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Webmaster Questions
Q- How often do you post new comics?
A- As often as I can. It depends largely on how well planned I have the comics before hand and how busy I am at that precise moment. Sometimes life takes heed and I can't do anything. Other times, well, I have a lot of free time and I get a lot done. But considering my life does take presidence, this is merely a hobby and since I extract no income from it, it will remain as such. So in other words, I'll update every day for a week and other times I'll take a whole month off. It's all realtive to life you see.
Q- I think I've seen storylines similar to this before. Have you copied them
from somewhere?
A- er, where? I did come up with this idea largely on my own, but considering
there are over 6 billion people in the world, I’m sure I have an idea that is similar to
somebody else’s, who has their work published even. Also, I do consider the concept
of the Vortron similar to what they had in the TV Series Sliders, except they
didn't visit
different worlds, only varying realities of the same one. If any of my stories appear
to be copying somebody else's idea, this is totally
unintentional. I will admit, however, that some of the worlds they visit will be
based on existing fictional worlds, but if so, I will comment on it somewhere.
See my disclaimer. I got to keep my bases covered!
Q- How do you advertise for this webcomic?
A- Hopefully, my primary source is word of mouth. I have it listed on several directories, and such and I try to pimp it as often as I feel necessary, but truthfully this comic is supported mostly by people who just find it. As I said, I make no money off of this comic and as such I do not spend money on the comic as well.
Q- How long do you plan on writing this comic?
A- For a long long time. When I originally started this comic, I didn't realize what an undertaking a webcomic was. However, it is very time consuming and many times I just want to junk it. However, I have so many ideas to push forth that I don't want to abandon it just like that. Upon writing myself into this comic for a good hundred years, I guess I'll keep writing it until I get sick of it. Or maybe I'll write some portions of it out in novel format. Part of it already will have to be published as such, I'm aware. Regardless, if I continue at the present course, the comic will take me the rest of my life easy to present to you. So I'm making some changes. They should prove interesting.
Q- What program do you use to color your comics?
A- If you look closely at the comic as you read it, you'll notice it goes through a metamorphosis in regards to quality. That's becuase when I started this, I had zero experience with Computer Illustration. I also had crummy software. The very fist was MGI Photosuite, which is awful. Then I got Paint Shop Pro, which was better. NOw I use Photoshop 7.0, which I love. However I've had to teach myself to use the above programs completely, I have no formal training on them. Therefore, this comic has become my excuse to learn the above programs. Mainly Photoshop. Yay.
Of course, when I first started, I was using colored pencils and markers before I learned how to color properly. Yay.
Q-Can I link to your comic?
A-Hell Yeah! Feel free to use one of my many banners
I did on a whim (when I was very bored, hence why there are so many and half of them are very lame) These are a work in progress.
Q-Will you put a link to my site?
A- Depends. Does your site contain heavy sexual content? If it does, likely not.
Otherwise, sure! Right now I'm not the most popular comic on the net, so if you link to me I'll link to you (I prefer linking through banners, by the way). Kind of like, if you rub my back I'll rub
yours. I'm trying to get as much exposure as I can get so I can stay motivated to do this for as long as I foresee me doing this.
Q-Can I give you input on your site? Like, ideas to make it better or story lines or what not?
A- YES! YES YES YES YES YES!!!
Can you tell I like Input? I mean, I whine about not getting enough all the time! I love input,
emails about the comic, ANYTHING that informs me that people are actually interested in what
is going on here! It keeps me motivated! I don't care that you vote for me in a popularity
contest, I just want to know that people are actually interested in the comic!
Q- Do you accept fan art?
A- I LUV fanart! If you send me fanart, I will be your new best friend! In fact, I'll probably
end up stalking you if you send me fanart! Ok, I won't, but I do enjoy fanart and if you
send me some, i will post it on the internet with a link back to you and everything. Can i
repeat that I love any and all fanart? As in Love? Love love love? Fanart makes the world
go round for me, send me lot's and lot's of fanart!
Q- Do you do guest strips?
A- Part one - Do I accept gueststrips to Creature? YES. If you want to send me a guest strip, I will definitely take it and show it with pride. More info in regards to guest strips can be found here.
Part two - Will you do a guest strip for my comic? If I get enough notice before hand
and your strip isn't a rated NC-17, I'd be honored to do it. Although why in the world
anybody would want me to do a guest strip is beyond me considering my computer illustration
skills are still very limited.
Q- Do you have a forum to discuss the comic?
A- I did at one time. Nobody used it. It was dead space and very disheartening
to look upon. I got rid of it. Then I got another one. I'm hoping people use it because like I
mentioned before, when I provide areas for people to comment from and nobody uses them, it
de-motivates me to do the webcomic. Forum can be found here.
- Comic Questions
Q- Where did you come up with this idea?
A- See the link to my page entitled 'history'. That page
should answer this question sufficiently.
Q- What's with the corny name?
A- Kiss my *grumble grumble*
Ok, once upon a time, in the fall of '96, I had an assignment in Fantasy Art to make a comic strip. You're reading it. I named it Creature, keeper of the Vortron, Dimension Gateway. It just so happened to be very long. I didn't think very much about it at the time, but since this comic has a sort of shaky tradition backing it up, I kept the name. And names are important in this comic. *smiles*
Q- What is Creature?
A-Creature is a creature, obviously, which is where I derived his name. He
is a creation I created for a High School Art assignment (see
history).
That is basically where he came from in regards to entering the
world, and why he looks so strange.
He has a specific species, you will learn more about them in full as the comic progresses.
Q- What is the Vortron?
A- The Vortron is a gateway betwee time, Dimensions and worlds. The Vortron is what this comic is about. Creature happens to be the guardian of the Vortron.
Q- What is a Guardian? Why did they choose Creature?
A- The Vortron works in a variety of manners. One of which is only one person can technically use it at a time. As long as somebody else is in the Vortron, nobody can access it. Isn't that special? As to why they chose Creature, you'll find out soon enough.
Q- What is Splash? What position does she hold?
A- Splash is a Unicorn. She is Companion to Creature. That's all you need to know.
Q- Why is Splash a Unicorn? And what's with her wings?
A- Because she is, that's why. I like her wings just the way they are. Besides,
that's how I drew her when I originally made this comic. And when I first drew this comic, I didn't plan it out quite as fully as I have now. There is an explanation for Splash.
Q- What is the plot to this web comic?
A- Guarding powerful gateways to other worlds is very boring business. Since you
have access to all these worlds, why not visit them? Of course, part and partial to
the fact that you are guarding them is to keep people like you out! However,
Creature and Splash forget that small detail. Frequently
Q- What are the rules that apply to the Vortron?
A- This question will be answered slowly as the comic comes to reveal them. There
are several rules that Creature and Splash must live by, many of which even they
don't know.
Q- Why is Creature and Splash Guardian? They don't seem entirely capable of the
job.
A- This is part of the plot in and of itself. They aren't entirely sure why they
were given this position and are trying to find out for themselves. And as
the comic goes, you'll find that they are perfect for the job. In a sense. But most of the reasons are largely technical. Long story.
Q- What exactly is written in the ancient text? It doesn’t seem to tell us
very much.
A- It doesn’t really seem to tell them much either. The ancient text comes
from their home world, and as the title states, is ancient. However, it doesn't
look
ancient in the vortron, (it is, after all, a time portal, and everything that resides
in it is in a perfect state, which would make you think that I would have drawn it differently
but I didn't so there) I’ll dwelve more
into the ancient text at a later date, and what exactly resides within those
pages. It becomes a fairly intregal part of the story at a later date.
Q- What's the deal with Todd?
A- Creature and Splash decided to leave the Vortron one day and they ran into Todd in the process. Only to find that they have supposedly met him before, or he has met them before, or something of that nature that quite frankly confuses all three of them. Turns out, they never meet in sequence Todd is an element of the story that will become very important in the future.
Q- What's with the Artwork? I notice it changes from time to time.
A- When I first started this comic, I thought it would be very nifty to make each individual world unique. Hah. Now I just say I got better at drawing the comic as it progressed. However, each world is supposed to have it's own unique style, or something of that nature.
Q- What's this webcomic's rating?
A- I'm not sure, but it should rate between G and PG-13,
because I'm giving myself a lot of leeway concerning what kind of issues I want to
explore. I guess this is a good way as any. Although it might not be apparent, this
comic has a lot of flexibility. At times, it may get very dark in nature. May I stress
dark?
Q- What genre of comic is this?
A- What does it look like? Elements of Science fiction, definitely fantasy, Furry Characters, a little bit of action, very light romance (but nothing to schmoozy), drama and suspense, I guess it's got a little bit of everything. Though first and foremost, it is a comic. I'll do my damnedest to keep it funny.
Q- Where did you come up with the names of some of your characters?
A- Creature's easy, because he's a flippin' creature! (there is a story behind his name,
however, that will likely come into being later) Splash, like all unicorns (at least her species) is named after an object of nature,
and I always wanted a horse named Splash, just because I thought it was a cool name.
Todd came to me because it's a common name that just came to me, I don't know why.
That's how I get my names.
Other times, with real unique names, I just randomly put letters together until a
phonetic name comes out of it.
That's how I got Risawn, a character in one of my stories.
In fact, you might (heavy emphasis on might) get to meet her some day.
Q- One word. Ockie. What is the deal with him? I mean, what is his purpose?
A- Does Ockie need a purpose? If you are wondering, Ockie is just there because I thought he would be fun to have in the story. Except I have a habit of forgetting about him. Woe with me. In reality, Ockie explains the role of the Visitor very well. We'll find out more about Ockie as time progresses.
Q- I've noticed one of your characters, Patch, has simularities to a very famous online webcomic character. Is Patch a tribute to him, or just a flippen rip-off!
A- Aack! I'm sorry! I didn't know about Bun-bun! I mean, homicidal rabbits are pretty funny! Considering Rabbits are generally very docile creatures, a pistol packing rabbit just sounds funny to me. So I made one up. And he looks a lot like Bun-bun off of sluggy freelance! I promise, Patch has a background story, and a reason for why he is the way he is.
The comic might make this comparison later down the road. The simularities between these two characters was unintentional.
Q- I've come to find that you have a lot of simular elements between worlds. Why is that?
A- actually, if you haven't noticed, I have several themes that generally go through the different
worlds. One is Creature and his use of the word "aack". Another is names. Later on down
the road, you'll find that Creature's patch around his left eye is a reoccuring theme, in that
it's always colored, except for those hasty comics I do that are done in pencil and i have
to get one up and have two seconds to draw it. These are generally detours. There are more
simularities. In fact, I've noticed that there are simularities between my stories as well.
Usually some reoccuring themes that show up within them. I'm not so sure those same ones will
show up here.
Oh, did I mention boredom was a reoccuring theme as well?
Q- Are your characters based on anybody that you know?
A- Uh, yes, actually. Most of my characters are based off of a side of me actually. This could be a good thing and a bad thing, becuase if they are all based off of me, then they would all start to look remarkably similar. However, no character is a 100% depiction of myself, unless you count myself. I don't base characters off of people I know because that would feel wierd. I'd rather not go there.
Q-One date. October 12, 2002. Need I say more?
A- This comic was done on the spur of the moment when I realized that some people didn't know
as much about the comic as I did. In that, they kept getting Snow mixed up with Creature. I felt
it necessary to clear this up early on, so I put it in comic form. I think this comic is funny
as hell, but that's probably because I'm the only one that gets it. All of these characters
are interrelated in some way or another, as confusing as that may be. Just to put it frankly,
the purpose of this comic was to clarify that Snow, Magic, Creature and Splash were seperate
people.
Q- that said, what about Night?
What about Night? He's a dragon, ain't he? Actually, there is more to Night then meets
the eye. However, right now is not the time to get into Night and who he is exactly. He
just happens to know the rest of the gang. And he was part raised by Magic, as was told
here. He's not a horribly important character, but he has ties to several characters within this comic.
Q- What's the story with Magic?
A- Magic is one of the primary characters out of a story I wrote. He is also the third
oldest character that is reoccuring in this story. I also have come to notice that he
is extremely popular with the readers. He is narrating the story for Snow, however
Snow interrupts quite freqently, asking him personal questions about his past. He often
answers her, begrudgingly. Quite frankly, Magic would like to keep things in the past.
Q- Um, what's the comic about the fish hater all about?????
A- There are three characters within this comic that will become relatively important later on down the road. Two of them reappeared in September of 2003. Some people got the gist of what the September comic was all about, this one was just a quick introduction to those characters. I had planned on introducing them more often, and I will have to bring them into the story one or two more times before they become full fledged main characters, at which point their presence will definitely be explained more in full.
Q- What is the classifacation of your dragons in this story?
My dragons are mine. They aren't based off of any particular breed or species, such as DnD dragons (with golds, silvers, reds and greens) or whatever. Both dragons presented, though similar in several ways, are respective to their native worlds and follow rules that are general amongst dragons (such as breath weapons, etc) but other then that they are unique to their respective worlds.
One of the ways pyrothian dragons differ from hardazian dragons is color. Pyrothian dragons are all unique in appearance, no two dragons are exactly alike (take the little meeting of Kyrs with his fellow dragons). Hardazian dragons are all earthy colors, greens, tans and such (and therefore are not as interesting), and brothers often look very similar to one another, I guess genetics take play. Both are neutral in a lot of aspects in regards to alignment, not entirely good or not entirely evil. They are sentient creatures, capable of abstract thought, my dragons aren't giant dumb reptiles. Both utilzye flight, both are capable of magic, and both are shape shifters, (though it will be a rare day when you see a Pyrothian Dragon take a form other then his own!) Hardazian Dragons, meanwhile, are known to spy, and as is obvious, will quite often take forms that are not their natural. Some Dragons, Dyontor for instance, are such fluent shape shifters that they can take appearances and look like a specific person.
Oh, and both are damn proud to be dragons! There are other issues with my dragons, but several of those issues are important to the comic, and their respective characters.
Q- I was a bit irked that Creature, Splash and Jarome were talking German. Usually when a Dutch-person is called a German they get... annoyed.
A- This was an issue that I failed to address within the comic and brought to my attention by somebody who actually WAS dutch (I do hope I didn't offend them!)
Jarome took German in high school. In an
earlier part of the story that has not yet been
portrayed in the comic, Todd's friends found out that
Creature and Splash are linguists. The only
requirement is that they hear the language before hand
and they instantly become fluent in it, and in fact,
will start speaking in that language until they hear
another. This, needless to say, amazes Todd's
Friends, especially considering that Creature seems to
be such a klutz.
And now they vow to stump Creature and Splash by
finding a language they can't speak. It annoys them
that Creature and Splash seem to refuse to speak a
language until they hear it.
I used German as the first language they speak because
I took it in high school, and as such, I can use it
with some semblance of correctness. I will have to
use Dutch in a future comic, which will not be for
some time, I may have to borrow the skills of some of
my bilingual friends to help me in this endeavour.
Can't Creature and Splash both speak a bunch of languages? Why can't Splash understand what Creature is writing down or the Ancient Text and why can't Creature understand Myra's journal but Splash can?
Ok, so this is a question that ties with Creature and Splash above. Yes Creature and Splash can understand and become fluent in a language of a world they are visiting once they hear it. There is one exception to this. Languages based off the homeworld. Of which the tongue of the Ancient Text and the writings in Myra's journal originate, sort of. Creature and Splash understand their respective tounges. But I'll get into that at a later date.
Q- Tarriel is so ADORABLE!!!
That is not a question. It's just a comment I get a lot.
- Personal Questions
Q- What insane notion made you want to do a Webcomic?
A- The same crazy insane notion that makes anybody want to undertake a task this great while
working and going to school full time. That, and I saw my friend make one and I thought
it sounded really cool, so I thought, what the heck!
Q- Are you crazy?
A- Actually, in some strange way, I believe I am. But I'm functionally crazy, and for
some reason I like to stress myself out by overloading myself with full time college
and a project such as this.
Q- What do you do in your spare time?
A- What spare time? Basically, write stories and work on this little comic, inconsistantly.
When I'm not doing this, I'm usually going insane because life tends to throw curve balls
in my direction, usually related directly to my financial situation. I have no life, and
am in fact quite boring.
Q- Why do you whine so much?
A- What? Me whine? I don't know of any whiners around these parts! Just email me all the flippen
fan mail or I'll threaten to delete the comic!
No, but seriously, if you stick around, you'll notice I have a tendency to whine. I'm sorry,
it's a trait I've had all my life. I like to whine, well not really, but I seem to whine a lot.
Especially when I notice I have a few steady readers and not even half of them say so much
as two words to me, especially if I ask for constructive criticism. *sighs* .
Q- Are you available?
A- Go away.
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