Living With Insanity

So I thought about making this post earlier but thought I should wait until today’s page.

Since the soft reboot that started with Fer coming on board, every character has been, in some way, inspired or based on a person I knew. Fer and David, obviously on us with some key differences, Alice was originally introduced because I had a girlfriend at the time I started the strip, and then kept her around for the dynamic. Mike was a combination of two editors I’ve worked with. Julia is a PG version of a writer friend who has a wealth of model stories and a mouth so dirty Tarantino would be shocked. Chloe was inspired by a weird first date I felt I had to put in the strip. Greg and Vanessa are multiple people I’ve known, both personally and through industry gossip, who had too much ambition with too little resources and no one to say no.

Molly is also a combination of people. Me, some people I knew, and a bunch of horror stories I’ve heard online. She’s someone who just gets shit on constantly. For some reason people ignore her or put her second, but it’s always unconsciously and never meant with malice. Because she’s meek and rarely stands up for herself, people always assume she’s willing to go with whatever and when she does reach her limit, she’s brushed aside because she’s gotten to a point where she’s so used to being disregarded she takes it as inevitable.

Her flinching whenever someone calls out to her was from a friend of an ex who acted like that any time he heard his name. He used to get yelled at by his teachers and parents for any odd behaviours caused by his autism. Her skills with art and props come from stories of people fighting depression by just burying themselves in their work. And her mother favouring Chloe comes from an ex I’m glad didn’t last long who played favourites with her nephews very openly. Not being outright hostile, just showering one in presents and junk food while the other got his basic needs and proper discipline.

I think she’s someone we can all recognise and empathise with, either because we’ve known someone like her or just from watching Meg get shit on constantly on Family Guy. Or maybe you are her, in which case I’m sorry to hear that.

I’m glad she’s been getting a good response and I hope that positive outlook continues later on.

David

Last Friday, Paul’s final strip for LWI was uploaded after they were all wiped from the site back in 2012.

Early last year, Fer managed to get a lot of work for his art and needed some time off to take care of that. He still managed to get the LWI trade finished, and you’ll get to see those new pages starting this week, but we needed something to fill in the gap. I had initially been wary about uploading Paul’s work because it was nearly 300 comics and doing them in one go was not all that appealing. But I did get a few messages and posts asking when those comics were going to come back because that was when a lot of my fans got into the comic. So Fer’s break ended up being the perfect opportunity to finally get it done.

It’s kind of hard to say how I feel about the old strips. I still like the art, but when I printed the first fifty, I cringed at the writing. A lot of it felt stale and bland. Paul would reject strips back when we worked together and after looking back at those scripts to compare, holy crap am I glad he kept me from making an even bigger idiot of myself. He also took out excessive dialogue that helped the flow better in some cases. Sure, he’d cut corners here and there, but the guy was busy and it’s not like he saw any money off of this. That would be my main regret, that I never got to compensate him for all the hard work he did. Unfortunately I didn’t get anything either so there was nothing to pay him. We expected it would and I think if we had gone through with our Image plan it could have happened, but I never had a pitch that interested him.

I also expected it to go on forever, even though around strip 200 he told me he was leaving that year. Instead of wrapping up story lines I instead set up new ones. But surprisingly it all worked out since most of the villains were unintentionally had written endings. Helena is living as a human with Becky, Nell is dealing with Drae, who is dying of an infection, the toaster never got its hands on the magic wand, and Hannibal is stuck under the house. When I pitched the idea to Paul back in 2008 there was actually a reason for all this weird crap that I explained to him, but it actually works even without the explanation. I am glad Paul gave me the final five strips when he brought me crashing back to reality with the news he was leaving. He could have just said seeya and left me in the lurch, but he didn’t. And he had given me fair warning far in advance, I was just too dumb not to listen.

Now, there’s one last thing I need to address. I said that Paul and I did 300 strips together, so why are there only 277? Well that’s because back when LWI first started, I was the artist. It was actually an experiment to finally get me to make my own comics. However, I can’t draw so Paul came in. And when we got the LWI website, I elected to not upload those strips because I felt they would turn off newcomers and didn’t feel that they added much. They introduced some of the cast, but you don’t really need them to enjoy the comic.

Instead of uploading them, I have decided that after a few art courses to help me and some more practice comics, I will eventually round up the 300 number by writing and drawing a prequel detailing David’s car accident, how he got Helena the cat and Hannibal the robot, how Alice became his roommate and of course, how David decided to get into comics. Actually it’s more likely I’ll get someone else to draw it, maybe Fer if he has the chance, but for now the plan is that I will tackle it in a year or so.

So that’s about all I have left to say. Thank you always to Paul for his hard work for almost three years, I could not have gotten this comic where it is without you. Thanks to Fer for taking over after him. And of course, thank you for sticking with us for so long, even during the down times and hiatuses.

Until next time, take care.

~ David