Questions to Tom #2

[Tojo]

Do you think poorly of yourself? I hope you don't. But I've noticed you have said a few times that you aren't a great artist or stuff like that.

EDIT:
In today's comic (488), did the kids leave the Court? In Red Return, did they leave the Court to go get haircuts?

EDIT (again):
When did you come up with the plot for GC, and how long did it take? Like was it something you came up with when you were a kid, or did you come up with the whole thing the day before you started the comic?

Did you keep a journal (or something) with all of your plot idea while brain storming? Or did you just make it in your head?

If I learned how to be a uber 1337 hacker, would I be able to find a file on your computer with all of the future plot on it?

Thank you in advanced for your time.

[trk800]

Hey Tom,

I wanted to start off by thanking you for putting this comic online, and I enjoyed the interview. I am sorry the internet is full of terrible people. Although I have probably spent enough time online by now to qualify as terrible several times over, I would never say anything bad about the comic- it makes me smile three days a week.

Anyway, on to the question: What does Dr. Disaster have a Doctorate in? He doesn't look to me like the MD type.

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 25, 2008 3:28:13 GMT Tojo said:

EDIT:
In today's comic (488), did the kids leave the Court? In Red Return, did they leave the Court to go get haircuts?

EDIT (again):
When did you come up with the plot for GC, and how long did it take? Like was it something you came up with when you were a kid, or did you come up with the whole thing the day before you started the comic?

Did you keep a journal (or something) with all of your plot idea while brain storming? Or did you just make it in your head?

If I learned how to be a uber 1337 hacker, would I be able to find a file on your computer with all of the future plot on it?

Thank you in advanced for your time.

No, except for during flashbacks, when Kat went on holiday and when Annie fell into the ravine, the comic has taken place entirely in the Court.

I came up with the plot after I first drew Annie, which was not very long before I started drawing the comic. A few weeks perhaps? I still write new stuff and rearrange things all the time though. Only the general outline was there from the start.

I don't have a journal, no.

No, you wouldn't. I keep that file on a USB stick.

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 25, 2008 15:21:05 GMT trk800 said:

Hey Tom,

I wanted to start off by thanking you for putting this comic online, and I enjoyed the interview. I am sorry the internet is full of terrible people. Although I have probably spent enough time online by now to qualify as terrible several times over, I would never say anything bad about the comic- it makes me smile three days a week.

Anyway, on to the question: What does Dr. Disaster have a Doctorate in? He doesn't look to me like the MD type.

Thank you.

Dr. Disaster has a Top Secret Doctorate.

[penguinfactory]

Aug 25, 2008 3:28:13 GMT Tojo said:

Do you think poorly of yourself? I hope you don't. But I've noticed you have said a few times that you aren't a great artist or stuff like that.

All artists think they suck. I draw myself, and I'm my own worst critic.

[Tojo]

Aug 25, 2008 17:53:09 GMT penguinfactory said:

Aug 25, 2008 3:28:13 GMT Tojo said:

Do you think poorly of yourself? I hope you don't. But I've noticed you have said a few times that you aren't a great artist or stuff like that.

All artists think they suck. I draw myself, and I'm my own worst critic.

I know. I draw too. And, for example, on one pencil drawing I got into the grade school art show, everyone was saying it was great but I really wanted to point out all the huge flaws I saw in it to them.

[Tenjen]

Say Tom, did you and Gadget from the rescue rangers eventually get down to killing some people?

[Bobonfire]

What was the most random thought you ever had?

[Klex]

Does Jack have a particular accent ? What are his origins ?

[Tom Siddell]

He just has a normal accent. Nothing specific.

[Klex]

Are the classes and students more or less fairly distributed in the Court, or is there a "pole" with a high density and the rest being desert ?

[versasovantare]

I think Coyote has been the most aesthetically interesting character to appear in the series so far. Did you draw on any particular sources for inspiration when you designed him? Is his design drawn from any particular renditions of him from Native American culture?

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 27, 2008 17:41:18 GMT Klex said:

Are the classes and students more or less fairly distributed in the Court, or is there a "pole" with a high density and the rest being desert ?

There are areas of higher population density, but they are far enough away from each other that stidents from other houses don't often run into each other.

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 27, 2008 21:34:05 GMT versasovantare said:

I think Coyote has been the most aesthetically interesting character to appear in the series so far. Did you draw on any particular sources for inspiration when you designed him? Is his design drawn from any particular renditions of him from Native American culture?

Thank you.
There aren't many pictures of what Coyote is "supposed" to look like, but when I did find them he usually looked pretty crazy (as in, insane) so I definitely wanted to keep that aspect about him. For the rest, I wanted something that had the shape of a dog, but also looked very iconic, like it might be a representation, rather than an actual depiction of Coyote. He's a lot sleeker than a real Coyote, and with his bold colours he probably looks just as he wants people to see him, considering he is very proud and powerful.

[Tenjen]

Have you checked out Yahtzee's game citic videos, Zero Punctuation? [shamefully admitting i only found it out a few days ago]

[beckett]

Hi all.
I have a question about British school system, so it's not specifically addressed to Tom. Any volounteer will be appreciated.

I can't see the point in having the students split in four Houses. What are they there for?

I mean, let's say I'm in House X. Will I attend classes only with students of my House? In my country, we were split in "sections": A, B, C, etc. We all attended the same classes, but in separate hours of the day and only with students of the same section. Do Houses work the same way?

Are there any other functions I can't think of?

(By the way, I'm terribly sorry for my poor English).
Thank you.

[penguinfactory]

We didn't have Houses in my school (I live in Ireland and my school was tiny) but I think it's just to make it easier to schedule classes and stuff. So taking Gunnerkrigg as an example, there are two classes in each house per year, which splits the year into four large and relatively easy to manage segments, rather than eight smaller ones.

The idea of giving the houses names as opposed to deisgnations like letters and numbers is (I think) a tradition that started with Universities in England way back when (I remember reading somewhere that Oxford has like twelve, each of which function semi-independantly).

Hands up who thought JK Rowling just made the whole thing up when they read the HP books first *raises hand*

In terms of the comic it's becoming clear that there's more to it than that- Foley, at least, serves the function of keeping the Gillitie fairies/animals seperate.

Which actually brings me into a question of my own: is it a coincidence that there are three children of staff or former staff members in Annie's class? (Annie= daughter of former medium, Kat= parents are teachers and Janet= principal's daughter)

Also, does Gunnerkrigg have prefects?

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 28, 2008 13:15:23 GMT Tenjen said:

Have you checked out Yahtzee's game citic videos, Zero Punctuation? [shamefully admitting i only found it out a few days ago]

To put it diplomatically, I dislike Zero Punctuation a lot.

[todd]

I went to school in England when I was a boy (aged 9-12), but the school that I attended didn't have houses of the same kind as Gunnerkrigg (or Hogwarts). The different forms (equivalent to grades in American schools) had names taken from the period of British history that we'd be studying at the time (for example, when we were doing Roman Britain, they were named after the different ancient British tribes such as the Durotriges, when we did Anglo-Saxon England, they were named after barbarian tribes such as the Huns, Franks, and Vikings, when we got to the Middle Ages, they were named after major people in medieval history such as Becket and Chaucer, and so on). There were four athletics houses, however: Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, and Tudor (which could almost turn sports events into a reenactment of the Wars of the Roses).

[nikita]

On page seven Annie talks about building a "tin man". I could swear that when I read GC for the first time she said "homme d'acier"..
Am I hallucinating again? If not: Why did you change it.

(I don't want it changed back, I'm just curious...)

[Tom Siddell]

I changed it because it was silly. There are also minor changes in the book.

[todd]

Though the original version tells us that Annie has a good command of foreign languages. I certainly never thought that piece of French silly.

[Kuraru]

Tom, what is Anja's national origin? From what I can glean from Wikipedia she could be from pretty much anywhere in Europe east of France.

[Tenjen]

ah he answered this before. [searches] here you go

Jul 31, 2008 10:50:37 GMT Tom Siddell said:

Anja is Romani and Donald was born and raised in Scotland (before he went to the Court that is).

hope you dont mind Tom

[popo]

I think he means where is she from, as romanis are extremely spread out across the world

[Kuraru]

Aye, I meant national origin. Thanks for the info, though.

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 29, 2008 17:47:13 GMT Kuraru said:

Tom, what is Anja's national origin? From what I can glean from Wikipedia she could be from pretty much anywhere in Europe west of France.

It's not been specified.

[Tojo]

Tom, have you ever considered making an art book? I feel like you would be good at making one, and I really want a book on cartooning that helps you draw characters with quality better than that of Peanuts. You could make Tea be the instructor in it! I would pay like at least $30 for something like that!

[Bobonfire]

Are the comments off permenately?

[Tom Siddell]

Aug 31, 2008 17:22:16 GMT Tojo said:

Tom, have you ever considered making an art book? I feel like you would be good at making one, and I really want a book on cartooning that helps you draw characters with quality better than that of Peanuts. You could make Tea be the instructor in it! I would pay like at least $30 for something like that!

I'm in no position to teach anyone to draw anything, but I've always wanted to do a book of just full colour pictures. It's the kind of thing I'm not sure I would be able to find the time, or market, for however.