Oh I know exactly which story that is! Good choice.

I think it's sometimes necessary to divorce personal beliefs of creators from their works. There's a lot of terrible people that make great art: Card is a homophobe, Charles Dickens treated his wife terribly, T.S. Eliot was an antisemite, Dave Sim is a misogynist, Norman Mailer attempted to kill his wife. Doug TenNapel is a really big homophobe. Lovecraft was a racist, but softened when he married his Jewish wife. It's a personal decision for everyone on where they draw the line.

That said, Chuck Wendig does some great horror(ish?) sort of novels that you might really dig: I heartily recommend 'Blackbirds' and 'Mockingbird.' Also, Joey Comeau's works are engaging, interesting, and really well written.

I'm not actually a huge fan of reading everything an author writes, so no judgement on you for stopping. There's a good chunk of really xenophobic stuff in his works that I also avoid (Kind of like Orson Scott Card)

However, the great thing about Lovecraft was that he was essentially open source at the time. I honestly enjoy a lot of things that other people write using his mythos.

Future Lovecraft is a really good anthology that I also happen to be in! http://www.amazon.com/dp/1607013533

Alhazred: Author of the Necronomicon is also really good http://www.amazon.com/Alhazred-Author-Necronomicon-Donald-Tyson/dp/0738708925/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368206834&sr=1-1&keywords=al+hazred

CORRECT!

-continued- Pieta reminds me of some people I know - some trans, others just very independent without much regard for gender norms. My question is, how much of her character reflects yourself, or the personality you consider ideal for yourself?

Ooh awesome! I'm glad you're undertaking it! Rule of thumb: avoid all of his collaborative work. It's just... not good.

In terms of how much Pieta is like me: There's a lot of unintentional similarities. Re: gender norms - I don't have much regard to them. I don't, in fact, have a lot of regard for most things traditional unless there's a significantly practical reason for it. However, Pieta serves a larger purpose - the everyman, so to speak. As a queer person, I wanted to read about LGBTQ individuals where sexuality and gender wasn't the main issue.

I think it also provide another benefit to people that prefer working within a system that already exists. Without the limitations of a society that cares deeply about gender, does it really matter? It's easier to think about if the playground of the story is neutral.

Personality-wise, she's very much a reflection of where I was at 4 years ago when I started the comic. Nice, good person, but not assertive enough to forge her own happiness. This flaw was not an intentional choice, but it's been a good learning experience and it's a fun mental exercise. If someone is weak-willed, and makes poor life decisions that unintentionally causes suffering to others, are they a bad person? What if they don't learn from their lessons and keep unintentionally harming others? If they start standing up for themselves, but then cause harm by proxie, does this make them a bad person? Where's the line?

Oh, for most practical reasons. I impulse-bought the domain a year before I started the comic because I was SO EXCITED to have a Flying Spaghetti Monster referenced-domain.

I don't like having things I don't use, so... yep. Personal website for comics.

Cool story, bro.

Yep! It's up now: http://noodlyappendage.com/shop

Oh, good question. I think I would have a really, really good think about it. On one hand, $1 million AND the knowledge that my daily actions (hello, electronic consumerism, buying cheap clothing probably made in China, etc) already contribute to the death/suffering of people. One button press, one person that would've died anyway, though likely later. Easy peasy.

On the other hand, I'm not a sociopath. So I'll accept being poor so I can live with myself every day.

Pieta is a female! She just happens to be the athletic, flat-chested variety. She also binds, mostly for the ease of keeping her boobs tied up in case she needs to exert herself, such as running, fighting abominations, etc. Her appearance, however, has been and will be kept purposefully androgynous.

The matriarch's comment was more of a jab at Pieta. As Oona mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the family is very traditional and less accepting of people that break gender norms. Moreover, males have less power than females in the family, so it was a comment to say that she's not an equal.

Faces.

Ugh, worldpress hacks. Sorry, I've been trying to clean all of that up (I am the local tech). Let me know if you see it later.

Not this year, but maybe next? I'd love to go out to TCAF!

D: Sorry. Financial issues led me to take down my bigcartel site. I'm working on recoding a new store.

I have some still in stock! Please feel free to e-mail me [robyn@noodlyappendage.com] to arrange a purchase.

My ability to improve. So I guess the continual questioning of how much I deserve something and always striving to be better.

Tubneyficket is a street in the city that also serves as a sort of demographic landmark, like Delmar is to St. Louis. It's close to the sea and was mostly populated by middle-to-working class families living in a slum-like situation. Enough people live on the street to qualify it as a neighborhood by itself.

When I reference it later, I mean "the event that happened at Tubneyficket," which is everyone in about a 1-2 square mile (~5,000 people) were gobbled up.

Scientist. Being able to do super cool things (like clone Dinosaurs) is only super impressive when you can explain how it works. Also, I'd never have the time to memorize/prep my spells every day.

1) Aside from Lovecraft? A lot of books, actually. I grew up reading a lot of classics, but I've branched out. I rely on Orson Scott Card and Margaret Atwood for semi-believable dialogue; Robert Bolaño and Philip K. Dick for complex story lines and a number of authors for research and how to write horror. I think the one thing that stands out is that I don't like Stephen King. I probably read him in the wrong order, having started out on Desperation/The Regulators and then the Gunslinger Series (which was ok up until the 5th book). From the books I've read, I've seen a number of really bad writing mistakes (self insertion, an almost sort of laziness to naming so that you can say "oh hey it's a reference!", his arbitrary use of the n-word in stories that don't deal with racism). Overall, I don't find anything particularly creepy about his stories, though. It's just adventure tales where something supernatural happens.

2) The first two colors remind me of murky lake water, the sort of water you can't see more than 2 feet down when something brushes up against your foot. The third probably fits in better with the overall saturation/values.

I generally try to pick colors on mood. I try to ask myself what I want the overall feel for the chapter or scene to be and I’ll base it on that. A lot of the highlights and lighting are in reds/yellows, because I feel it helps convey a sense of life. Chapter 6 has primarily pastel colors because I wanted that contrast of feeling safe with the increasing feelings of dread. The street scenes have reds, browns and greens because there’s life there, but I wanted it to be sort of that grimy, moldy life. There’s rarely anything completely white because, few things are really a bright white in real life. However, you won’t see a lot a candy-colored palette, because that creates an entirely different sort of feel.

I also have to keep in mind how the colors play in with the ink wash techniques and the base page color. For Chapter 6, the base color is white, because if I used the dark grey, things would have a more gloomy feel to it. With the base grey, I can use less saturated tones. Either way, the ink wash will lend a yellow or grey tone to everything.

When in doubt, I keep a folder of pictures that I harvest for color palettes. http://colorschemedesigner.com/ is also a great resource!

That does not compute. Please retype query prompt.
*beep boop doooooot*

Not so much. This question gets answered next chapter! Short non-spoiler version: the sun still exists and the city does get some measure of solar power (noted in a prior vote incentive).