LAST UPDATED 02/13/2023
Q: Hello!I was wondering wasn't there a comic called "red room" on here? I swear I remember reading it on itch.io but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
███A: checked with RJ & it was up a while ago but he's since taken it down, so it's no longer up for sale SORRY! -nick
Q: I might be mistaken but Does Sal have a sister? (Also the sortie playlists are great)
███A: he does indeed :) maybe we'll learn a little more about her later. also thank you so much for enjoying the playlists!!!!!! i put like an embarrassing amount of effort into those LOL -nick
Q: is jake ND by any chance? his little "because it rang" in issue 3 followed by some of his actions in the ending made me wonder.
███A: he is actually! i wrote him with asperger's tells in mind that hopefully arent like In Your Face or stereotypical, but if you're familiar with what to look for it's like "ahah!" im not on the spectrum myself but ive got immediate family & close friends who are, so i channeled a lot of like essence of lived experiences & interactions for jake. he's actually my first ever pass at writing an autistic person so im really glad he lands for a lot of people! -nick
Q: Hi! I was just wondering if you guys had any advice for getting comics done in a timely manner? I feel like it takes me ages to get so little done!
███A: RJ here! I recommend first drafting your whole story, or at least chapters of it, these can be sketches or even rough doodles and serve to establish your scenes, pace and panel distribution. You're likely still going to edit things when you move onto finalizing steps, but this is better than doing each page one-by-one start to finish as you'll be very tempted to make dramatic changes to how your story, overthink or doubt yourself and your work. All these things are prooobably going to happen anyways, but its easier to get past the temptation of scrapping a whole project if you already have the whole outline finished up and ready to go.
As for the rest, setting up a routine and expectations is the best you can do. Find out what's feasible for you and hold yourself to it; can you finalize 3 pages a day? Then always try to do 3 pages a day at least. If you're finding that your expectations are realistic but you're still not able to meet them, simplify your procress! Obviously no 1 guy is going to be able to produce 10 fully colored and detail-rendered pages of comics a day. The more complex the final product is, the longer this is going to take, and you might just have to bite and bullet and adjust accordingly.
Changing up your routine can also help you keep motivated, you dont have to line AND color 2 pages a day, for example, if thats your schedule and its starting to grind on you, maybe instead ink 4 pages one day, color all 4 the next day, and so on.
Finally learn to know when you have to relax and when you can to push yourself. Dont work yourself to death, always take at least one or two days off a week, but if you find yourself inspired and energized to work a little more than you usually do, do it.
& nick chiming in as well here for the roughing-out portion of the process! even if your story isnt that long or complicated, it helps to have a googledoc or something with an absolute barebones skeleton outline of your project, like its beginning middle & end stated plainly & without much detail; that way you have a map to follow without feeling locked into a script if you get ideas along the way, and you wont risk forgetting anything u wanted to throw in. ive got such an outline for lovos im using right now that has a very simple pointA pointB pointC plot roadmap, and i like to kinda noodle around while eventually hitting the critical story beats.
second, with the rough draft outline itself: i cant stress this enough but do it as fast as possible first so it almost looks like dogshit LOL. this is a serious tip because once you take away any pressure to make the art look good, you get totally locked into communicating your story AND it gives you this freedom to make some really wild busted sketches in the process. if you get stuck on a panel like "oh god wait i dont like this angle," make a physically written note on the panel like 'change this angle later' and keep moving; if you cant draw a car or a building right, just draw in a box and physically label it CAR and keep moving! by the end of the process even if the art's silly, you have the entire skeleton out of the way & have given yourself a strong guideline to work off of while no longer having to worry about pacing or story, and this alleviates so much of your labor in the future. plus, working so fast & with the freedom to make weird-looking silly art along the way actually helps a ton with speeding up your drawing process; you just start automatically learning visual shorthand or unconsciously tightening up your lines, and moving so fast forces you to figure out how to put in the most critical elements of an interesting pose or a dynamic action.
third, after the skeleton sketch is all done, i like to go back and make Another googledoc of all edits i want to make, then go through the roughs again & make the edits still in preliminary format. then youre spending even more time with the story without any pressure to make finalized art, the roughs are getting tightened up even more, and you have the win of seeing your whole story laid out in front of you to keep you motivated to keep working. easy wins are super important, you need all the motivation you can get!
Q: Hello! Would you guys even make a public Sortie playlist like the Sad Sack ones? Looking forward to the Next volume!
███A: YES! my plan's to do one "soundtrack" release for each book; sortie2's comin out soon so im gonna get on a little playlist for sortie1 probably sometime tonight B) -nick
Q: Hi,I'm interested in reading Sad Sack! But I wanted to know if there's a particular order I need to read the comics? Can each story be read individually?
███A: thank you so much for your interest! each book can kind of stand alone, but sad sack is a sequential thing with developing character arcs (sort of) & thematic shit stretching throughout. so it's best read as 1 through 5 in release order B)b -nick
Q: the question i've been afraid to ask for a while... what does the red triangle symbolize?
███A: at the risk of sounding like a cop-out answer, it's multiple different things depending on who you ask in any given story, so the definition kinda mutates from comic to comic & from person to person. in sads it's one thing, in sortie it's slightly different, & so on. in real life it's the alchemical symbol for fire & masculinity, the emergency response symbol for fire's ingregients, the upward facing half of the seal of solomon and/or magen david, the shape often found accompanying the tetragrammaton aka the four secret names of god, among other stuff; how much any of that relates to comic business is a great question lol -nick
Q: amogus susogus lol
███A: fun fact we had no idea what the fuck amongus was or that sus was a preexisting meme thing when i made the site for the "collective" lol -nick
Q: I dont have a question, I just admire yalls work, so heres a test-send to see if the website is working as you intended it :P<3
███A: WORKINGGGGGGG thank you kindly! -nick