Messages

331

Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 19 - Warlocks, Witches, & Vampires

« on: April 25, 2016, 06:13:07 AM »

Trance’s jab at Corey about being a rules lawyer is a little reference to the first monthly bonus comic strip we made for Jessica’s Patreon, which gave a quick glimpse of how the C&C game went.

Here are some alternate responses I wrote for Trance, but Jessica didn’t think they’d work well without hearing the way I intended the lines to be delivered (picture Trance’s lines being said by Christ Knight from Real Genius):

COREY: I think she has the hots for me.
TRANCE: Ah, must’ve won her over with your astute observational skills.

Or

COREY: I think she has the hots for me.
TRANCE: What a fun thing to think. I’ll try it too.

Also, if you look closely, you might notice that Trance is gazing upon the Stagbunny issue he referenced earlier, featuring a girl with a familiar surname.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: New Page Coming Super Soon

« on: April 25, 2016, 03:17:55 AM »

Science Dude, any drawing of yours totally would've made it into my blog post.

Also, I forgive you.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: New Page Coming Super Soon

« on: April 22, 2016, 07:35:17 PM »

Well Happy Birthday Adam!

Thanks, dude. It was a good one. Watched Back to the Future for the first time in a real long time. Such a great movie.

The art is awesome,  I love the bite taken out of the VHS.  I also like Jess's drawing, as it's very her style and looks fun.

Jessica fucked up though and made me look stupid. Since that obviously wouldn't be her intent, I assume it was a mistake. Also, you can tell her mom loves me more since she actually made me a full-color card.

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Discuss Blog Entries / AD's 35th Birthday

« on: April 22, 2016, 06:01:10 AM »

The next page got delayed by Jessica taking on some art commissions (psst, that's your cue to support her Patreon [if you don't already] so she spends less time on commissions and more time doing the comic). She's now very close to finishing the next page, but we didn't want to let a whole two weeks go without some kind of update.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 18 - King of the Space Pirates

« on: April 11, 2016, 12:43:50 AM »

Dune reference?!

Totally.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 18 - King of the Space Pirates

« on: April 10, 2016, 05:41:24 AM »

He kind of looks like the default male character from Mass Effect. No idea what influences that robot suit comes from. I initially thought that thing from Aliens but it looks too different. Maybe Guts Man from MegaMan.

The influence for the robot suit isn't Guts Man or the suit from Aliens. I'll say that it's more obscure than those, and that it's an '80s reference that relates to Maddox.

We have some other cameos planned for the comic, as our way of thanking our most ardent supporters. Of course, like Maddox, anyone who appears in the comic will be getting an ‘80s makeover and a subtle name change.

Does this mean that yours truly will make an appearance in the comic book? Or did my very brief breakup put you through too much emotional distress that it will take time for you to forgive me?

No promises, but it could happen. We'll see how long you stick around.

We've come up with some ideas for other cameos for people that have been supportive of SN8X, but it might be awhile before it'll make sense for them to pop up in the comic. Basically, no one should expect it to happen, and that way they can be surprised if it someday does.

This page is hilarious! The banter is excellent, he can be King of that too.

Thanks, Science Dude. I was happy with how this turned out. Even though the cameo ballooned way beyond what I had set out to make.

Could it be that Xoddam is looking for that glove too? Or is it really just for the sex?

You wouldn't understand.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 18 - King of the Space Pirates

« on: April 09, 2016, 11:05:27 PM »

Xoddom might be a little familiar to some of you. That’s right, we’ve finally come to the thinly veiled Maddox cameo we talked about doing forever ago. Of course, we've eightiesified him.

For those or you not familiar with Maddox, he’s the mastermind behind The Best Page in the Universe (currently in its April Fools mode), The Biggest Problem in the Universe (our favorite podcast), and he’s written the books The Alphabet of Manliness and I Am Better Than Your Kids (AKA, Crappy Children's Artwork).

Jessica and I have been fans of Maddox’s brand of satire since around the late 90s/early 2000s. In fact, I once considered having a website where I would post rants and reviews, but I decided against it because I realized it’d probably seem like I was a total Maddox rip-off.

Years ago, Maddox put out a call for artists to do some minor Photoshop work for him, and Jessica answered the call. She kept in touch with him, so once we launched the comic, she passed it along for him to check out and he thought it was awesome.

For the first several months after our website went live, the only people checking it were our friends. However, that changed after Maddox saw it and gave it his public approval. Even now, two years later, a lot of our most dedicated fans originally discovered us through Maddox. That’s why we wanted to thank the dude with a cameo.

Originally, his cameo was going to be really brief. Perhaps a panel or two and a line of dialogue. However, as I wrote this page, his character evolved in my head into a former lover of Ket’s, and I ended up having too much fun with the banter between them.

We have some other cameos planned for the comic, as our way of thanking our most ardent supporters. Of course, like Maddox, anyone who appears in the comic will be getting an ‘80s makeover and a subtle name change.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Satan Ninja Comic Strips

« on: April 04, 2016, 04:23:56 AM »

I imagine this must be mega-confusing to anyone who's discovered the comic within the past couple days. They're reading along and getting all into it... they get to the page where Alex suggests she and Eddie watch some badass Dude Shinobi movie, and then suddenly--bam! Eddie's alone on a pink couch with weird colored lighting playing an NES, crying, and then tearing his face off...

After we posted this April Fools gag strip/blog post, we actually had one person unfollow us on Facebook. So maybe we are the fools.

Also, I have no idea where we're going to put this April Fools strip once we replace it with the actual page 18 this Saturday. I guess the Extra's section?

But as I'm a great person, I have mercy and have decided to stay.

And now I'm crying tears of joy just like Eddie.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Twitch Streaming

« on: April 04, 2016, 04:17:56 AM »

That was at 4:34 where I am, no wonder I missed it..

Yeah, so far we'd only streamed when it's already really late here. We're going to try to stream earlier sometime.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Twitch Streaming

« on: April 02, 2016, 04:34:37 AM »

And we're streaming again right now.

Edit: Not anymore.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Satan Ninja Comic Strips

« on: April 01, 2016, 09:43:06 PM »

I have to say, I'm not really sure how I feel about this. As a matter of fact, as someone who's dedicated my mental energy to this since December, I'm actually really dissappointed. It's been fun, but I'm afraid that from now on, we'll have to go, as Journey would say, our Separate Ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LatorN4P9aA Conveys EXACTLY how I'm feeling right now.
Well I guess this is it. Goodbye.
(oh and by the way, that's definitely a reference to a NES yeah?)

You know how Eddie is crying tears of joy in the first panel of this strip because he's finally beaten the game? Well, I'm crying tears like that right now. Except they're not tears of joy--they're tears of heartbreak.

I've ranted about how much I hate that Journey music video. Such a rad song deserved better than that abomination.

And yeah, that's totally a NES. Or at least the SN8X-verse version of a NES, which we haven't named yet.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Satan Ninja Comic Strips

« on: April 01, 2016, 08:29:14 PM »

Ever since we launched this site, we’ve noticed that the Internet in general tends to be a lot more receptive to gag strip comics as opposed to long-form comics. For those who don’t know the difference, long-form comics are story-driven (think Batman or Dragonball), while gag strips are joke-driven and each strip tends to stand alone (think Garfield or xkcd).

The popularity of gag strips on the Internet makes sense. Long-form comics require that a reader start at the beginning (or at least at the beginning of the latest narrative arc) in order to fully appreciate it. They require a time investment, which is a total bummer. Gag strip comics, on the other hand, are instantly accessible. You can see a single page, chuckle at it, and then carry on with browsing the ‘net. Or better yet, share the page to social media so you can make your friends and family laugh and feel unjustifiably funnier for having shared it.

Recently, we decided to start doing a monthly bonus Satan Ninja gag strip for Jessica’s $10+ patrons. It was while working on the gag strip for March that we thought: “Hey! Why don’t we totally re-vamp Satan Ninja to be a gag strip comic all the time!” We then smacked our foreheads and exclaimed “Duh!”

Now, some of you might not be too happy with this change, and we totally understand that. But listen, since Jessica quit her “day” job to focus on the comic, it simply makes sense for us to take the path that has the greatest chance of success: the path of the gag strip.

Besides, the comic will still feature Jessica’s awesome art, and all your favorite characters will still be there, and so will the ‘80s references. And now that we’re a gag strip, we have a lot more creative freedom. We can do things like break the fourth wall, and “kill” characters for the sake of a gag, only to have them back without explanation in the next strip. And it’ll be a lot easier to write the comic without having to worry about things like plot or continuity. From now on it’s nothing but good ol’ wacky fun and gags!

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 17 - Meadow McCarthy

« on: March 31, 2016, 12:24:45 AM »

Good stuff coming up then. I like your writing style, witty and clear. Your movie reviews had me cracking up more than a few times!

I write 'em just for you, Science Dude!

Actually, that's not far from the truth. My blog posts don't tend to get many views, compared to the rest of the site, which is one of the reasons I've started doing them so infrequently. But no worries. More will be coming. I'm too egocentric to not force my words onto the world.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Twitch Streaming

« on: March 31, 2016, 12:20:47 AM »

I had never heard of this either, what prompted you guys to do this?

Jessica has occasionally used Twitch (and similar services) to watch other artists live-stream their drawing sessions, and has been considering doing that herself for a long time. Also, sometimes Maddox streams himself playing video games on Twitch, and we've watched most of his streams.

Ever since Jessica started to get serious about making this comic, she hasn't really had time to play video games. After all, time she spends playing video games is time she could be drawing (probably the worst thing about being self-employed is that you're never truly "off the clock"). However, if she streams herself playing a game on Twitch, we can justify it to ourselves as being a form of marketing, since people who discover us through Twitch might then look into the comic. So this is a way Jessica can finally get through some of the games she's been wanting to play, while at the same time, do a bit of socializing. And there's also the potential for donations.

Basically, since we like playing video games anyway, and Twitch is mega-popular and full of people who enjoy watching others play video games, we thought it'd be fun to try it out. Jessica will also be streaming her art occasionally.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 17 - Meadow McCarthy

« on: March 30, 2016, 05:57:38 AM »

Adam how do you decide what to keep and what to cut? I suffer from occasional verbosity myself and I'm always looking for perspective.

I re-read the script while

...
...
 
line because the reader can infer what the girls are talking about from Veronica's response. That also helped it to feel more like we're dropping in on the middle of a conversation.

This could've been a blog post!

Shit, you're right. But I've already stated my next blog post will conclude my behind the scenes look at the live-action promo videos. The reason I haven't posted that yet is because of all the time it takes to edit together the behind the scenes footage we shot. Plus, we've got some awesome SN8X stuff coming up soon that's been keeping me occupied.