Post by Amelius on Feb 20, 2007 5:33:12 GMT -5
C.T.V. F.A.Q.
[glow=red,2,300]Why's Charby called the "Vampirate" when he hates pirates, and there's no pirates in the comic anymore?[/glow]
I have my reasons. Nonetheless, without giving it away yet, it'll apply sometime. Though he may not dress stereotypically "piratey", he has kept a few of his pirate traits despite his hatred for them. His warcry, "Yarr!" and his choice of weapon (hooks) and his favorite shirt are all reminiscent of those pirate days. When he's angry he still has a tendency to speak piratey (Scurvy dogs!) . Besides, wouldn't it be awful cheesy if this was a comic about Charby on a boat?
[glow=red,2,300]While we're at it, what's up with that word, "Vampirate?"[/glow]
Just popped into my head one day whilst I was drawing. I love bad word-puns like that. To be honest, I was initially stuck when trying to name the comic (when I first put it on DD back in '04) and almost left the "Vampirate" part out. I didn't want to name it after the main character because he isn't the main focus of the comic...though he is the most important one. But I knew a cheesy word like vampirate would at least get people to take a glance.
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't Menu change back to human during the day/non-moon nights?[/glow]
He's not a normal werewolf. His official name was "Menu the Perpetual Werewolf", not his name in the comic though.He wasn't attacked by a werewolf, but something like a wolfwere (heh...D&D reference) Menu's "daddy" is basically an evil, demonic wolf. Simply put, the moon effects him, but it is not the cause of his transformation.
[glow=red,2,300]What's up with the pupil-less eyes?[/glow]
Ever take a look at zombies in art? They have no pupils. I sort of liked the cataracts look, glazed over and dead, because of course they ARE dead. Plus, I like survival horror video games and the playguide for Resident Evil had zombies on the cover...with no pupils.
[glow=red,2,300]What kind of zombies are Mye and Hex? Why don't they rot?[/glow]
They are magic zombies, not like the typical movie zombies with rotting parts and a taste for fresh flesh. Essentially, they are alive, but only because their blood was infused with magic. They eat, breathe, yadda-yadda, but they don't grow and age. Not growing makes wounds very hard to heal, too, which is why Hex has so many scars. Healing themselves with magic is dangerous as well since they can't upset the balance of magic in their blood.
Why doesn't Foomy set things on fire when he touches them?
He's not made of fire, he has bright orange fire-proof fur. He can conjure up fire and is not hurt by flames or extreme temperatures.
[glow=red,2,300]Why does Menu let Azelea stay in the house?[/glow]
For the most part, Menu hardly notices her there, since she spends most time small and out of the way.
[glow=red,2,300]Is Mikko a Leprechaun?[/glow]
Nope, he's an elf. Elfin vermin, to be precise... He wears green because it is a favored color amongst fae creatures.
[glow=red,2,300]What's up with the eye-slits...Quixoto, Kavonn, LaBelle, Good-Transformation Zerlocke all have them...[/glow]
All in due time friends. As for LaBelle, it's a mark for abusing magic.
[glow=red,2,300]Does Zeno have a nose?[/glow]
Yes and no. His nose doesn't portrude, it's basically two tear-drop nostrils with a patch of black skin over it.
[glow=red,2,300]Charby bit the dentist, one lady, slurped Grandma's bloody finger...why aren't they vampires?[/glow]
Becoming a vampire in CTV isn't terribly complicated, but's it's also not that simple. Biting someone quickly may hurt or leave a nasty infection, but it's not enough to "turn" someone. There has to be a good amount of vampy spit in the wound to affect the victim. A little like a vampire bat, vampires in CTV have an anti-clotting agent in their spit, so while blood is coming out, some saliva is going in. It also works as a paralyzer.It's gross, but that's how it works: magic, venomous vampire spit. How much does it need? Well, a lot more than can seep into a pin-prick wound or a quick chomp.
[glow=red,2,300]What is an "Alp"?[/glow]
A Teutonic nightmare demon that haunts the dreams of its victims or "presses" them in their sleep. Pressing essentially consists of sitting on one's chest so that they cannot breathe, waking up panicked. There are several conflicting stories about what an alp is, but the most common theme is the dream haunting. Other characteristics are: Transforms, can become mist and enter its victim, wears a hat in all of its transformations, can become a small white butterfly, becomes invisible, torments farm animals and young children, is typically male and prefers female victims though it may torment men and children (choosing to suck their blood in these cases)
Usually they don't force themselves on a victim, and are not known to kill them (it is fun for them to do this night after night). Sometimes they are compared to the incubus for the nighttime tortures, but alp attacks are rarely of lusty nature...though if they are, it is said to be thoroughly unpleasant. Though referred to as a demon, they are closer to imps/hobgoblins in their nature, and even are said to be related to some fae sort as the Knockers (mining Leprechaun-esque folk). Alps can be conjured by a sorceror, witch, a spiteful person, or they were a small child/baby that died at childbirth. The use of a horse collar to ease labor pains seems to be a cause for a child to become an alp. Horses aren't spooked by alps however, and alps tend to enjoy riding them until dawn so that they are too tired in the morning to work.
[glow=red,2,300]What kinds of creatures are in Kellwood?[/glow]
All sorts...rather than compile a huge list of non-humans, I'll just say it's Fae,(Seelie and Unseelie court, including fairy, goblin,etcetera) Demons, regular animals, non-humans (like the orycalopes, while referred to as "bunny-demons" they are not really demons) and dragons.
[glow=red,2,300]Why do people come to Kellwood even though people frequently disappear there? What's so special?![/glow]
Because they don't know people disappear.Kellwood has an excellent ad agency to sell the great vacation spot to potential Kellwood tourists. Usually, you don't say "Come to Kellwood and die!" to get people to spend money at your resorts. A few people do come because of the mysterious aura of the place, it has a certain allure to it. And not everyone who comes to Kellwood dies. The demon hunters make sure of that. As long as they don' t blunder around at night or into the woods, they're fine. But Kellwood holds the interest of boaters, surfers, beach-goers, touristers, spelunkers(cave explorers), mountain climbers, skiers, people interested in the history and people who want to get away from the busy city. Though there is a business area in Kellwood, much of the area is remote and very pretty.
[glow=red,2,300]What is UP with that weird house? (and that ugly couch!)[/glow]
The folks who owned Menu's house before him were eccentrics...real "Y2k is gonna kill us!" type crazies. A husband and wife, they were also very intelligent, but extremely introverted outside themselves. They wanted a house completely suffiecient without "Evil computers!" . They chose a specific spot for their house: right over one of Kellwood's many caves (for the use of a bomb shelter when the computers go crazy!) Of course it had an underground river going through it (into a sinkhole) and they modified it to produce enough hydroelectric power for the house. It's not terribly powerful but it works. The couch was just cheap.
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't Menu wear pants? Why doesn't Phineas wear shirts? [/glow]
Menu doesn't feel comfortable in pants because of the way his legs are shaped. His heels are high, and because he chooses to walk bipedal (his arms are shorter like a human's still, so walking 4 on the floor can be a tad awkward too). It gives his limbs more range of movement too, which is why he prefers sleeveless cloths. Also, wearing clothes with fur gets a little stuffy, so he likes to shed them all in warm weather. His fur is long, sort of like a Pomeranian, which was the sort of dog I based him on, so his anatomy isn't visible due to the thick fur. It does disturb his friends when he's shirtless still... as for Phinny, he feels confined in shirts and he's actually wearing swimming trunks rather than actual shorts. Phineas loves to swim and get wet, so he doesn't bother with clothes that'll drag him down. That said, he still has a thing against speedos so even if they're more hydrodynamic than the shorts, he's taking the shorts.
[glow=red,2,300]Why do the first 20 or so comics seem so random, but eventually turn to linear storyline?[/glow]
Well, when I started posting CTV online, I already had about 600 or so pages done in pencil, Bic pen & crayon. I had heard from a friend of mine that you could post comics online, and after visiting DD I was in right away. I started redrawing pages to color them in photoshop (because by then my "old" pages were really dated with the art-style) and at that time in my life I was convinced that CTV would be a big hit and was gonna get published someday. However I didn't take into account that the art sucked so much (that's for the next question!) My parents were worried that I was gonna give away my entire story for free and I'd never make a career of my comic, so I told them I'd just post a few to see what reaction I got. I posted, at first, comics that wouldn't affect the story-plot, which were one-shots I had scattered throughout the original set. I changed my mind when the comic was so well-recieved, and decided that the web was my best bet for improvement. So then I moved on to the actual story. But if you notice, those "random" pages are still canon and I reference them later on in the story at times, so don't dismiss them quite yet! You'll miss something.
[glow=red,2,300]Why did the art suck so much in the earlier pages?[/glow]
Because of a few reasons: one, my first time using photoshop outside of class, I was teaching myself. When i used it in class, it was because I was on a computer that HAD it, and the only thing I used it for was a lame exercise making a chef's face out of fruit and veggies. I'd never used it to color a comic. "Polar Bar" and "Dork Ninja" where my first times out coloring a comic, and I had no idea what I was doing. Dork Ninja went bad because I didn't know about scanning, bitmaps and what have you, and the lineart ended up with stripes of grey through it that looked like cordurouy. I blurred it to blend it back into black...it just went downhill from there. I also was unaware that some of my comics posted online looked like crap because AOL has an option to crapify images in order to load faster, and I thought I did something wrong on my end, and it had something to do with the scans. So then I started drawing them with a mouse....a crappy ball-mouse to be precise. Later when I figured out how to scan things in and color them better, I had a habit of not liking the lineart enough and tracing over it...again, with the mouse! That was so dumb of me!
That's just colors though. The lineart itself was crappy because for much of the start, I didn't pre-sketch. That means I just took a pen and drew it. Unfortunately, without a presketch, I was nervous with the pen and often did a "sketch" style of lineart, often not completing lines, layering and feathering them. this did not make for smooth, confident lines! Only a scant few turned out alright. I started using pre-sketch around the time that Bunny gets captured by the Orycalopes. If you could see some of the other stuff I drew before and at the time of the bad art, you'd swear it was by a different artist. It didn't occur to me how crappy things looked! (blinded by love I suppose)
It also didn't help that I'd do 3-8 comics a day. Rush jobs never look good. I did the entire Mystery Friends arc in one day! (coloring included!)
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't it update daily anymore?[/glow]
I've been a very busy girl with all sorts of things. After my emotional breakdown a while back, I really lost my stride. Lack of confidence in my abilities doesn't help either. Thigs are looking bright and peachy lately though, but with all that I have going on, pages just don't come as fast as they used to.It's not that they take any longer to do though...realistically I could do 2 a day if I wasn't busy with everything else. what used to take 8 hours can now take 5, but I'm finding that inking is still stumbling me.
[glow=red,2,300]How do you keep track of the story, or do you even bother?[/glow]
Yes I do. I keep track of it in my mind, and through things I remind myself in the comic. The web version is slightly different from the original, but I borrow unused elements.
I found a plothole! Explain yourself, bad writer, you!
You're probably mistaken. Sometimes a writer will place something arbitrary in their comic to delibrately mislead their readers. It's like a twist ending. It's a twist if you hint at it early on,and it goes over people's head. Then they can look back and confirm "it makes sense now!" What's not a twist is to throw a wrench in there for no reason at all, with nothing supporting it. That makes for continuity errors, and doing it just for convenient solving of a problem you made, a plothole is formed.
I've been extra careful with my story so as to not form these holes, and if you think you've found one, you ought to keep note of it, because you're going to find out something indeed is up, and you'll be the first one to realize it: I am a sneaky person. Preemtively calling "plothole!' will make you look very silly later. ^_^
[glow=red,2,300]Admit it, you were influenced by Johnny the Homicidal Maniac! Rip-off artist![/glow]
Quiet you! This is the most aggravating thing to hear, ever. Unless I was using pychic waves to steal ideas from Jhonen Vasquez's brain, any vague similarity you see in CTV is purely and strictly coincidental. I hadn't even heard of the comic when I developed the characters. They don't even have similar proportions! I have read the comic by now, but despite what some folks think, it IS entirely possible to read something and not rip it off "subconsciously!" I don't use references for my own character art, and never have. How would you feel if someone you'd never heard of accused you of ripping of their art? As for the story, don't try and tell me J.V. has the copyright on dark humor and violence. I've been doing that gig for more than 10 years. My grandpa has been a huge influence on my sense of humor and I sincerely doubt he's into comics. He does however have a collection of very old, scary stories. When you grow up hearing poetry like "Willie with a lust for gore, nailed the baby to the door; Mother said, with humor quaint: 'Willie dear, don't chip the paint!' " you tend to have a bit of a twisted sense of humor. My love of horror movies, survival horror games, and cult classics has also molded my writing styles into what it is now. I've also had a love of slapstick violence, and admit it:JTHM is a little short on the slapstick but heavy on the violence. And don't even think that he's the first person to write his own fantasy-revenge off of life experiences. Just about EVERYBODY has done this at least once, or at least thought it. Pretty much, you could compare any comic to CTV and find enough similarity to claim I'm influenced by it. Heck, a comic I'd just heard about had a part very similar to a Hexavier comic I did. Do I claim they ripped me off? No way. Sunday funnies have had jokes almost identical to ones I used in CTV! Do I think they stole from me? Heck no, I hadn't even posted it online yet! Things like that DO happen. Just because both our comics get classified as "gothy" does not automatically mean that it was a source of inspiration for me.To clear things up also, I have a lot of respect for Jhonen, I do like his style and I think it's disrespectful to compare my stuff to his. Both to him and to me. Especially when I have mentioned the fact umpteenmillion times.
[glow=red,2,300]Why's everyone so whiney/angsty? This comic's so emo...[/glow]
Because the real world isn't a shiney happy place to begin with. Bah, where do you get the impression that everyone's angsty? I have the impression that you are only paying attention to the 2 characters that are emotionally unstable. It would be truly unrealistic, especially in a comic that's dark humor and sometimes drama, for everyone to be happy all the time for no reason at all, just to please people who hate angsty characters. You don't smile when your luck is bad either, pal.
[glow=red,2,300]Why's Charby called the "Vampirate" when he hates pirates, and there's no pirates in the comic anymore?[/glow]
I have my reasons. Nonetheless, without giving it away yet, it'll apply sometime. Though he may not dress stereotypically "piratey", he has kept a few of his pirate traits despite his hatred for them. His warcry, "Yarr!" and his choice of weapon (hooks) and his favorite shirt are all reminiscent of those pirate days. When he's angry he still has a tendency to speak piratey (Scurvy dogs!) . Besides, wouldn't it be awful cheesy if this was a comic about Charby on a boat?
[glow=red,2,300]While we're at it, what's up with that word, "Vampirate?"[/glow]
Just popped into my head one day whilst I was drawing. I love bad word-puns like that. To be honest, I was initially stuck when trying to name the comic (when I first put it on DD back in '04) and almost left the "Vampirate" part out. I didn't want to name it after the main character because he isn't the main focus of the comic...though he is the most important one. But I knew a cheesy word like vampirate would at least get people to take a glance.
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't Menu change back to human during the day/non-moon nights?[/glow]
He's not a normal werewolf. His official name was "Menu the Perpetual Werewolf", not his name in the comic though.He wasn't attacked by a werewolf, but something like a wolfwere (heh...D&D reference) Menu's "daddy" is basically an evil, demonic wolf. Simply put, the moon effects him, but it is not the cause of his transformation.
[glow=red,2,300]What's up with the pupil-less eyes?[/glow]
Ever take a look at zombies in art? They have no pupils. I sort of liked the cataracts look, glazed over and dead, because of course they ARE dead. Plus, I like survival horror video games and the playguide for Resident Evil had zombies on the cover...with no pupils.
[glow=red,2,300]What kind of zombies are Mye and Hex? Why don't they rot?[/glow]
They are magic zombies, not like the typical movie zombies with rotting parts and a taste for fresh flesh. Essentially, they are alive, but only because their blood was infused with magic. They eat, breathe, yadda-yadda, but they don't grow and age. Not growing makes wounds very hard to heal, too, which is why Hex has so many scars. Healing themselves with magic is dangerous as well since they can't upset the balance of magic in their blood.
Why doesn't Foomy set things on fire when he touches them?
He's not made of fire, he has bright orange fire-proof fur. He can conjure up fire and is not hurt by flames or extreme temperatures.
[glow=red,2,300]Why does Menu let Azelea stay in the house?[/glow]
For the most part, Menu hardly notices her there, since she spends most time small and out of the way.
[glow=red,2,300]Is Mikko a Leprechaun?[/glow]
Nope, he's an elf. Elfin vermin, to be precise... He wears green because it is a favored color amongst fae creatures.
[glow=red,2,300]What's up with the eye-slits...Quixoto, Kavonn, LaBelle, Good-Transformation Zerlocke all have them...[/glow]
All in due time friends. As for LaBelle, it's a mark for abusing magic.
[glow=red,2,300]Does Zeno have a nose?[/glow]
Yes and no. His nose doesn't portrude, it's basically two tear-drop nostrils with a patch of black skin over it.
[glow=red,2,300]Charby bit the dentist, one lady, slurped Grandma's bloody finger...why aren't they vampires?[/glow]
Becoming a vampire in CTV isn't terribly complicated, but's it's also not that simple. Biting someone quickly may hurt or leave a nasty infection, but it's not enough to "turn" someone. There has to be a good amount of vampy spit in the wound to affect the victim. A little like a vampire bat, vampires in CTV have an anti-clotting agent in their spit, so while blood is coming out, some saliva is going in. It also works as a paralyzer.It's gross, but that's how it works: magic, venomous vampire spit. How much does it need? Well, a lot more than can seep into a pin-prick wound or a quick chomp.
[glow=red,2,300]What is an "Alp"?[/glow]
A Teutonic nightmare demon that haunts the dreams of its victims or "presses" them in their sleep. Pressing essentially consists of sitting on one's chest so that they cannot breathe, waking up panicked. There are several conflicting stories about what an alp is, but the most common theme is the dream haunting. Other characteristics are: Transforms, can become mist and enter its victim, wears a hat in all of its transformations, can become a small white butterfly, becomes invisible, torments farm animals and young children, is typically male and prefers female victims though it may torment men and children (choosing to suck their blood in these cases)
Usually they don't force themselves on a victim, and are not known to kill them (it is fun for them to do this night after night). Sometimes they are compared to the incubus for the nighttime tortures, but alp attacks are rarely of lusty nature...though if they are, it is said to be thoroughly unpleasant. Though referred to as a demon, they are closer to imps/hobgoblins in their nature, and even are said to be related to some fae sort as the Knockers (mining Leprechaun-esque folk). Alps can be conjured by a sorceror, witch, a spiteful person, or they were a small child/baby that died at childbirth. The use of a horse collar to ease labor pains seems to be a cause for a child to become an alp. Horses aren't spooked by alps however, and alps tend to enjoy riding them until dawn so that they are too tired in the morning to work.
[glow=red,2,300]What kinds of creatures are in Kellwood?[/glow]
All sorts...rather than compile a huge list of non-humans, I'll just say it's Fae,(Seelie and Unseelie court, including fairy, goblin,etcetera) Demons, regular animals, non-humans (like the orycalopes, while referred to as "bunny-demons" they are not really demons) and dragons.
[glow=red,2,300]Why do people come to Kellwood even though people frequently disappear there? What's so special?![/glow]
Because they don't know people disappear.Kellwood has an excellent ad agency to sell the great vacation spot to potential Kellwood tourists. Usually, you don't say "Come to Kellwood and die!" to get people to spend money at your resorts. A few people do come because of the mysterious aura of the place, it has a certain allure to it. And not everyone who comes to Kellwood dies. The demon hunters make sure of that. As long as they don' t blunder around at night or into the woods, they're fine. But Kellwood holds the interest of boaters, surfers, beach-goers, touristers, spelunkers(cave explorers), mountain climbers, skiers, people interested in the history and people who want to get away from the busy city. Though there is a business area in Kellwood, much of the area is remote and very pretty.
[glow=red,2,300]What is UP with that weird house? (and that ugly couch!)[/glow]
The folks who owned Menu's house before him were eccentrics...real "Y2k is gonna kill us!" type crazies. A husband and wife, they were also very intelligent, but extremely introverted outside themselves. They wanted a house completely suffiecient without "Evil computers!" . They chose a specific spot for their house: right over one of Kellwood's many caves (for the use of a bomb shelter when the computers go crazy!) Of course it had an underground river going through it (into a sinkhole) and they modified it to produce enough hydroelectric power for the house. It's not terribly powerful but it works. The couch was just cheap.
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't Menu wear pants? Why doesn't Phineas wear shirts? [/glow]
Menu doesn't feel comfortable in pants because of the way his legs are shaped. His heels are high, and because he chooses to walk bipedal (his arms are shorter like a human's still, so walking 4 on the floor can be a tad awkward too). It gives his limbs more range of movement too, which is why he prefers sleeveless cloths. Also, wearing clothes with fur gets a little stuffy, so he likes to shed them all in warm weather. His fur is long, sort of like a Pomeranian, which was the sort of dog I based him on, so his anatomy isn't visible due to the thick fur. It does disturb his friends when he's shirtless still... as for Phinny, he feels confined in shirts and he's actually wearing swimming trunks rather than actual shorts. Phineas loves to swim and get wet, so he doesn't bother with clothes that'll drag him down. That said, he still has a thing against speedos so even if they're more hydrodynamic than the shorts, he's taking the shorts.
[glow=red,2,300]Why do the first 20 or so comics seem so random, but eventually turn to linear storyline?[/glow]
Well, when I started posting CTV online, I already had about 600 or so pages done in pencil, Bic pen & crayon. I had heard from a friend of mine that you could post comics online, and after visiting DD I was in right away. I started redrawing pages to color them in photoshop (because by then my "old" pages were really dated with the art-style) and at that time in my life I was convinced that CTV would be a big hit and was gonna get published someday. However I didn't take into account that the art sucked so much (that's for the next question!) My parents were worried that I was gonna give away my entire story for free and I'd never make a career of my comic, so I told them I'd just post a few to see what reaction I got. I posted, at first, comics that wouldn't affect the story-plot, which were one-shots I had scattered throughout the original set. I changed my mind when the comic was so well-recieved, and decided that the web was my best bet for improvement. So then I moved on to the actual story. But if you notice, those "random" pages are still canon and I reference them later on in the story at times, so don't dismiss them quite yet! You'll miss something.
[glow=red,2,300]Why did the art suck so much in the earlier pages?[/glow]
Because of a few reasons: one, my first time using photoshop outside of class, I was teaching myself. When i used it in class, it was because I was on a computer that HAD it, and the only thing I used it for was a lame exercise making a chef's face out of fruit and veggies. I'd never used it to color a comic. "Polar Bar" and "Dork Ninja" where my first times out coloring a comic, and I had no idea what I was doing. Dork Ninja went bad because I didn't know about scanning, bitmaps and what have you, and the lineart ended up with stripes of grey through it that looked like cordurouy. I blurred it to blend it back into black...it just went downhill from there. I also was unaware that some of my comics posted online looked like crap because AOL has an option to crapify images in order to load faster, and I thought I did something wrong on my end, and it had something to do with the scans. So then I started drawing them with a mouse....a crappy ball-mouse to be precise. Later when I figured out how to scan things in and color them better, I had a habit of not liking the lineart enough and tracing over it...again, with the mouse! That was so dumb of me!
That's just colors though. The lineart itself was crappy because for much of the start, I didn't pre-sketch. That means I just took a pen and drew it. Unfortunately, without a presketch, I was nervous with the pen and often did a "sketch" style of lineart, often not completing lines, layering and feathering them. this did not make for smooth, confident lines! Only a scant few turned out alright. I started using pre-sketch around the time that Bunny gets captured by the Orycalopes. If you could see some of the other stuff I drew before and at the time of the bad art, you'd swear it was by a different artist. It didn't occur to me how crappy things looked! (blinded by love I suppose)
It also didn't help that I'd do 3-8 comics a day. Rush jobs never look good. I did the entire Mystery Friends arc in one day! (coloring included!)
[glow=red,2,300]Why doesn't it update daily anymore?[/glow]
I've been a very busy girl with all sorts of things. After my emotional breakdown a while back, I really lost my stride. Lack of confidence in my abilities doesn't help either. Thigs are looking bright and peachy lately though, but with all that I have going on, pages just don't come as fast as they used to.It's not that they take any longer to do though...realistically I could do 2 a day if I wasn't busy with everything else. what used to take 8 hours can now take 5, but I'm finding that inking is still stumbling me.
[glow=red,2,300]How do you keep track of the story, or do you even bother?[/glow]
Yes I do. I keep track of it in my mind, and through things I remind myself in the comic. The web version is slightly different from the original, but I borrow unused elements.
I found a plothole! Explain yourself, bad writer, you!
You're probably mistaken. Sometimes a writer will place something arbitrary in their comic to delibrately mislead their readers. It's like a twist ending. It's a twist if you hint at it early on,and it goes over people's head. Then they can look back and confirm "it makes sense now!" What's not a twist is to throw a wrench in there for no reason at all, with nothing supporting it. That makes for continuity errors, and doing it just for convenient solving of a problem you made, a plothole is formed.
I've been extra careful with my story so as to not form these holes, and if you think you've found one, you ought to keep note of it, because you're going to find out something indeed is up, and you'll be the first one to realize it: I am a sneaky person. Preemtively calling "plothole!' will make you look very silly later. ^_^
[glow=red,2,300]Admit it, you were influenced by Johnny the Homicidal Maniac! Rip-off artist![/glow]
Quiet you! This is the most aggravating thing to hear, ever. Unless I was using pychic waves to steal ideas from Jhonen Vasquez's brain, any vague similarity you see in CTV is purely and strictly coincidental. I hadn't even heard of the comic when I developed the characters. They don't even have similar proportions! I have read the comic by now, but despite what some folks think, it IS entirely possible to read something and not rip it off "subconsciously!" I don't use references for my own character art, and never have. How would you feel if someone you'd never heard of accused you of ripping of their art? As for the story, don't try and tell me J.V. has the copyright on dark humor and violence. I've been doing that gig for more than 10 years. My grandpa has been a huge influence on my sense of humor and I sincerely doubt he's into comics. He does however have a collection of very old, scary stories. When you grow up hearing poetry like "Willie with a lust for gore, nailed the baby to the door; Mother said, with humor quaint: 'Willie dear, don't chip the paint!' " you tend to have a bit of a twisted sense of humor. My love of horror movies, survival horror games, and cult classics has also molded my writing styles into what it is now. I've also had a love of slapstick violence, and admit it:JTHM is a little short on the slapstick but heavy on the violence. And don't even think that he's the first person to write his own fantasy-revenge off of life experiences. Just about EVERYBODY has done this at least once, or at least thought it. Pretty much, you could compare any comic to CTV and find enough similarity to claim I'm influenced by it. Heck, a comic I'd just heard about had a part very similar to a Hexavier comic I did. Do I claim they ripped me off? No way. Sunday funnies have had jokes almost identical to ones I used in CTV! Do I think they stole from me? Heck no, I hadn't even posted it online yet! Things like that DO happen. Just because both our comics get classified as "gothy" does not automatically mean that it was a source of inspiration for me.To clear things up also, I have a lot of respect for Jhonen, I do like his style and I think it's disrespectful to compare my stuff to his. Both to him and to me. Especially when I have mentioned the fact umpteenmillion times.
[glow=red,2,300]Why's everyone so whiney/angsty? This comic's so emo...[/glow]
Because the real world isn't a shiney happy place to begin with. Bah, where do you get the impression that everyone's angsty? I have the impression that you are only paying attention to the 2 characters that are emotionally unstable. It would be truly unrealistic, especially in a comic that's dark humor and sometimes drama, for everyone to be happy all the time for no reason at all, just to please people who hate angsty characters. You don't smile when your luck is bad either, pal.
I totally get what you mean on a lot of those points. This must've taken forever, thanks for clearing some things up ^__^
. Don't ever let people bad talk you because you in no way deserve it. 
