Messages

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Another Text Interview & Our First Podcast

« on: March 15, 2016, 05:05:33 PM »

I have to say that I agree with Jessica, in that it should only have references from 1980-1989, after all it's Satan Ninja 198X (which I think is the perfect name for the comic, encapsulates everything that it is) for a reason. Although it must be pretty painful to not be able to reference Total Recall.
Also, I've been reading and hearing about how you's want to expand the comics readership, which I have some ideas for.
First of all, on the New Retro Wave Youtube channel, whenever they upload a new video, there's always an 80s-esque picture to accompany it, quite a few in this comics style. I think your illustrations would be perfect for it. The channel has about 100,000 subscribers with around 10,000 views per video, and the kind of people who'd watch those videos are the EXACT kind of people who'd read your comic, so the comic could be advertised in the comments or video description.
Secondly, io9 has a thing where they're looking for artwork to be submitted, so you's could probably submit something to them. In fact, they could probably just run a story on your comic in general without a picture, since it has a lot of fantastical elements in it. Plus I think it has high readership figures.
So there's my ideas, do or not do what you want with them.

Keeping stuff in the 80s will, at the very least, help you out with your guesses at influences. It does mean steering away from a lot of non-80s gems, but on the other hand, we have an entire decade's worth of cool stuff to play with.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Hi Matty, totally off-topic but it's funny to see you use "you's" there. I've only heard that in Glasgow so far but apparently this is a thing in parts of Australia as well?

We sure do (or at least I do). As much as spellcheck wants to discourage me from using it, I use it anyway.

You mean that wasn't a typo for "you'd" or something? You's crazy.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 14 - Sit Down and Roll Up

« on: March 07, 2016, 06:58:24 PM »

G'day everyone from Australia! (I and no one I know never actually say that, I'm just emphasising I'm Australian).
So I've been following this comic since about early-December, and I've finally decided to make an account, because the convo's here always look like a blast. Just want to say that Jessica, your art style is awesome, and the very layout of this website is awesome too.

Anyway, I've decided that whenever you post a new page, I'll comment but also try guess whatever new 80s references there might be.

Hey, thanks a lot! And welcome to the forum.

OK I'm guessing Shade is somewhat based off Elriva (also, I believe I know who Shade really is and why she's nervous).

Elvira's in there, along with a couple others. I think I took a little inspiration for her eyeshadow from a picture of Siouxie Sioux.

You've been great at guessing so far. Even the guesses that didn't quite hit the mark have at least been in the right ballpark. And I thiiink you're the first person to point out Shade being nervous and whatnot. I can say that you're definitely on to something.

Rio bears a bit of an odd reference that I semi-inadvertently imposed on him. I don't think we've told all those details yet, so here they are:

Frost used to be the name of the guy currently named Rio, and Suther was the name of the white-haired guy. I was working on the page prior to this one, and I felt like Suther was waaay too much of a blatant Lost Boys reference. Adam gave them those names in the first place, and I still feel like Frost was a better name for the lipstick guy than it is for the other guy, because it sounds so elfy and froofy. But in addition to my grievance with the name "Suther," Adam kept wanting to call him "Frost" instead for some reason, maybe due to the white hair (come on, Adam, Frost was the one with snowy white dots on his dumb pajama shirt), so we made that change.

That left lipstick guy nameless. We brainstormed. One of my suggestions was to give him Morley's name because he ended up looking kind of like Morrissey, which sounds like Morley (Morrissey's one of Adam's favorite musicians; I'm not a big fan, but it seemed like a fitting enough connection). But Adam had named that character Morley for other reasons. Trying to think of a new froofy sounding name, I suddenly I asked Adam, "Hey, what was the name of the purple-haired guy in Jem?" It was Rio. And then it dawned on us that our character even looks kind of similar to Patrick Nagel's cover illustration for Duran Duran's album Rio. Duran Duran is a pretty far cry from goth (Jem too, for that matter), but I was so happy about that coincidence. And that's the story of Rio's name.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Our First Interview

« on: February 14, 2016, 09:30:23 PM »

If you haven’t seen Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, definitely watch that at least.

Do these people exist? Barbarians..

Great interview guys!

I'm not sure, but I figured I better mention it because the thought of someone not seeing just seemed so barbaric.

And thanks!

What a great write up. 

"Painting with finesse using a dick would be pretty impressive, though." Haha, that line...

Thank you. Hahaha, I was way too pleased with myself at a few points in my responses.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 – Ninja Power! – Page 12 - Eddie vs. Alex

« on: February 14, 2016, 09:23:31 PM »

Well I'm coming in late but this is so far my favorite page of Issue 3. 

Coming off the last panel of 2 pages ago.  Where Alex is taking off her coat with that challenge.   I thought that this is the 1st step of the Alex transformation I predicted way back in issue 2.  She looks confident, less nerdy. The way she can't wait to get physical with Eddie. This page is everything I was hoping for in that fight. 

Jess you did amazing on Alex's facial expression, especially the panel right before Grandma comes out and the almost horrified embarrassed look to finish the page.  I really like that panel before Grandma though, kind of a moment for those two well at least for Alex.

Thanks a lot! I'm so glad people ended up liking it so much since I was always a little worried about it being too cringey (it still makes me cringe a little bit!). And I'm glad you said "well at least for Alex," because I'd been wondering how well I'd pulled off portraying her to be the worked up one and Eddie coming off as being more oblivious.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 11 - Dungeon Delving

« on: February 13, 2016, 12:10:50 AM »

A little bit like Anthony Michael Hall's character in Sixteen Candles, though I imagine Trance to be a bit less obnoxious.

I kind of wish I would have given Trance braces, now.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 9 - Ninja Power Montage

« on: January 14, 2016, 11:54:44 PM »

Of course we can’t have an ‘80s-themed comic without some kind of training montage. This page took Jessica about twice as long as usual (hence it going up later than we’d like), but I think it turned out great.

I picture the “Ninja Power” song being a pump up rock song, perhaps in the style of Stan Bush (mostly known for “The Touch” from the Transformers animated movie) or the obscure metal band Lion (who provide the music for one of my favorite scenes from the Friday the 13th franchise, and who, coincidentally, recorded the theme-song for the animated Transformers movie).

Whoa, I had no idea Lion did that Transformers song (or any good song other than the Friday the 13th greatness). I saw the Transformers movie about ten years ago, before I would have been able to recognize that unmistakable badass Liony lameness.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 02, 2016, 01:25:53 AM »

WELCOME TO THE FORUM, DUUUDE!

Dwarf Fortress was the last game I really got into, but that was a couple years ago. Now that I'm constantly drawing, I have to find other sources of fun that I can do at the same time. Most recently, I've been listening to a biology audio-textbook, and that's been a pretty good time.

Oh, I do "watch" (listen to) streams of Maddox playing games on Twitch while I'm drawing. I'm going to tear myself away from drawing reeeally soon to start streaming on my own Twitch channel, sometime this month. I'll mostly be sticking to 80s games (gotta keep the theme going!). I'm gonna be the worst. It'll be fun.

Since Adam went into his life story of gaming, I feel like I should try to sum up mine. I was mostly a GameBoy, Playstation, PC kid, but holy cow did I want an N64 when that came out. Kirby's Dreamland was the first real video game my family owned.

When we got a Playstation, we were suddenly buried in games. Final Fantasy VII was the biggest deal at the time, and I loved it. I loved FFIX even more when that came around. Then X came out, which I was super pumped for, and was horribly disappointed by. I oddly have no excitement for the FFVII remake now, but I'm sure it would have blown my mind as a kid. It can't be the same without the comically bulky polygons.

Between 1999ish to 2001ish (around 5th to 8th grade), Pokémon (and Dragonball Z) basically ruled my life for a couple years. The GameBoy games, the show, the cards, the GameBoy game about the cards, etc. I was so pumped for Gold and Silver to come out. I downloaded an emulator and ROMs of their Japanese versions when I was eleven or twelve, before they came out here, but I was too dumb to figure out how to run them. I bought a strategy guide for the Japanese versions around that same time and poured over it. I saved my money to get both games as I counted down the days until the American release. Then I played 'em for a little while and somehow lost interest in the franchise. They were fun. I dunno what happened.

In high school, I revisited the land of ROMs with more success. I suddenly had access to every S/NES game (and then some!), and I could even play them with my friends online. Someone at school, whom I barely knew, straight up gave me an N64, and the local video rental store was practically giving away all their N64 games to make room for the next gen. Holy shit. Living in the future ruled so hard.

You know what else rules hard? You, for posting on our forum. Hope we see more of you here!

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 8 - Crypts & Chimeras

« on: January 01, 2016, 11:56:05 PM »

Ginger mullet is so rad. 

The raddest. I've realized that this comic has a criminal lack of mullets. Corey can't be the only one. Trance's is on the verge. If this were real life, I'm sure the hair I give Trance would look super mullety.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Jessica Safron is on Patreon

« on: December 08, 2015, 08:17:04 PM »

Read about it here. Or just check out my Patreon page here.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 5 - Alex Meets the Satan Ninja

« on: December 05, 2015, 01:50:00 AM »

As I was delivering the "Do you know where Connor's party is?" line in the I Got Somethin' I Wanna Show Ya promo video, something about the way it sounded felt overwhelmingly modern to me. The feeling kept nagging me and I started wondering if the name Connor got way more popular after the 80s or something. I thought of Connor MacLeod from Highlander, whose name might have served to evoke a place and time far away from 1980s America, and Sarah Connor from The Terminator, but that one is obviously a surname, so it doesn't count.

So I turned to Google which directed me to The Baby Name Wizard, which sounds like the lamest wizard of all time. This wizard told me, through its "Baby Name Voyager" (I guess this site really wants to get the fantasy crowd pumped about baby names), that zero babies born in the U.S. were named Connor until the 80s, making it impossible for any American teen to have that name in the 80s. The name jumped in rank from 0 to 494 in the 80s, climbed to 67 in the 90s, and has hovered in the 50s ever since, peaking at 49 in 2010. What a modern-ass name. The Wikipedia article for the given name Connor confirmed this. Not a single Connor of note born before the 80s. So we decided to make our Connor go by his last name. Fuck Connor. He's Kyle Connor now.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Hiatus Continues - New PDFs (or CBZ/CBR) Available & A New Minxy

« on: September 04, 2015, 03:28:10 PM »

Really looking forward to issue 3.  I will probably be getting the downloads as soon as my nook is in WiFi range. 

I think the new version of Minxy is better.   She appears less anime and more typical 80's American.

Thanks! Heh, a real American hero, if you will. Or villain.

That's from GI Joe isn't it? I think I remember that episode..

Hell yeah it is. From the Cold Slither episode: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2pjwrd

Synopsis from the G.I. Joe wiki:

The Joe team raids Cobra's secret vault (filled with stolen gold, artworks, and other sundry assets) and thus very nearly bankrupts the evil organization. In a desperate attempt to keep Cobra functioning and solvent, Cobra Commander "packages" Zartan and the Dreadnoks as a heavy metal band called "Cold Slither" and turns them loose as Pied Pipers on America's youth.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Hiatus Continues - New PDFs (or CBZ/CBR) Available & A New Minxy

« on: September 03, 2015, 07:50:36 PM »

I think the new version of Minxy is better.   She appears less anime and more typical 80's American.

Yeah, Ket is already our token anime babe, so we can't have Minxy encroaching on Ket's territory, or else they might get into a cat fight and then there'd likely be wardrobe malfunctions ...

Hmm. I should totally re-write issue three to be one long cat fight between Ket and Minxy.

We don't need more people thinking Ket is a cat girl. A dogfight would make more sense. Stick 'em in some fighter planes. Well, Minxy isn't a canid... nevermind, let's just stick to the current script.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Hiatus Continues - New PDFs (or CBZ/CBR) Available & A New Minxy

« on: September 03, 2015, 07:33:49 PM »

Really looking forward to issue 3.  I will probably be getting the downloads as soon as my nook is in WiFi range. 

I think the new version of Minxy is better.   She appears less anime and more typical 80's American.

Thanks! Heh, a real American hero, if you will. Or villain.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Hiatus Continues - New PDFs (or CBZ/CBR) Available & A New Minxy

« on: September 03, 2015, 07:07:29 PM »

I wonder what it was about that wrist highlight that compelled Jessica to get rid of it...

I guess it distracted from other.. features in the image.

His wrist just doesn't look like it would be producing that stark white highlight. I'm wondering if the highlight made more sense in some previous version of Jackie's line art before I cleaned it up, and I just forgot to erase it afterward or something.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Hottest Fan Art in the Universe

« on: August 02, 2015, 10:13:09 AM »

So I listened to the segment about the fan art, it's very cool that they gave a shout out to Satan Ninja.

Yes, I wasn't sure if they were going to mention Satan Ninja. It was very cool of them. It looks like we got a big spike in visitors who actually read the comic. Whenever we post to Reddit, we get a lot of people just clicking the link, then bouncing. Nice to receive lots of traffic from people who are actually curious about checking us out.

Good stuff, I was listening to the podcast at work and it was very good. Quite funny that Dick didn't know about Maddox's drawing haha, brilliant email conversation!

Oh yeah, I was anticipating Dick's reaction to be pretty funny on the show.

Eventually, when I was about fifteen or sixteen, I talked my mom into letting me purchase the Spice Channel for the night[...]

Gah, what a weird topic to bring up with your mom.

And I think that might be the first time Jessica's drawn detailed, full-color cocks. What a watershed moment!

This is quite possible. I've definitely drawn plenty of cock doodles, life drawing gestures, and of course Viper's shadow dong. Very special indeed.