Smokey and the Bandit

Jess is an intense lady.

Boy oh boy, friends... it has been a bit of a struggle to get things done lately! The smoke situation up here in Vancouver, as you may have heard, is real bad, much like it is across the west coast. I've got my windows sealed and air filters running, but it still feels pretty gross. I'm still finding the energy to draw, but I'm definitely running at about 50% capacity. Oy!

That said, this Friday should still bring a fresh new comic. And also, hopefully, a new round of Q and A!  As always, if you've got a question you'd like answered, just email it my way with "Q and A" in the subject line, or hit me up on twitter.

-Sam Logan

16K

I think in the real world, 16K televisions cost millions of dollars. But tech is a little more advanced in the S&F world, so we'll just say that Jess Star's new TV was quite expensive, rather than insane expensive. (But either way, I'm sure Dev's father will be pleased.)

Come back on Wednesday for our next comic!

-Sam Logan

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A:  Slug Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Did we just bear witness to Jess’s “true” horrifying slug form, or has Jess just kinda been able to shapeshift into dangerous and horrifying monstrosities this whole time? Is there any hard limit on what she *can’t* shapeshift into?" -Will

I don't think I will ever reveal her slug form! So yes, that was definitely just a terrifyingly creative construction.

I guess Jess' shapeshifting abilities are pretty robust. She can probably only get so big or so small. And I think the less familiar the form is, the harder it is to hold long term. But I don't really think about it too hard. Honestly, it probably just follows Roger Rabbit rules... she can do some pretty insane stuff, but only when it's funny.

"I was just wondering... in what storyline did you change Dev's model to reflect her skin colour?" -Alex

This current story is the first one, at least as far as black-and-white comics go! (Dev has always had darker skin in her colour appearances in bonus comics or the Saucy Hippo Patreon comics, of course.)

As many of you probably already know, when S&F first started, it was in pure black and white... no greytones! (It ran that way for seven years.) So when I made the earth-shaking decision to introduce a single greytone into S&F's art waaaaaaaaay back in this comic, I had to decide how exactly I wanted to use it.

To make a long story short, my philosophy for the next 10 years was: the grey tone was strictly for indicating lighting. It was not a stand-in for colours -- that is to say, there were no grey objects in S&F's black-and-white world... just grey shadows. It was a concious decision to try and preserve aspects of the comic's original look. But limiting the use of grey this way is also the reason why a lot of people assume that, say, Sam is blonde and Dev is white... at least until they see them in colour.

Anyway, since ending the big story, I've been experimenting with expanding my use of grey tones to also represent, you know... things that are darker in color. The Trevor story was particularly monumental, as Trevor himself is grey. This probably seems silly, but that sort of thing would never have happened in previous S&F comics. (And given the nature of the story, that felt kind of appropriate for Trevor.)

Anyway, now that I've opened Pandora's box, I've continued experimenting with grey STUFF in this story. So, there have been plenty of light and dark grey objects in addition to black or white ones. And yes, I've also been able to use grey to indicate when characters have darker hair or skintones, which is why Dev's model has changed. I think it's something I will keep playing around with in future chapters!

"When does your next Zim issue actually come out?" -Mark

Invader Zim Quarterly #2 comes out September 23rd. It got delayed quite a bit because of covid, but it's almost here! It's a giant 36 page issue written by me and illustrated by Warren Wucinich and Fred C. Stressing.

Syfy published an exclusive article and preview last week! You can check it out over here.

That's all for this week, team. See you on Monday with our next comic!

-Sam Logan