THE FAQ

So who are you?

I am Jenny Rowland. I have a Livejournal for if you're interested in me specifically. Sometimes I talk about the comic in it.

And what is this?

Um... a comic?

So tell me about the comic.

It's mainly just a bunch of semi-random silliness. Young adults, their families, their friends, the freakish cults they hang out with, and the various fantasy creatures they share their homes with. Y'know. Normal stuff.

I should point out that the early archives are very... primitive, shall we say. If you are a first-time reader looking to go through the archives, you might want to start with the Year 2 storyline Dangerous?, since by that point I had gotten some snarls in the art and writing worked out.

How do you make each comic?

I draw the art out in a Strathmore sketchbook (I'm currently on my sixth) using a plain ol' mechanical pencil loaded with B lead. Inking is done on tracing paper with acrylic ink and a size 1 brush. I then scan at 300dpi in black/white mode [edit: currently I have no scanner, so I have to take pictures of the inkings with my digital camera. This means a lot more editing to make it look like lineart instead of photos of pieces of paper on a flat surface, but aside from that the process is unchanged]. In Paint Shop Pro, I clean up any inking mistakes and paste various panels into a strip-shaped dealie. After doing any coloring, I resize the image to comic size, add the text, add word balloons with vector shapes, and do anything else clean-up related. Then I open up a slightly larger template image with room for the copyright text at bottom. I paste the comic image onto the template, add the date and stuff to the bottom, and save the finished image to my local archive. Finally, I take that finished image, export it to a .png, and upload.

What if I have more questions?

Email 'em to me. Or see if they're in the old FAQ, below.



OLD FAQ:

So what the heck is this supposed to be, anyway?

Uh... a comic strip, I think.  Last time I checked.

So, what, you think you're funny?

Occasionally, sure.  Some people seem to think I am all the time.  Buncha freaks.

Seriously, what is this supposed to be?  I mean, NOTHING HAPPENS in this strip.

Funny... kinda like my life.  You'd almost think I wanted to base it on that, or something... nah, everyone knows there's absolutely no humor to be found in everyday reality.

Shut up.

Okay.

Where do you get your ideas?

...

I asked you a question.

Yes, but you also told me to shut up.

Very funny.

If you say so.

I don't.

K.

So where do you get your --

I'm sorry, but if you ask me that question I'm afraid I'll have to kill you.  Nothing personal, you understand.

O... kay then.

Glad you understand.

Is this a FAQ or just another excuse for you to yammer?

Both!  Er... um... ask a question already...

Why the name?

It's really a very stupid reason.  I was trying to think of a name while my copy of TMBG's "Back To Skull" was playing.  The song Snail Dust came up, I shrugged and said "works for me."  And the rest, as they say, is chemistry.  Er, something like that anyway.

Okay, then... why do the characters have such insane names?

Ondine is named after another song off the same TMBG ep.  Same reason, even.  Andy and Percy were both named by Andy's real-life alter ego.  Everyone else was, I believe, named by his own particular real-life version.  Everyone else who's shown up so far, anyway.  ::dramatic chord::

Real-life versions, eh?

Just about everyone who's shown up so far is based on someone I know or have had dealings with in the life outside the shiny glowing box... Andy and Percy represent my two best friends, Random and Xidus.  Mav and Josh would be Sam and a fellow who I know would be paranoidly afraid if I mentioned his name here.  Et cetera for everyone else.  The only person who so far has come completely out of nowhere would be the snail, and yes, he is a person, because I say he is.

Andy and Percy = your two best friends, therefore...

Ondine = me, yes.  So?

Just making sure.

Okely doke.

Why does it look like Ondine gained 50 pounds since the first strips?  And why have none of the other characters commented on this?

Ondine = me, ergo she looks quite a bit like me -- right down to the bushy uncontrollable ponytail, even (no glasses, though, because I don't like drawing them all the time).  Right from the beginning I intended to draw her this size, but for some reason my hand wasn't listening to my brain.  And nobody's commented it because as far as I'm concerned, to the other characters she has always looked the same.  Of course, in a strange sick twisted way that's sorta breaking the fourth wall, and I'd really prefer not even to touch it, but hey.

Uh... yeah, whatever.  I just asked because I think she's pretty dang ugly now.

Sorry you feel that way, sizeist jerk.  I'll have to remember that in your happy shiny little world, everyone's beautiful and perfect.  Oh, yeah, and bite me.

K.  ::chomp::

Ow, Katy, I didn't mean you!

Where were we?

Questions.

Yeah.

Why a snail?

Because one night at 3 am I thought it would be amusing to have the name of the strip actually have something to do with the content.  I'm not making this up.

When do we get to see that (pick one: hot/funny/annoying/insert adjective here) Me Girl again?

Please don't ask me about that character.  She's never going to appear again, she was just the product of my frustration with someone whose opinions on humor I didn't agree with.  Fergittabooter.

When is (insert character's name here) going to get some more attention?

Whenever I get around to it, presumably.  Sheesh, if I developed everyone at once it'd be a circus.

Why do you do this cartooning thing?

Because it amuses me.

That's it?

Pretty much, yeah.  I don't give a pig's antler if other people like it, as long as I do.  Of course, having my little fanbase does tend to make me happier about my own work, eh?

"Little" being the key word, I assume.

Of course.  I figure I have about ten, fifteen semiloyal readers, tops.

You flatter yourself.

Die.

No.

K.

So what does the future hold for this sick sick sick product of your likewise unhealthy mind?

I dunno.  I do know it's not gonna be a permanent thing.  Eventually I may very well pull a Roomies and transmute the dust of snail ness into another strip.  Dunno when that'd be, though.  Probably sometime after I learn to draw.

And write jokes.

Yeah, and write -- HEY!

Uh... I'm dead now, aren't I?

Oh, yes.