YOU
I suppose the flip side of the "two-strips-in-one effect" you sometimes get in an update to a story comic like mine (as mentioned in last Wednesday's newspost) is that you also occasionally get strips like today's: stylistic indulgences that are admittedly pretty light on plot development. I do try to keep the story moving as much as I can, but sometimes you have to dial it back a bit for the purpose of good overall pacing. Well, and for the purpose of drawing lots of caves.
But completely coincidentally, Wednesday and Friday's comics are both extra long... three-pagers, instead of two. (I know they were big because I'm still exhausted from drawing them.) Come back in two days to oggle the first of them!
-Sam Logan
Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: First of 2012 Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!
"Is Conscience Cat a real cat person who lives in Catopia? Or is he a real mythical creature? OR, is he just a crazy hallucination that only a few people can see?" -Julie
The real answer... is inside your heart. Which is a fancy way of saying I deliberately avoid answering this question in the comic, and will continue to do so!
"When Dev tells Conscience Cat to 'buzz off', her tongue sticks out in a style eerily reminiscent of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. I find
it hard to believe that this is a coincidence, but... well?" -Joel
It's an unconscious similarity, but I love Calvin and Hobbes and read a ton of it as a kid, so it wouldn't be surprising if I had absorbed some of Watterson's stylistic iconography.
I can actually think of one other example! Those partial-circle exclamation symbols I draw sometimes to indicate shouting, like over the walkie talkie in panel two of this comic, are something I'm pretty sure I got from James Fry's work in the old Sonic the Hedgehog comics I read when I was 12 or 13.
"My question doesn't pertain as much to the comic/storyline as much as others do and I hope it isn't too personal to ask. I know aside from merchandise sales, advertising can be a large part of making income off of running a comic. I did notice though that you don't have any. I was wondering if that was a personal choice to not have them or for some other reason? Thanks!" -Andrew
No, that's a fair question! Once upon a time, I didn't have advertising on the site for two reasons: a) I was keeping the site completely black and white and didn't allow any colour images, and b) I didn't think the comic had the kind of traffic needed to generate enough ad revenue to worry about it.
These days, neither of those things are really true, so don't be surprised if you see the introduction of one or two basic, unobtrusive ads added sometime in the future. After all, anything that helps generate more revenue and grant me the ability to spend more time on the comic is a good thing! But there are some changes that need to be made to the site design first, which I have been dragging my heels on getting them done for... oh, about half a year now. Whoops!
That's a wrap for this week! See you on Monday, team.
-Sam Logan
Words words words
If Sam and Fuzzy were a daily strip, I could probably have stopped today's comic at panel five. But alas, it's a three-times-a-week strip, and it's story based... which is exactly why I started making all my strips double-sized (and sometimes longer) a few years back. I know it might not always seem that way, but I really do try to cram in as much content as I can to keep the story rolling, and to make the strips feel satisfying and worth the wait!
With a story comic like S&F, longer strips can be vital, because it often takes that longer format to really flesh out a complete though, or gag, or action sequence, or twist. But if every now and then, you wind up with a strip like today's -- one that reads like it actually could have been split into two traditional "one page" comics instead -- well, nothing wrong with that, right? It's just kind of like a two-for-one!
-Sam Logan
