[Trollbabe comics] Story's done!

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

It's all available now, at We All Have Issues. Kind of an odd little story, really, but see what you think.

The photo-based artwork was far more effective than I expected, and it's certainly expanded the range of media and presentation that I'm willing to try for the strip.

Best,
Ron

[Rod Anderson]

I liked the hell out of it!

What's great from an audience perspective is that you've seen enough of Rus and Gwyneth before to get a taste of them, and here it pays off when you get to see them being as delightfully themselves as they can be. Last panel especially.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Julie (jrs) just told me by PM that she realized Rus has many features in common with Jack Nicholson's character in The Witches of Eastwick. I haven't seen the movie or read the book, so must remain ignorant.

Best,
Ron

[jrs]

Julie (jrs) just told me by PM that she realized Rus has many features in common with Jack Nicholson's character in The Witches of Eastwick. I haven't seen the movie or read the book, so must remain ignorant.

The movie.  Definitely, the movie.  I rather dislike John Updike's writing.

It's the character (imdb tells me his name is Daryl Van Horne) and it's Jack Nicholson and it's Rus.  My mental image of Rus will never be the same.

Julie

[lumpley]

Gwyneth + Rus 4 ever!

I don't think I got them before this story. The considering look she gave him back when Tha let her out of the barrel seems more canny now than it did then. I agree with Rod about the last panel.

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

I wonder if this discussion will influence later artists regarding Rus' eyebrows?

One thing I've noticed among many, many cartoonists and long-term comics writers is that they throw a barrel of characters into the mix pretty early on, and only some of them become regulars over time.

Trudeau has written that although the early Doonesbury stories were "about" Mike Doonesbury, introducing B.D. is what really launched the strip into its eventual identity. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Zonker was first conceived as a one-off joke character.

Looking at Bloom County and Dykes to Watch Out For, both of them nominally comic strips but arguably really "graphic novels," the early material is full of characters and concerns which were simply dropped later as the stories of interest were discovered by the author. Same definitely goes for Cerebus.

That's kind of what's happened with Trollbabe, and it's deliberate on my part. We are now starting the final story of the second "cycle" of scripts, and it's definitely a turning point - now I know which NPCs have worked for me and for others, and what issues are exemplified by them and by the protagonists.

Rus, Gwyneth, Vanth, Oskar, Mooram-Ah. Keep an eye on them.

Best,
Ron