectures and such. My hands always need to be doing something or else they find some innocent paper or eraser or something to destroy, so I usually channel it into drawing. But sometimes drawing subjects is hard to come by. So in January 2007, after having already drawn some comics for myself and others with success, decided to start a comic on LiveJournal, putting no pressure on myself to update it regularly, have story arcs, or even to expect myself to keep it running for very long. It turned out, though, after a few months, I really got into telling the stories about these characters I’ve worked with for years, and I got obsessed with trying to maintain a flow of comics (albeit not steady- for some months we were only getting a few comics a week to a few comics the whole month and through December we got a comic a day to catch up for the time I participated in NaNoWriMo.)

As I write this I’m nearing comic #100, although it feels like I just did #50. Wow. Who knew?

Q: Hey wait, I missed something…this isn’t your first webcomic?
A: Ahahahahah…no. This comic had a previous incantation, obviously. I’m not that proud of it, but some folks seem to have really liked it for some reason.

Q: What’s with the animals?
A: I don’t know, why did Goofy live in a world of Dog-men, or Rocko live in a world inhabited by bipedal animals? For the most part it’s really just a cartoonist thing. As one of my artistic idols, Chuck Jones said, it is easier to humanize animals than it is to humanize humans. Unfortunately, he didn’t know of furries at the time.

There are also humans in this little world of mine. We’ll probably meet some later on.

Q: Speaking of furries….are you one?
A: I don’t define myself as one. I’m not afraid to exploit the market for rated-G anthropomorphic art, but honestly, I’m not a big advocate of the fandom, myself. If I draw Jerry (DoomYote) as myself in the comic, just keep in mind she’s not one of those “fursona” things.

Q: So…in your universe you have both “anthro” animals and the original critters? How does this work? What if there was a chicken eating at KFC?
A: I could never understand how a world with only anthro animals but no regular animals would work. The world would be kinda barren, yes? I know this may be me taking things too seriously, but you have to keep in mind I love studying animal behaviour, evolution, and ecology. In this world, all the animals in the world fill a niche, right down to the bacteria. Heck, there’d be no plants if there weren’t bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. And if there’s no plants, what would our sapient races that like veggies eat?

As for the proverbial “chicken eating at KFC”, that doesn’t happen. Most animal’s digestive systems are very much geared to eating their own kinds of food- veggies, meat, or both. A bird of prey cannot eat veggies even if it wants to, which I seriously doubt it would. A canine would be happy to eat either, as would a raven. A chicken probably would find most meat detestable, even if it were able to eat any living creature besides bugs.

In this universe, the sapient, intelligent critters, along with humans, are all treated more as races than anything else, which is understandable as the original story the comic comes from is a racial allegory about human rights and such. As an aside, it should be noted that the sapient races are very “anthropocentric” in that in their classification systems, it’s the non-sentient critters that are the subspecies. In the characters page Benny is given the classification Felis silvestris catus antiquus, “antiquus” meaning “primitive” in Latin, which is what the lesser animals are often called.

Besides that, repeat to yourself, it’s just a fantasy comic, you should really just relax.

Q: What about Benny? Furries with pets are just weird.
A: While I like to joke about this, I just seriously think people shouldn’t think too hard about how a “furry” society would work. If you think about it, Looney Tunes cartoons are messed up: Elmer Fudd is trying to kill a completely sentient, intelligent, talking rabbit who is more on the ball than he is. C’mon folks, nobody complains about that.

If you ever find yourself wondering about “furries with pets”, just contemplate these questions: How would they put on pants even if they DO have tailholes? Especially those with puffy tails? Or what about chairs? Where do the tails go when they sit? Not to mention when they drive. Just remember that “furries”/”anthros”/”funny animals” are pretty much impossible and are as much fantasy animals as dragons and gryphons and just roll with it.

Q: What is that little floating…thingy?
A: That’s Lillian, my resident blue camerabot.

Q: Robot? Why a robot?
A: Why not?
Seriously, this comic is actually a small part of some huge story I’ve been developing for years, and since she is at the main character in the novel version of the story and in this spinoff she’s going to have a bit of a prominent role.

The strange thing about this comic is that the initial audience knew at least of Lillian and her origins. I just kinda started drawing comics without any kind of exposition at all, just operating on the phrase “It’s just a comic, you should really just relax” (which was all Anxiety Cafe ran on. Completely random gags where common because nobody knew where the heck she came from and what she did before then. At least now I have some backstory).

I’ll go at my own pace. As I said, these are all pre-existing characters in a pre-existing storyline. The truth will always worm its way out into the public, making it the wonderful thing it is.

Q: Your leading (biological) female doesn’t have a curvalcious body and huge breasts!
A: I’m sorry, although my femininity is often in question, fact still remains that the artist is biologically female and not so inclined to draw hawt furry babes.

That, and Ron is a tomboy with capital “T”. Hence why she goes by a shortened form of her last name instead of her girly first name: Patricia (which was bestowed upon her years ago back when she was a more feminine character).

Q: Is Ron Australian?
A: Only by heritage. Her parents met and fell in love in Australia, then set out for the Western world in search of a place that doesn’t serve eggs on pizza. And were promptly disappointed in the people they found there. (The pizza, though, was just as great as they dreamed it would be.)

Ron was bred and brawn in the USA. She loves it there, and there’s a bit of a distance between her and her parents since they would often talk about things “in OUR country”. (Which confuses her even more. What is the difference?)

Q: I like the gryphon Dakota. Will we ever see him?
A: Tut-tut, you’re asking for spoilers. But I can’t help but answer and say “yes,” but only near the very end.

Q: Wait, there’s an end?
A: Now that I decided to run the whole cohesive storyline that makes up Ron and Lillian’s stint at college, yes, there’s an end. Besides, I don’t want to torture Ron and Lillian with trying to get their Bachelor’s degree forever.

Q: I herd u liek mudkips.
A: Actually, although I don’t play Pokemon, I tend to be more of a HootHoot person. OWL POKEMON FOR THE WIN!

Q: Well, I herd u liek Jeff Lynnes.
A: Although this is true, I’d prefer if you’d just ask questions.

Q: Nevermind then.
A: KAY.