The Answer Post (#6)

Welcome to the latest set of Answers to patron-submitted questions, which I have surreptitiously switched to a numbering system rather than the original month-based naming scheme to cleverly conceal how stupidly late they are. As always, these answers are free for anyone to read, but only Patreon supporters may submit them. Let’s get started.

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1.) Tgva8889: Did you always plan for Serini to return, or did that develop as you wrote the story?

Yes, it was planned from the first introduction of the Scribblers that she would be the only member that the Order would actually meet and interact with. That’s part of the reason she was the party’s rogue, because it’s one class that even at very high levels wouldn’t flat out overshadow our heroes when they got to her. 

2.) J-Rad: I’m not sure if this crosses the threshold into personal information, but I was curious about what kind of training you received as it relates to art and writing. Are you self-taught and just enjoy drawing and consuming a breadth of media or have you specifically attended classes to develop the skills you exhibit? As a related follow-up, have you considered teaching a class?

For art, it’s a bit of a mix. I went to college for graphic design and illustration, and even before that I had done a lot of painting and drawing and such. But none of that was specifically about making vector art the way I do in Adobe Illustrator. Because it was the early 90’s, that kind of stuff was very new and not addressed all that deeply in my classes. (We spent a lot of time learning about photostats, a technology I have since used exactly zero times.) So I mostly taught myself how to draw in Illustrator because it was the tool I had available on my workstation during my subsequent graphic design career. And then obviously I also created the specific style I use, which I based on stick figures I used to draw back in middle school.

For writing, I am entirely self-taught. I’ve never had any sort of instruction beyond regular public school education. I read a few books about writing after I’d already found success with the comic, on the theory that maybe I should get serious about doing this, with mixed results.

I’ve never considered teaching a class, which is good because I doubt anyone would offer to let me. I think I’ve said this before but: because I learned writing “on the job” as I developed the comic, I don’t believe I’ve proven myself particularly skilled at creating anything other than The Order of the Stick, and teaching other people how to make The Order of the Stick would be terrible for my job security.

3.) Mike Branom: As an artist, what was The Moment when you realized, "Hey, I could do this professionally?"

As I alluded to in the question above, my Day Job in my 20s was as a graphic designer working on school textbooks, for which I was usually hired for specific projects that would last 6-12 months or so. In late 2004, my current project was ending and after a few interviews I got an offer from a bigger publisher to sign a contract for a new project, this time as a design manager. This would have been a promotion with more money but also would have required a lot more responsibility (and time) on my part, and I soon realized that if I accepted the position, there was no way I would be able to continue producing the comic on the side. 

So I thought this was probably my only chance to see if writing could be my full-time job. My wife (then girlfriend) and I did the research to figure out how to self-publish a book of all the OOTS strips thus far. We put it on sale with the idea that if it sold enough to match the manager salary, I would decline the job offer and become a professional cartoonist—and if it didn’t sell at all, we’d cancel the print run and refund the few people who had pre-ordered. It sort of landed in the middle, unfortunately, but it worked out to being only a little short of what I had been making at my old position. I decided to take the risk of turning down the new job (something that was undoubtedly made easier by the fact that it was only a nine month contract anyway). Since then, the financial side has been up and down, but at least the only books for which I’ve needed to use my graphic design skills have been my own.

4.) J-Rad: Do you ever find yourself held up on putting up a comic because you're trying to find a good title?

Every single time, but only for a few minutes. I don’t stress too much about it because ultimately it doesn’t matter very much what they’re named. So I usually go with the first idea that makes any sort of sense to me. That does sometimes lead to me reusing titles, which is not symbolic of any deep connection between the strips named the same thing so much as it is symbolic of my terrible memory and my general unwillingness to double-check at the last minute before pushing out an update.

5.) Bucket Crunderdunder: Was there anything that you've drawn that just made you laugh after you've finished drawing it?

The banana tree scene in Good Deeds Gone Unpunished. Hands down. Honorable mention to the Dancing Lights bonus strip in Utterly Dwarfed.

6.) Anonymous (via private message): You’ve written a lot of death scenes in the comic. Which character’s death hit you hardest emotionally to write?

This is an interesting question because most of the time, character deaths are so wrapped up in the plot that I don’t necessarily think of them in those terms. I usually know that such-and-such a character is going to die before I figure out the exact nature of the scene where it happens, so it doesn’t really impact me the same way. 

That doesn’t mean there’s not an answer, because there is, from Good Deeds Gone Unpunished again (minor spoilers, I guess?): Revisiting the death of Sangwaan the diviner. And the reason that it affected me was that I had absolutely no plans to ever address the character or her demise again, which was sort of played for laughs the first time around. But the process of writing the Therkla story for that book—a story that was itself only written because it was requested by a Kickstarter backer—led me to look at her again, and I surprised myself by finding more depth there. The actual page wasn’t even originally part of the script, I wrote and drew it in one day after I had finished the art for rest of the Therkla story because I now felt that Sangwaan deserved a chance to get the last laugh, so to speak. 

7.) Megabyte01: I understand if you'd rather plead the 5th, but after years of reading our heroes go through personal struggles with their families while on their mission to save the world, I wonder if you might have seen or experienced similar ordeals. Would you be willing to talk about some of your inspirations, or am I a tactless ghoul for asking something so personal?

Well, here’s the thing. If any of the family relationships depicted in OOTS were even loosely based on anything from my real family, then yes, that would indeed be too personal a question. But they’re not. They’re made up. I think there’s this popular idea that all writers are constantly mining their real lives for their stories, and maybe those who immerse themselves in writer’s workshops and such are. I have certainly seen that advice given to budding writers, but I have never really followed it other than maybe a few jokes here and there. I guess it must be common enough of an assumption that people read the story and decide I can only possibly be revealing deep personal truths about my childhood or something, when almost all of it it is me trying to fit pieces together to match random things the characters said about their parents as a joke in the first hundred strips, when I had practically no plan and was winging it all.

So no, I don’t have any personal situations that specifically led me to write the things I’ve written about the main characters’ families. If I really wrack my brain to think about what may have influenced me, what I come up with instead is that seeing the original 1977 Star Wars in the theater is literally my earliest memory, and it and its two sequels likely influenced my entire understanding of fiction. Thus in the early days when I wasn’t thinking too deeply about it, it seems like my instinct was that if a characters’ parents appeared in an adventure story, the mother was good but absent and the father was eventually revealed as antagonistic (spoiler for a movie released in 1980, sorry). Because I was not an experienced writer, I didn’t realize I was laying the groundwork for doing that, you know, twice. And once you do something twice, everyone looks for a third time, then stretches to find a fourth, then stands on their head and squints to see a fifth, and so on. I don’t know. I get asked this constantly and there’s just not much more to it than poor planning and unexamined influences.

8.) Coder : Who would be the most conventionally beautiful characters (male and female) if they were drawn non-sticky?

For men, it’s obviously Mr. Scruffy. He’s a very handsome cat. For women, it’s a tough choice but I think it has to be the Azurite archer on the left side of panel 7 of strip #423. She’s actually drop dead gorgeous but it doesn’t really get mentioned at that time, partly because everyone is running for their lives from a Titanium Elemental but also because it’s a professional setting and it wouldn’t be appropriate.

9.) Briarhobbit .: Hi,  I really enjoy your comic. Thor agreed with Durkon's point that the goblins got a bad deal when the gods created the OOTS world.  However, the hobgoblins that Red Cloak dragooned to attack Azure City had a robust city.  You showed a picture of it.   Maybe goblins weren't doing so well, but those hobgoblins right there were doing OK.  They overcame the obstacles that had been set before them.  Why does Red Cloak feel that it is worth throwing away what  has been accomplished by him and others on the chance that the next world will be better?

There are two parts to this, so I’ll tackle them each separately.

First, I think you’re vastly overestimating the situation of the hobgoblins. It’s one large-ish town, and probably the biggest settlement of goblinoids in the world at the time that Redcloak discovers it. Compare that to just the human cities we’ve seen in the course of the comic: Cliffport, Greysky City, Azure City, Tarquin’s capital. Compare the log-and-rope construction to the elaborate underground architecture of Firmament, a relatively minor dwarven town, or the almost literal ivory tower the elves abandoned on the island where the Azurite refugees settled—much less Tinkertown. The hobgoblins are clearly poorer, fewer in number, and technologically less advanced than the humans, dwarves, elves, or gnomes. The only reason the hobgoblins are able to overwhelm Azure City is that almost every single hobgoblin is trained as a warrior, whereas the Azurites rely on a relatively small army compared to a much larger civilian population. And even then, it still wouldn’t have happened without a handful of high-level spellcasters on their side, the most powerful of which was also human. Or post-human, at least. If you wanted to hand out an award for Most Improved Civilization relative to their starting point, sure, maybe the goblins would rate well by that measure, but otherwise they’re objectively worse off.

As far as Redcloak himself goes, I think this question is drifting away from writer intentions and more toward asking me to explain common emotional drives people have, which I’m not really qualified to do. You’re basically asking why a starving person who got one slice of bread might be upset that someone next to them got a full loaf. Yes, there are people in the world who would be thankful for the one slice because it would be better than starving, but there are also plenty of people who would be furious about getting less even if one slice was technically enough to survive on. Redcloak is more the latter, and you’re asking why he isn’t the former. It’s simply a matter of temperment, and I don’t know how to explain it better than that. I don’t think it’s even especially negative to be a person unwilling to tolerate this sort of unfairness, as that’s usually the starting point for progress. Certainly, I don’t believe asking the people on the short end of the stick to shut up and be grateful they don’t have even less is much of a valid solution for anything.

At any rate, it’s not particularly unrealistic to depict Redcloak as feeling that way, nor do I think it requires special justification on the story’s part. Maybe there are goblins who see things exactly the way you’re suggesting, but those ones don’t go on to relentlessly pursue reckless schemes like the one in the comic and thus make poor subjects to follow for an adventure narrative. If Redcloak’s reaction to seeing the hobgoblin town the first time was that gosh, he was wrong and goblins actually have it pretty good, not only would it feel inauthentic to the character I’d written up to that point but I’d also need to come up with a different antagonist for the rest of the story. 

10.) faroguy: What is one color palette choice you made early on that you wish you could change now?

Oh, I’ve already changed the main thing I regretted a long time ago: Elan’s red sash with green pants, and Nale’s corresponding green sash with red pants. Sure, lasting emotional growth is great and all, but have you ever used an entire story arc as a vehicle for changing a costume you don’t like anymore?

11.) Henri Mäntysaari: What is the alignment of each of the twelve gods? I interpreted Rat to be evil, how about others? Since, according to your previous answer, most Azurites worship the pantheon as one, how do good aligned worshipers feel about revering evil gods this way and vice versa? Does this imply that many of the followers of the religion are neutral aligned? How about the paladins in Azure city, how can they worship evil gods by proxy of worshiping the whole pantheon and still be strictly good?

Functionally speaking, the Twelve Gods are all True Neutral—partly because they’re animals, but partly because the specific metaphysics of the gods in this setting are that they are influenced by what their worshippers think about them. Since the Twelve Gods are all worshipped as a group, their alignment is pulled in all directions at once by different believers projecting their own morals onto them, and they end up in the middle somewhere. Even when they are singled out for individual devotion, it’s usually by people who were born under their astrological sign, which would naturally include the entire gamut of alignments. But the gods still govern each individual priest by that priest’s own alignment, so that a Good cleric who breaks her moral code would find herself cut off from her spellcasting powers even while an Evil cleric of the same pantheon who does the same action would not. 

It’s important to note that this process is not well understood by the mortals of the world, so what you get is a lot of conflicting religious interpretations where the gods seem to be supporting opposed ideas at once. This extends right down to Redcloak not understanding that Rat is no more Evil than any of the others but assuming he must be, because why else would he give the Dark One a chance?

12.) Anonymous (via private message): I know this is dumb but where do dwarves get the cloth for their clothes from?

Keeping in mind that I am absolutely 100% inventing this answer on the spot, but I would say that the dwarves likely have herds of mountain sheep that they keep for such a purpose, in addition to trading with nearby humans. It’s either that, or they grow cave-adapted undercotton. Maybe darklinen made from shadowflax.

13.) Anonymous (via private message): How do you come up with the designs for the covers of the books?

There are basically two details I need to keep in mind for the covers: 

The first is making sure all of the protagonists are on the cover. For most books, that means the six members of the Order, but for Start of Darkness it meant Xykon, Redcloak, and Right-Eye. In that case, the scene depicted doesn’t happen that way at all because Xykon isn’t a lich yet, but I thought it was more important to put the incarnation of the character readers would recoginize instead of the elderly human version that only appeared in one flashback panel of the main comic. When it came to Good Deeds Gone Unpunished, I briefly considered some sort of split-screen design, since the book is an anthology of five stories that don’t directly relate to one another, but in the end decided to focus on O-Chul, Hinjo, and new characters Zhou Bo and Saha Kapoor because their story ended up longer than the other four entries combined.

The second thing is to make sure the covers give you an idea of what’s in the book without giving away spoilers—either for that installment or the one before it. I always assume someone is going to eventually stumble on a pile of these books without knowing the comic already, and I don’t want the cover of volume 5 to give away the end of volume 4. Some hints are inevitable; the cover to War and XPs obviously lets you know that there’s going to be a war. But it doesn’t tell you anything about how that war ends, and even when you see the cover of Don’t Split the Party, it’s hopefully not immediately clear that Roy actually died. Likewise, someone going into the story completely fresh might notice that Durkon’s colors seem a little washed out on the cover of Utterly Dwarfed, but he’s deliberately facing away from the viewer so as not to spoil the critical events of Blood Runs in the Family.

Beyond those criteria, I just try to create a single dynamic image that makes it seem exciting and action-packed. Comedy doesn’t translate as well into a single dialogue-free image, and I already did, “The main cast stands around looking generally goofy,” for Dungeon Crawlin’ Fools anyway. 

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That’s it for this set of Answers, which I absolutely did not write months ago but was then distracted between the time I finished them and the time I was supposed to post them and so mentally filed them as being a completed task even though they were sitting untouched on my computer and didn’t notice until it was past time to do another set, why would you even suggest that? New Question thread next week.