You’ve been creating this diary webcomic since 2003. What made you decide to put out a book at this point? 

There were two factors that went into the decision to print my first book: being unemployed and peer pressure.

Though the majority of my friends are freelance artists, I never had enough faith in my abilities to think I could support myself on my own without the the certainty of a day job. I worked at a couple different animation studios in Portland, Oregon, after I graduated college in 2006. In May 2008, my entire studio got laid off, and I took on some freelance gigs until I could find another Real Job. After about six months of supporting myself on my own resources, it slowly dawned on me that I didn’t NEED to work a 9-5 and that it’s actually possible for me to be an independent artist. Pooping out DAR! over the years had left me with an enormous amount of content that I could actually turn into a potential source of revenue in the form of a book, which could also act as a calling card/portfolio to attract new clients or publishers.

My friends had been urging me to compile DAR! into a book for yeeeeears, but it just never really felt like it was worth it. Who’d actually spend money to read about my life? But my friends were super supportive/insistent, and the timing was right so… voila!

How and why did you start cartooning? 

Words and pictures make such a fabulous combination, and I have always, always, always been using them together. Aside from speaking face-to-face with someone, comics are the most natural way for me to communicate. Though I enjoy making up dialogue, writing descriptions is really difficult for me. I make them super boring (probably since it’s an activity that bores me). But by cartooning, I can just SHOW the reader exactly what the setting is and what’s happening and save the words for when they’re really needed. I approach storytelling with a very “Show, Don’t Tell” mindset.
 
Why a webcomic? 

The internet was the best place for me to show my work to my friends, and once it was up there, I started to get a growing audience of strangers. I was putting my work on the web before I even learned about making minicomics. I never sat down and thought “_I_ know! I’ll put it… ON THE INTERNET,” it was simply the most obvious and easiest place to stick it.

You mentioned, when last we spoke, that you had some publishing problems with the book. What were they? 

America is populated by Puritanical retards. If I lived in Europe or Canada, the only issues I would have had to worry about would have been print quality and bleed marks.

Unfortunately, I had heard good things about the publisher I used and even own a few of their tits-n-weed-smokin’ filled books, so I signed up for them to pop my self-publishing cherry. Oh, regrets!

The short version: The company I went with (headquartered in Quebec) is very widely used in the comic book world, and they do definitely print “risque” and “adult” content. I paid them upfront. Two weeks before I was supposed to have all 1,000 books, the branch (in the US) where my work was to be printed decided to “decline” my project because of its “risque” content. It was sent on to a second US branch, who also “declined” for the same reason. Finally it was sent on to Canada, who did agree to print it but charged me extra. Though I told them they should cover the additional costs themselves (because it was their own individual branch employees who vetoed my book, even though the company itself had no problem with my work), I needed my books so I had to paid the additional fees.

The Long Version: I paid them up front for the amount quoted and was told I’d have my book by mid-March. So I opened up pre-orders online, saying I’d be shipping on April 1st, as well as lining up conventions and events to sell them at.

Less than two weeks before I was supposed to have 1,000 copies at my house, my representative called me up to inform me that the Idaho branch in charge of printing my book was “declining” to do so because of my “risque” content.

Never mind that they’d had all my files and had been having me do minor layout corrections on them for WEEKS at this point, nor that NOWHERE on my contract had it said that they do not print adult material. There are naked bodies in my book and some absurd sexual contexts, but I certainly wouldn’t consider my book to be sexy or pornographic. Book printers are basically Kinkos for books: they are not responsible for your content and their name appears no where on your project. You pay them to print. That’s it.

So my representative (who didn’t think my work was objectionable, I should mention) sent along my book to another branch, this one in Massachusetts. They also declined to print my book, on account of it being “too graphic”. At this point, there was no way I was going to be able to fulfill my pre-orders on time and god only knew if I’d have them in time for the conventions I’d lined up.

Finally, it gets sent off to the Quebec branch which is, thankfully, in Canada where they don’t give a fuck about a tit here or there. But now that my project had gone international, it cost me many hundreds and hundreds of dollars more to have them print it and then ship it across country borders.

I asked that they reimburse me for the money I was losing by not having the books at the events I’d lined up (and paid to be at) and that they cover the additional costs that their own internal politics had cost me. Of course they “declined”. Working with this company hurt me financially.

In the end, I did get the books, and they are beautiful. But I’ll be damned if I ever use that printing company again, and I completely advise anybody looking to have their work printed to STAY AWAY.
 
I do, however, strongly recommend Epigraphic, the graphic novel division of Epigraph. Don’t let the website design deter anyone who is looking for quality printing done by reliable, fully invested people. They gave me nothing but absolutely wonderful, personal service when I was looking to switch printers, and my next book is going straight to them. They’ve also published several of Lucy Knisley’s books, including the first edition of French Milk, Heart, Seed, Snow, and Pretty Little Book. I can’t say enough good things about them.

Your material is unashamedly explicit, and revealing so much about yourself, physically and mentally, seems scary. Have you ever second-guessed that decision? What drives you to be so open? 

I’m only open about the stuff I feel comfortable talking about; there’s actually lots and lots that I actively censor. Sex, nudity, and bodily functions are things that I find pretty harmless and fully entertaining. Topics that I do find too private are stuff like fighting with friends, being super depressed, or anything that will portray my loved ones in a way that will embarrass them. People always ask if my husband knows of, or how he feels about, the stuff I write and it’s like “Bitch, please! That comic where he ate his own sperm? The one where I’m cooing because his cock’n'balls had gotten super tiny? THOSE WERE HIS SUGGESTIONS!”
I’m really, really lucky to have a spouse who shares my sensibilities. Or lack of them. I dunno.
 
Why am I so open about it? I think those subjects are funny, and I feed on the validation that comes from complete strangers telling me that they relate to my strips. Most of my close friends I’ve met are because of my comics. Shit, I met my husband because first he was a fan of my comics.

Also, I might be kinda an exhibitionist. Maybe.

Some of your material some might call gross. Do you ever get that reaction? 

Oh sure, and I don’t blame them. Some people are actively offended by my comics and angry at me as a person for having made them. My sense of humor and world view are certainly not for everyone.
 
I loved your introduction, where you skip over the first three years and sum up your history as a lesbian who fell in love with a guy. How do you identify yourself? 

Thank you! For my sexuality, I stick with ‘queer’ as an all encompassing term to mean ‘not straight’. But the longer I’m with my spouse, the less defining my sexuality becomes to me. It’s like, I’m not going to be sleeping with anyone else so what does it matter who I find attractive? I’m still a feminist and I still think dirty thoughts about pretty girls…

I identify as an immature pervert.

Do you have plans for future volumes? 

Oh yes! Volume 2 will collect all my strips from 2009, so that’ll be ready in 2010. And then I have several other not-DAR!-related books in mind as well that I’d like to get out this year… We’ll see if I can pull together the funds for them. I’m reeeeeally itching to do a full-color one.

How can readers get this book? 

Currently I’m self-distributing, so you can either order from my website, buy directly from me at a convention or reading (ahem, cough, I’m available to do readings and lectures, cough, ahem), or at a comic store that is carrying my stuff.

Hopefully I can find a more official distributorship to actually do a professional job, but for now I’m all I’ve got.

High Moon
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It’s cowboys and werewolves in the Old West, but instead of a historical approach, this story’s all about the shock and action. Macgregor is the stranger come to town, the precipitating event, a lupine bounty hunter who instantly takes over and orders people around in an attempt to prevent what only he knows is going to happen.

The whole thing feels adrift in time, using archetypes (the less kind would say stereotypes) to create a small Texas town without much need for explanation. Weird things are happening because that’s what kind of story this is. In addition to the promised werewolves, there is no lack of other mystical creatures, plus spell-casting and plenty of death.

The first thing that struck me on a flip-through was how rich and dark the colors were, accentuated by the old-fashioned, non-slick, pulpy paper. The deep colors occasionally made it hard to make out detail. Pages have one dominant tone: blue for night, later gold or red for passion or blood, desert colors.

I was impressed by how little text there is. That’s in keeping with the genre, as well as a technique that builds more curiosity and suspense on the part of the reader. That approach is always helpful for a webcomic, where too much dialogue either becomes unreadable or gets in the way of good art. But it also speaks to how much faith Gallaher has in Ellis, an eye-opener to those who attribute the most creativity to the writer, and a testament to how well the two rely on each other.

Unfortunately, the suspense didn’t work as expected for me. Instead of being drawn into the mystery of what would happen next, I got antsy, ready for a more accelerated pace. I knew what was coming before it got there… but then, I’m not a fan of these genres, so I didn’t get swept away by the atmosphere. There were a couple of actually surprising moments, as the story took turns I didn’t expect (and kind of regretted, but I don’t want to say why for fear of spoiling events for the new reader). There’s minimal explanation or purpose underlying the plotting — the showdown is the point and the justification of what came before. I lost track of who was doing what and why, but that may be because I wasn’t wrapped up in the story.

The second chapter goes steampunk with a train robbery and a different town and characters. The third moves to a winter setting driven by a Native American called Young Raven. By this point, the lone lawman has become a gang of freaks, including a Black Widow-like female detective, facing down Civil War soldiers. While it’s still technically “weird Western”, it reminded me more of the way Alan Moore creates historical superhero-like teams in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — only this version is purely adrenaline, not intellect, based.

Comparing web to print, the pages look better online, since they were designed to have light coming from behind them. However, on paper, you can read at your own pace, without having to look at the stupid Zuda eyeballs between every page as a new one loads. As a minor point, I found it odd that nowhere on the outside of the book does it say “DC Comics”. Everything is tagged “Zuda”, but the copyright page says “Published by DC Comics”. (A complimentary copy for this review was provided by the publisher.)

As part of this change, developers will be able to provide screenshots, promotional icons and descriptions that will better show off applications and games. We have also added four new sub-categories for applications: sports, health, themes, and comics. Developers can now choose these sub-categories for both new and existing applications via the publisher website.

I have no idea why those were selected as specific categories, but I look forward to browsing the area after 1.6 is available.

I’m a big fan of webcomic print collections. You can see the whole strip at once, regardless of your monitor size, and it’s nice to read away from the computer. Especially in this case, where there are all kinds of details added that contribute to the experience. For example, on the Creative Commons (not copyright) page, where most books have a line of numbers (”1 3 5 7 6 4 2″) to indicate which printing it is, this volume has the Fibonacci Sequence (”0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34″). And page numbers are in trinary (using only the digits 0, 1, and 2). In case you haven’t figured it out, this is math geek humor — where better for it to thrive than the internet?

Yet it’s not that exclusionary. I passed the book to non-math-user KC while I was working on his computer, and he started laughing at the second cartoon in the book. The comics of that type, those about human nature, are my favorites too, although some of the geekiest (be sure to read the tooltip) are also hilarious. Note that the contents are not in chronological order, nor is this a comprehensive collection, just a selection by Munroe of some of the best. There’s plenty of great strips here, though, including early work drawn on graph paper. The book is alternately puzzling, thought-provoking, heart-wrenching, and mind-boggling. As well as misleadingly simple-looking, with the stick figures, but there’s real skill behind it.

There’s also a brief but valuable introduction where Randall Munroe explains how the strip got started, when it became his career, how the book came together, and how it’s influenced people in real life. The rollover notes (the tooltip text you’d see attached to the comics, which add a new level to the joke) from the site are included as small captions. Plus, red ink doodles add new marginal notes or, in some cases, ciphers. I’m hoping for an annotation site once more people start receiving the book. I solved the first two through simple substitution and ROT-13, but I was soon out of my league. (One depends on QR codes. Yay for an Android phone to figure that out.) Google does come in handy for figuring out the references I don’t know, both in captions or cartoons, which means that maybe I don’t get as far away from the computer with this book as I hoped. Regardless, highly recommended.

Runners, the science fiction adventure comic, has launched a new story arc this month called The Big Snow Job. Unlike the previous storyline, this one’s in color.

New pages are posted twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays. This was originally intended for print, as he talks about this story run being five “issues”, but that means it’s easy to buy a collection when it’s all done. I like that he also posts commentary on the pages — it adds another level of interaction with the artist.

It’s a great starting point for a fun science fiction adventure with some great art.

They’re not specific about the page count, and it’s not a comprehensive reprint, featuring “selections” from the first 600 comics. The book is $18, plus another $5 for shipping in the US, plus another $10 if you want a signed copy. (But only for the first 24 hours of the listing.) That struck me as a little unusual — I usually see webcomic artists offering signed copies for no additional charge as an incentive to order from them. But if you’re that popular, I guess you can charge extra and impose a time limit.

Platinum … has narrowed its focus this year to be strictly on its core film and television business. I personally formed a holding company that acquired 100% of WOWIO from Platinum on July 1 of this year.

Wowio had been acquired by Platinum about a year ago, so that didn’t last long. (And the combination was generally unsuccessful.) Practically, I’m not sure how much of a change this actually is, since Altounian is still President and Chief Operating Officer of Platinum, and he was the one defending the company when people pointed out that they still owed creators money from June 2008. That debt has still not, to my knowledge, been paid. The interview didn’t ask Altounian about financial matters.

Altounian is now plugging the “richer experience” of including audio and video as additional content in their ebook PDFs. He concludes by promising a brighter future:

[W]e are exploring additional media elements such as audiobook and other formats for our readers to broaden their collection of material. We are exploring new revenue-generating opportunities for our publishing partners. We are looking at new corporate sponsorships, and we recently launched a new non-profit initiative that will expand our readership greatly. Look for new announcements to come out over the next couple of months.

Given the number of times the company has said “trust us, good things are coming”, it appears that even though, on paper, the leadership may be different, it’s the same old Wowio.

I admit, I hadn’t heard of it before I got word of the anniversary, but that just means more reading in the archives. Since I read webcomics through RSS updates, I’m using the LiveJournal site feed. The weekly strips (updated on Fridays) blend history and fiction, and my favorite part are the footnotes that explain more about the strip subject or references therein. (I admire the author’s research, especially when he’s being silly.) I also like the confident, thick lines around the characters. Recommended for fans of Hark! A Vagrant.

I am loving the Sinfest demonic laptop pet. I think of mine that way sometimes — more than a machine, it’s a member of the family, and yet it leads me into temptation, whether saying something inappropriate or spending too much time with it to the neglect of others.

The little guy brought it with him out of Hell, in a strip that crossed over with another of my favorite storylines in the series, the bookish nerd and the demon girl who loves him. (Why do I not know the names of any of these characters?) Here’s where he first entered Hell, for a week of strips.

Also very thought-provoking today was the latest Comic Critics! strip, in which a very sensible fan explains why he doesn’t feel the need to see Watchmen.

It’s a remarkably sensible approach, and would that more people followed it. (Then, the things that people complain about wouldn’t make money as they go to see it (or buy it to read it) just to confirm that their negative opinions were right.) And I love the pastel rainbow of books in the background.

New editor D.C. McQueen presides over a redesign and relaunch as a community-driven site — they’re calling it an “internet-based, webcomics magazine” — with the comics for free and a podcast, a blog about dolls, and a review column added. (Contributors used to receive a share of subscription fees; now they’ll get part of the ad revenue, according to this McQueen interview about the relaunch.)

I’m glad to see them trying something new with the brand, but it’s still early days. I have yet to see anything that really sets them apart, but I think that will come over time, as their feature contributors develop and present their voices and we see what comics continue and join.

SIGIKKI is the result of a partnership between the Viz Signature line (which publishes titles aimed as adults, including 20th Century Boys, Oishinbo, Detroit Metal City, and Pluto) and the monthly manga magazine IKKI. The Japanese publication is described as “the home of some of the most innovative, bold, and compelling titles in the world of contemporary manga.”

In addition to the manga chapters, the site contains interviews with creators. Here’s the full press release, with series descriptions. Depending on reader demand, print collections of the online series will follow after online serialization.

On Thursday, July 23, BOKURANO: OURS, by Mohiro Kitoh; DOROHEDORO, by Q Hayashida; SATURN APARTMENTS, by Hisae Iwaoka; and I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL…TOMORROW, by Shunju Aono will be posted. The week following brings the first chapters of KINGYO USED BOOKS, by Seimu Yoshizaki; HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES, by Natsume Ono; AFTERSCHOOL CHARISMA, by Kumiko Suekane; and TOKYO FLOW CHART, by Eiji Miruno. David Welsh did some more research on the Japanese titles.

What a great way to build readership for manga for adults! Free samples are the way to go. That site again is sigikki.com.

Also typical: lots of setup, no real story. With only 8 panels, it’s tough, but I shouldn’t learn more about the premise of your comic from the text synopsis than I do from reading it. The one I like best, the one I could see continuing to read as a webcomic, was Vigilante Granny, because it’s funny and unusual and loads quickly (it’s black and white). It’s also currently in last place. Figures. The current first-place holder is something called RockStar, which looks like a whole lot of other superhero comics.

Is the audience self-selecting for things they’re already comfortable with, given that they’re participating in this project from DC Comics? Or are superheros and fights just what’s easiest to do in 8 “screens”?

They’re well-done, with professional-level art, and I like the extra touches: cover design and a back page that explains the genesis of the stories and tells a little bit about the creators.

It was previously self-published, but as so many others these days, Young found that the economics didn’t work well for him in print:

Like every other deluded, quixotic creator entering the field with their head in the clouds, I was expecting immediate riches and rewards; that all the wealth, fame and glory I deserved would fall directly onto my lap … When you’re putting out a 24 page black & white comic, you wouldn’t need to sell that many copies to break even; and not that many more to turn a small, if not minuscule, profit (of course, this is only if we’re talking about printing costs). You sell about 2500 – 3000 copies, and you’re in Breaking-Even-Land. Do enough research, and you’ll find dozens of cautionary tales about self-publishing. You read them over and over again, and you think, “Oh, please! That ain’t gonna happen to me! I’m the next Jeff Smith!” Or Dave Sim or Terry Moore or whoever else you admire. Anyway…I ultimately learned, the hard way, just how rare it was to get pass the gates at Breaking-Even-Land.

So now he’s putting his original miniseries and its sequel online as a webcomic. It’s updated on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He needs to do some cleanup and tweaking on the site (navigation buttons at the bottom of the image, not just the top; clearing out the test posts; making sure all the dropdown links work), but I enjoyed what I read, and I like his line and his character design. Even if reading about that many cats made me start sneezing.

I’m tempted to volunteer to help with Marissa’s likes, but that might be scary.

Goats: Infinite Typewriters
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Given my tastes and habits, a book is a good idea, since I wouldn’t have tried the series without it. Over a decade of archives becomes rather intimidating to someone interested who isn’t even sure what the strip is about. (That problem is shared with the author, who says, “There’s no good way to summarize it.”)

The strip started by telling slice-of-life gags, but after a storyline in 2002, it took a turn to science fiction/cultural parody with ongoing plotlines. I think I might have preferred the earlier version, because I admit, when it comes to the strips here, I don’t get it. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I’m not interested. None of it really clicked with me.

There are two guys, a talking chicken named Diablo, his violent son Oliver, two aliens, and a fish in a beer glass (my favorite character). The goat of the title is Toothgnip, who pulls Thor’s chariot. The cast hang out in a pub and talk about religion, science, and life, then they meet God or Satan or build destructive machines or visit comic conventions.

The point seems to be the dialogue more than the events. The characters talk a lot. The art is serviceable but not particularly attractive, and it’s often pretty static. Although I think the strip’s longevity is an amazing accomplishment, I found the actual content boring and self-indulgent, although I admire the imagination involved. (Update: Given how long it’s been going, it’s clearly got an audience who sees things in it I’m missing. If you’re at all curious, you should check it out for yourself. It’s a webcomic. All it will cost you is time. If you like it, consider buying the book, because:)

The book itself is very impressive. Thick white gloss paper makes for a book with heft; it feels very solid and substantial. The square proportions allow for three rows of strips per page. Since they’re often three panels each, that makes for a simple, easy-to-read grid.

I do find it a little disingenuous for Del Rey to be publicizing this book as “Goats … collected for the first time”, given that there are three previous self-published volumes, but those will only be available until this book’s publication date, June 23. And it’s true that this book does contain never-before-published strips from the later, more current era.

This is the first of three books to be published by Del Rey. The Corndog Imperative is due in December, with Showcase Showdown following. (A complimentary copy for this review was provided by the publisher.)

Galaxion Book 1: The Jump
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I can’t approach this story objectively, because I was a fan of the previous incarnation (as discussed in an interview with the author). It’s been so long, though — over a decade — that these characters seemed fresh yet familiar, like old friends I hadn’t seen in a while and needed catching up with.

Fusella captains the Galaxion, which has been taken away from her temporarily. She’s been told that it’s for an engine refit, but the changes are too drastic for that to be solely the case. It turns out that her science ship has been enlisted for an experimental hyperspace jump, along with her crew. Among them are Aria, a geologist on the survey team, perhaps the most level-headed of the cast. Darvin is the officer leading the renovations, while Zan’s a young inventor.

When the experiment doesn’t go as expected, the ship’s crew has to figure out where they are. Everyone gets down to work to solve the mystery, which may be related to history of other ships.

I like that the cast is distinctive and realistic, probably the characters most like real people I’ve ever found in science fiction. They bicker and chit-chat. They’re diverse in attitude and personality and cultural backgrounds. (How refreshing, to see so many women working in technical jobs, too!)

And they all have really neat hair, in styles and shapes I recognize (instead of odd outlines created because the artist is taking shortcuts). The expressions are well-observed and pictured. The backgrounds are rich and solid, three-dimensional rooms and settings.

The dialogue’s great for revealing what the reader needs to know to follow the story. There’s clearly a lot more here than we’re getting on the page right away, a detailed history that we’ll find out more about as the story progresses.

If you read the previous series, you’ll know more about what the crew is going to face, but the story’s different enough that I enjoyed this new collection, and the art’s more accomplished. This volume also includes a stand-alone story (previously published as part of a promotional flipbook with Amy Unbounded) and some alternate pages. The book does end on a cliffhanger, so follow up at the website or hope, as I do, that the next volume won’t take as long!

She’s just put out her first print collection of the webcomic version, so I thought it would be a great time to catch up.

What’s in your new Galaxion collection, and how can people get it?

Galaxion Book 1: The Jump
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Galaxion Book 1: The Jump contains the first three chapters of the Galaxion webcomic, the 17-page “Fusella vs. Interplanetary Patrol” story (also known as the Flipbook story), and some odds and ends of original content. All told, it’s 144 pages. It will soon be available direct from my website, and also through all of the various Amazon sites (.com, .ca, .co.uk, etc.), as well as BarnesandNoble.com.

How does it relate to the print comics of last decade? Are they the same story?

Probably the best way to describe it is as a relaunch. I stopped making the print edition in 2000 because I started a family, and I quickly discovered, to my dismay, that I was not one of those amazing women who can make babies and comics go together! But by the time my kids were both old enough to be in school, I’d realized that I wanted very much to return not only to the story, but to comics as well.

After being completely absent from the scene for six years, and on top of that making the decision to move from print comics to the new medium of webcomics, I’d figured that no one would remember Galaxion and I’d have to start over from the beginning in order to reach a new audience. (Turns out I was kind of wrong about that—a lot of people remembered Galaxion! I’m still getting emails from people who are just discovering the comic online and want to tell me they’re happy the story is still going.) In the intervening six years, I’d added a lot of new ideas to the story, and I was keen on having a chance to put them to use!

So to (finally) answer the question, the basic plot is the same, the main characters are more-or-less the same, but many of the details are quite different. Everything has been rewritten and redrawn, and I’ve chosen different scenes and some different points of view to tell the story this time around. There’s more focus on character development, which is some of my favourite stuff to write! Although the webcomic is written to attract new readers, I like to think that people who’ve read and enjoyed the earlier version will find lots to interest them in the new version.

How does the Galaxion serialization work?

One page a week, plus an extra update on the first Friday of the month. It’s not very speedy pace, but I’m just not a speedy artist! There is a definite end to the story, though it will likely take me more than a few years to get there. It just feels like it’s forever ongoing.

Who is your target audience? Who enjoys the strip most?

It’s a funny thing, target audiences. Like many writers, I write what I enjoy, so I had initially imagined that my target audience must therefore be people like me—adult women who enjoy romantic space opera, Star Trek, and perhaps have a bit of fondness for anime of the ‘80s like Space Cruiser Yamato.

I suppose there must be some Galaxion readers like that out there, but overall I seem to have more males than females in my audience, judging by the feedback I get. Perhaps this is because there are still more males than females reading comics in general? It’s probably fair to say that the percentage of women reading my comic is growing.

On the other hand, I’m also hearing more and more from parents who tell me that their daughters are fans. At first I was surprised by this news, but I’ve come to realize I’m also quite pleased. I don’t write specifically for kids—my characters are all adults—but by force of habit I’ve kept it pretty clean and nonviolent, about a PG rating. Within the science fiction genre, especially on the web, this appears to be a bit of a novelty. Most dramatic SF in recent years has been leaning towards dark and gritty, whereas Galaxion is more bright and friendly. That’s what I like to write, and it just so happens that it’s appropriate for preteens to read! The young adult market was not among my initial goals, but I think it’s one worth pursuing. For many years I’ve felt that while there’s a wealth of good fantasy stories for the 9-14 age group, there’s very little good science fiction out there, comics or otherwise. I wouldn’t mind helping to correct that unfortunate deficiency!

What do you aim to accomplish with Galaxion, and how successful do you think you’ve been?

Well, since I write primarily for my own enjoyment, my main goal is to get to the end of the story! I’ve had these characters kicking around in my head since I was twelve—that’s well over two decades past—and after all this time, I want to do right by them and get their story told. Other goals like fame, fortune, and being able to draw as well as Carla Speed McNeil (or Wendy Pini or Colleen Doran or any number of manga artists whom I admire) are all part of the mix, but finishing the story is really the driving force.

By that yardstick, success is still years away….

Galaxion is a long-form webcomic, with a serialized story. What are your thoughts on that approach compared to shorter gag strips?

As a reader, my first love is long-form stories. I know conventional webcomic wisdom tells us that daily strips have the greatest chance of success because our internet attention span is microscopically short, but I’m able to follow long-form webcomics like Girl Genius, which updates three times a week, without much difficulty, so that gives me hope for the format. More updates are better, obviously, but I can manage to keep track of once-a-week stories like Family Man.

For a long-form comic presenting on the web, the ideal would be for each individual update to be enjoyable on its own, while still advancing the plot of the story. It’s a bit of a tricky balancing act, but now that I think about it, it’s probably not all that much different a challenge from the balancing act we try to achieve in comics between the words and the art!

This will be, by my count, the fourth time you’ve told this story. (First making stories for yourself as a teen, then minicomics, then print, now web.) Why do you keep going back to it? What have you learned? Do you have plans to make other comics or stories? 

Yeah, heh, that does seem kind of insane, doesn’t it? All of those reboots seemed to make sense at the time…. Well, mainly each one happened because of a format change. From a novel, to a 13-page-per-issue minicomic, to a 20-page-per-issue full-size comic, and finally to the web, I needed to change the way I presented the story each time to make it fit. (Well, in retrospect I now know I probably didn’t need to change anything to put it all up on the web, but I didn’t realize that at the time.) And each time I started over I used the opportunity to refine the plot, the script, and the art.

It’s not really a process I would recommend—it’s kind of a trap, to keep returning to the same material because you want to improve it. It’s best to keep going forward. You learn something from every new page you complete. Why do I go back, then? The short answer is, because I’m not finished yet! Both in my head and on paper these characters have grown and matured over the years just as I have, and I’m fond enough of them that I don’t mind they’re still hanging around after all this time. Though that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to the day I finish the story and get to kick them out at last!

Will there be other comics or stories? Sure. I’ve worked on a few diversions already, most recently Roberta’s Space Adventure, a story about the Canadian astronauts for grade six kids, part of Scholastic Education Canada’s “Moving Up with Literacy Place” program. Hard as it is for me to imagine a time when I’m not working on Galaxion, I know that once I’m done there’ll be plenty of other stories to, um, obsess over. As most writers will tell you, coming up with new ideas is not the problem!