Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Colour Edition
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"You draw so much color now... shivers... What happened to the good ol' days when S&F had stark contrast and proud of it? The days when "hues" were swept under the rug to be forgotten? Now it's red this, blue that, and light grays toning everything down like it's afraid the prismatic demons will find it." -Lemma
Haha! I always enjoy working in black and white. I think it has a really distinct look, and distinct strengths that I try to take advantage of in Sam and Fuzzy.But I also like working in colour! And since the main comic is not in colour, I enjoy using it elsewhere when I can.
As a side note... you might be surprised by how hard it can be to get people to read a black-and-white comic in this day and age! There have been countless times I've seen a con attendee pick up one of my books out of curiosity, open it up just long enough to see it's in black and white, and then immediately put it down in disappointment and move on to something else. Generally speaking, the only people who get really enthused about it as a stylistic decision are people who come from a background of manga and/or indie stuff... people who are used to the look. I think other people just see it as a sign that something is low budget, and therefore less likely to be good.
Which is sad, because I really like black and white comics! Like, I'm definitely one of those people who'd always prefer to read the b&w verion of Bone than the colour one. But in this day of cheap colour printing and the "free" colour of digital comics, it's kind of a niche audience decision, for sure.
"This current storyline with the tar and the Ninja Mafia empire has been a long time in the making and executed very well. Now that everything is all coming to a head, do you already have plans for an entirely new storyline? Any plans to return to more silly, shocking Fuzzy gags? I just re-read the one where Fuzzy punches the reporter in the face to get Nic's demos back, only to say that *not* punching her would have been sexist. I almost forgot just how absurd Fuzzy's humor could be (in a good way!)" -Ryan
Haha! Well, I guess I actually managed to do a couple of those kind of Fuzzy gags during this holiday break! I hope you enjoyed 'em.
I still haven't decided exactly what I'll do once this big story is finished! It'll be the end of the current S&F saga -- one that began way back in 2009 with Fix Your Problem. Once it's done, I'll most likely take a break from "big" stuff for a bit and focus on smaller things and gag strips. But I'm not sure which characters I'd like to use for that. We'll see!
"Is the Ninja Mafia a product of the tar? Unlike the rest of the council, they do not seem to have anything particularly supernatural about them, but things don't have to be supernatural to have been from the imagination. They have recruited members from the human world (Aaron and Candice among others), but their presence is as confusing to humans as everything else. Maybe their origin and special members like original Emporers and Blankfaces came from the tar, but the numbers have been diluted over time. This then leads to another question: how many current ninjas are safe from the tar?" -Kyle
There are actually quite a few factions of the Committee that aren't inhuman or supernatural in some way! Many of the members are just the human leaders of important surface organizations or companies. (Although some of them, like former member Natalie Graves, have worked with inhumans like Mr Sin to do some weird stuff.)
I think the Ninja Mafia is one of the many criminal organizations that took advantage of the creation of the Underground to operate beyond the eye of traditional human society. So while I don't think they come from the tar directly, they have benefited from the secret "second world" that was created as a result of it. There are also certainly some rank and file ninja mafiosos who are inhuman, both historically and currently.
That's a wrap for this week, team. Come back on Monday, when we dive back into our current big story!
-Sam Logan
