My condition
Extra-long, action-heavy comics like today's always require a lot of extra heavy lifting on my end to pull off... but I'd hate to cram a potentially cool sequence into less space than it deserves.
Once upon a time, every single Sam and Fuzzy strip was four panels long by necessity... art was only a hobby for me, after all, and there are only so many hours in the day. But now that I'm actually making a living at this -- thanks entirely to all of your support for the comic and it's swag -- I can make time to be a bit more ambitious. Call it a little extra indulgence for the guy drawing... and hopefully, a little extra fun for everyone reading.
We return on Friday with a new strip and a new installment of Q and A! See you then.
-Sam Logan
Twit
I seem to be getting a lot of email this week from readers asking me to sign up on Twitter. Folks, I do have a Twitter account! You can follow all my infrequent, aimless ramblings right here.
"Hazel" continues on Wednesday. See you then!
-Sam Logan
Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Steel-Plated Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!
"Could you explain the Sam and Fuzzy timeline? I'm having a bit of trouble sorting it out, especially with the new chapters featuring Devahi and Hazel." -Kenton
Making an actual formal Sam and Fuzzy timeline might be kind of fun! But for now, here's a rough guide of the time map I've been adhering to as I've been writing the strip:
Year Zero:
* Sam meets Fuzzy on Christmas eve
Year One through Six:
* Sam works at X-Per-S Taxi (The very first bit of Volume 0 is the tail end of year six)
Year Seven: (AKA Volume 1 to 3)
* Sam works for X-Per-S until he gets fired
* Sam starts working at Bunton Books
* Sam and company go on the run after the Emperor is murdered
Year Eight: (AKA the "missing time" between Volume 3 and 4)
* Sam, Fuzzy and Aaron spend a year touring with Noosehead as roadies, while Ox becomes Noosehead's new drummer
Year Nine: (AKA Volume 4)
* Sam, Fuzzy and Aaron spend three months on a second Noosehead tour
* Blank finds Sam, and everyone spends six months on the run traveling through the Underground
* Sam arrives at the Ninja Mafia HQ, then heads to Sin Tower for the big climax
And finally, to add our current volume into the mix: all the portions with Devahi and NMS occur in "Year 10", and all the flashbacks with Fuzzy and Hazel occur way back in "Year 0", before Sam and Fuzzy had met.
Thank you for joining us for another exciting edition of "Way Too Much Information!"
"Is this 'Second World of Unusual Things" inspired at all by" London Below" of Neverwhere (the BBC miniseries/book by Neil Gaiman)?" -Avery
A couple of folks have asked me about this, but no! Like the old disclaimer goes, any similarities are purely coincidental. I'm actually -- somewhat shamefully for a professional comic-making person -- still pretty Neil Gaiman illiterate. But from what I gather from helpful forumers and Wikipedia, Gaiman's "London Below" concept has much more of a mystical bent than anything I'd ever try to pull off.
The "Second World" in Sam and Fuzzy is really just Hazel's catch-all term for all the talking animals, secret ninja societies, demonic appliances, intergalactic rodent executives, and other generally weird stuff you've seen in the comic over the last few years. And "The Underground" is just a literal, physical underground place where some of that weird stuff hangs out. Any division between it and the "normal" world is strictly physical... or psychological.
"How are you?" -Brian
Swell! Thanks for asking.
-Sam Logan
