1. Character Names
[Sweetwind] I can see where some of the character's names come from:
Princes Hexadecimal, Octal, and Binary form a logical sequence, and it's funny too :-)
The technolutionaries' seem to be named after great physicists (Dr. Pi Yukawa after
Hideki Yukawa who discovered the pi meson,
for example). Was there any particular inspiration for the names of Del Delage
and the evil sorceress Jenif-fra? What about the "Brandy" in Dr. Brandy Schwarzchild?
[E.T.] "Del" is the derivative operator from vector analysis and "Delage"
came from Alex Delage, the happily amoral main character in "A Clockwork Orange".
I've always thought of the del operator as a particularly ruthless mathematical
entity; gleefully murdering all constants and smashing down arrogant polynomials --
particularly apt for this character.
[Liz] Since Jenif-fra was a fairy sorceress, we picked a name reminiscent
of those in Celtic folklore. The name "Brandy" was picked to rhyme with the "Candy"
of Dr. Candy Tsai, the technolutionary cell leader; and, well, a name like
'Brandy Schwarzchild' keeps it fun and whimsical.
2. Fay-Tuing
[Sweetwind] In Gremlin Trouble, the term "Fay-Tuing" is used by the
extraterrestrials to refer to fairies. Is this an actual word from somewhere?
[Liz] Sorry no; the name just fit -- like it belonged.
3. Creative Couples
[Sweetwind] As a married couple publishing their own comic, you are
walking on a path blazed by such couples as
the Sims
(no, not
THOSE Sims) and
the Pinis
(no, not THOSE... ooopsie, Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" hit for "pinis" is being
blocked by my workplace as "inappropriate content"...) Anyway, can you tell us
some about working on the comic as a couple, and how the creative and business
bits sync (or fail to sync)? Does the division of labor described in the
Insider Reports article
still hold? ("Thomas draws. Stories are developed as a team. Publishing,
marketing, and distribution are Elizabeth's jobs.")
[E.T.] Liz tends to underplay her role due to an excess of modesty.
We do the writing together, but Liz is not just the co-writer/publisher, she
also edits both the art work ("you're still not drawing guys cute enough!")
and the focus on plot lest we get too many sigma from mainstream. On the art side,
she does most of the background inking, which she enjoys but I find tedious
and tiring. She also did the font design for the GT dialogue font and several
others.
[Liz] We really enjoy working together. Early on we recognized the
need for knowing who contributes what, & that has proved invaluable.
Yes, E.T. is the artist and "gag man" of the group; I kibitz & nag about
the schedule. My favorite aspect is watching E.T.'s art come out at final
production, like a cover that turned out great even though there wasn't
much time for him to work on it.
4. The GPS comic
[apsmith] So I was expecting it to explain how GPS actually works!
I guess it was billed as a 'history'... I bet it was the "plush" dolls that
doomed it with IONS. Anyway, have you thought of adding a few pages of
explanation for a broader audience? I bet it could sell via Scholastic or
some other education-oriented company!
[E.T.] Well, the original commission was for a "History of GPS" comic
so due to page count considerations, the actual operational details were left out.
I would enjoy doing a cartoon explanation of GPS (e. g. Pixie babes illuminating
PRN ranging concepts) but I'm not sure all that many people would relate.
5. Inspiration?
[apsmith] I've only read a little bit - fascinating story-line
in Gremlin Trouble. But the one thing that struck me - I'm wondering if the
Morlocks and Eloi of H.G. Wells' "Time Machine" were an inspiration for the
gremlin/human split? A lot of technical folk I know kind of see that split
already happening - how much of your future do you think might actually
happen in reality?
[E.T.] It wasn't the Wells' story so much as the emergence of
the anti-technology culture of the 70s and early 80s that provided the
inspiration for the Gremlin/Fairy split.
[Liz] Doesn't it seem an ever increasing trend, that there are
more and more people in larger cities, veging in front of their TVs? As
opposed to individuals living their own lives according to their own ideas?
It's not a large jump into a 'virtual' rather than active reality.
6. The ABP Bullpen
[Sweetwind] An internet search on Anti-Ballistic Pixelations
tells me you also published
Saiko & Lavender by
Michael Vega and
Diana X. Sprinkle. Have you
published any other titles or cartoonists, and would you publish other
titles in the future?
[E.T.] Mike is a brilliant comic artist whom we were lucky enough
to get to ink GT for a while. He had teamed up with Diana X. Sprinkle who
is an excellent artist/creator in her own right and who had come up with
the "Saiko and Lavender" concept.
[Liz] When also publishing 'Saiko & Lavender' we were interested
in whether there was a distribution and cost advantage to having multiple titles.
Whereas working with experienced pros was good, in the end I think it was
just more fun to stay focused on the one series.
7. hand lettering
[Sweetwind] I noticed, especially in Volume I, that some of
the dialog in balloons as well as some of the narrative is typeset (or maybe
the word is machine-printed?) rather than hand-lettered. I noticed because
it's my pet peeve (I'm of the belief that all comics should be hand lettered,
or printed in a font that resembles hand lettering!), but it didn't bother
me in this case because it was used judiciously :-) But I couldn't quite
figure out how you decided when to use hand lettering and when not. Did
you follow some sort of rule?
[E.T.] Gremlin Trouble was one of the first B/W books done on a
computer. This opened up new aesthetic possibilities, like being able to
change the font styles at will. Liz created our "hand lettered" dialogue
font as well as some others, which eliminated the necessity for hand
lettering each page, saving time and money in the production process.
We decided to further delineate between the fairies and the humans, by
giving them different fonts to speak in. The humans spoke in "typeset"
fonts and the fairies and gremlins in "hand lettered" fonts. This went
on until we saw it overly complicated the graphic design of the book,
so we dropped it and went with a totally "hand lettered" approach, with
the exception of the narration boxes.
8. What's Next?
[Sweetwind] The
teaser preview on your website
of the next project tells me way too little! AAAARRRGH! More details!
Will it take place in "the Gremlin Trouble universe" or is it entirely new?
When can we expect it to premier? Is it being conceived with a beginning,
middle and end like GT, or will it be open-ended?
[E.T.] The next comic series will be called "Space Cadets". It will be
about the misadventures of Allison Harker, the plucky but spoiled CEO of a tiny
aero plane company who decides, along with some over enthusiastic engineers,
under enthusiastic test pilots and a team of technically proficient midget
circus clowns that they will build the world's first practical SSTO vehicle
before anyone else. It will be set in Southern California in the near future
and will have a complete story arc.
[Liz] We intend to release a first issue/ashcan of the series at the
San Diego Comics Con this year. At this time, however, we see it as a set of
TPBs rather than single books, so we don't intend to release it through Diamond
until we have the first TPB finished, which will likely take a couple of years.
9. Gremlore
[Sweetwind] How much of your writing on
gremlore
is "real" and how much did you personally make up? Google found me a
reference [PDF]
to Percy Prune as being "created in 1941 to show airmen and women how to
use equipment safely. Prune never got anything right and was always wrapped
in bandages." Is his gremlin association traditional? Are you the first
to document his son's exploits?
[E.T.] The Gremlore article was based on detailed, but unpublished
research at the Erich Von Daniken Institute for Advanced Mythological Manipulations
for Money. Yes, I was the first to mention Mr. Prune's son, who was forced to
change his name due to the unwanted publicity.
10. Gremlin Literature
[Sweetwind] My son's 2nd grade class is doing a unit on Roald Dahl
so I wondered if you had read his book on
Gremlins?
I hadn't, but oh my goodness, here's
an on-line copy!
[pause while Sweetwind reads for half an hour. Funny, the text says gremlin Gus
has a brown face, but in the illustrations he's definitely green!] This looks
like it could have been an influence! What fairy stories inspired you the most
when working on Gremlin Trouble, and was this one of them?
[Liz] The main influences for "Gremlin Trouble" were Rumiko Takahashi's
"Lum" (Urusei Yatsura) and Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards". Although we'd give a tip of
the hat to the Pini's "Elfquest", Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" and reference books
such as "The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were" & books on fairy lore.
[E.T.] As to Dahl's book, we found out about it just as we went to press
with the first issue of Gremlin Trouble. When we finally found a copy, we were
pleased to see our story concepts and character designs were substantially different
from his, as we were uninterested in attracting the attentions of any large and
notoriously litigious animation companies.
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