Trollbabe Comics Musings

[James V. West]

I guess because I was involved in the artwork for the game and for the strips I never had an issue with the apparant difference in tone between the two. Ron has always said the two were quite different monsters.

I look at it this way. No two gaming groups are going to play Trollbabe the same way. Were you to sit in on a dozen different groups you'd probably get a full gamut of styles ranging from totally dramatic and majestic to slapsticky fun. So when Ron writes some comic strips it's really no different. Just a preference of style for that medium.

And as far as the modern slang goes, it probably doesn't hurt that I have a great affection for many of the things Ron does, regarding fantasy art. A similar taste.

I can see where some people might be off put by the style of the comic. Things happen quickly when they do, but the whole affair takes quite some time to unfold. I suspect there's a lot of cool plot points that are going to converge in surprising ways.

"Birthroot Bargain" rocked. The art is rough in a heller cool way. Great faces. The current strip looks pretty nifty too. I like the border around each panel. Nice atmosphere.

(edited a typo)

[ejh]

Thanks, James!  I'm a big admirer of your art so I'm glad you liked mine.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Speaking of the art itself, here are some reflections on the first year of strips.

1. "Sex and Death, with Music" - James and I like all the same stuff. All I have to do is say "Vaughn Bode!" and he says "Phil Foglio!" and I say "Wendy Pini!" and he says "Frank Thorne!" Other people think it's some kind of weird code, but we really did have a full conversation by doing that, with verbs and everything.

So this strip was less of a collaboration than a full-throttle dual-brain event: anything I wrote is "what James wanted anyway" and anything James draws is "what Ron wanted anyway."

2. "The Green Goo Feud" - Rod and I are similar, in that we feel very easy with the characters themselves and the spirit of Retta's adventures. He suggested a kind of Li'l Abner look that was just right for all the action, and is the artist who most captures the newspaper-y feel I was looking for. He's also the one who can make story suggestions that really change things for the better. He's more of a collaborator than a straight-up illustrator, and probably the artist I'd trust most with a concept approach - in which I'd put one event down for a three-panel strip and he'd send roughs, and then I'd do the dialogue. I've never done that with Trollbabe (the artist gets a full script), but I'd try it with Rod.

3. "The Birthroot Bargain" - Ed was one of the two artists who was attracted by a post by James at a minicomics website, and he already had a whole folder of illustrations of what we both swear must have been telepathy - a bunch of trollbabes! What they were doing wasn't quite suitable for the strip but was certainly entertaining (and Ed, I suggest charging to let people see'em), but I'd clearly met a kindred spirit. I really, really liked his rendering in the strip and the audience's first view of Tha is a real stunner. He really struggled over the bizarre spirit-world panels but in my opinion nailed them without any problem.

4. "A Day at the Circus" - Adam was the other artist who'd responded to James' post - actually, there were several others, but Adam and Ed were the only ones I wanted to work with. Anyway, Adam writes comics very intently and had a harder time adjusting to "the artist" role. For the most part, his ideas worked well with mine, but the action at Aiga's cage before it's opened never quite satisfied either of us. Stylistically, though, he brought a lot to the comic. I liked the very different look for this story; the shading has a lot of power if you see all the strips at once on a screen or printed on a page.

5. "Holy Trollers" - James again, again with little or no need for explanations or dialogue between the two of us. His details like the rogue troll's quivering hand as he dies, as well as Tha's posture and expression in the "dammit" panel, are more examples of him simply drawing what I want with no identifiable communication between us to establish it.

6. "Avatar is Plenty" - What I liked about this one was Rod's mastery of the G.B. Trudeau-esque facial expressions (and a little bit of Crumb when Rus really gets raving). Rod also identified a serious weakness in the first script I sent him and made a number of suggestions which led to my re-write. The single thing people like most - Gwyneth's reactions - came from that dialogue; it wasn't in the original.

Anyway, just the first round of musings on my first attempt at comics. Hope it was interesting.

Best,
Ron

[James V. West]

Excellent. I find it intriguing to peer into the worlds of other creators and see how they cook things up. If you ever do an actual Trollbabe Comics trade paperback or something you have to include an introduction discussing the process of creating the comic, just like you did above. Very cool.

And yeah, you know exactly what I go for in art -- either creating it or enjoying it. I'm always happy to work on these strips!

BTW, check out this page for a couple of Ben Strickland's Trollbabe-esque paintings...

[ejh]

That Strickland stuff is gorgeous, James!  Thanks!

To anyone who liked Birthroot art:

I lost my job last Thursday, and so have a little more time on my hands (not much -- I'm job hunting hard, but there's a certain amount of "hurry up and wait" to that) -- and my wife has encouraged me to see if there's anything I can do to make some buckolas with my art, even tiny amounts.

So I'm thinking -- Birthroot Bargain Cafe Press T-shirts!  I know that Cafe Press is in some ways a ripoff cuz you make only tiny amounts per shirt sold and the shirts are priced pretty high, but hey, it'd be cool if anybody bought anything whatsoever.

I'm thinking that I should dig out my originals of the BRB (some of them alas are a bit damaged by diet coke spillage -- hazard of the addiction -- but I think that can be assuaged with clever photoshopping), scan them at a nice high resolution, and open up a Cafe Press shop.

I'm seeking feedback on (a) whether anybody might be interested, but more importantly, (b) which individual panels or strips might look good on a T-shirt or mug.

E.g. the central panel, first strip is pretty damn high impact.

http://www.adept-press.com/trollbabe/brb.html

Thoughts?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ed,

Perhaps you could sell a nice poster-style print of the story, as a wall-hanger item?

But a t-shirt with that "Tha studies human magic" panel is a knockout idea. I'd buy one in a shot. I wish there were a way to get more of the money to you, though.

Best,
Ron

[ejh]

I don't know much about it but I don't think Cafe Press's prices are unfair, considering that there's zero investment involved.  If I knew I could sell a hundred of these I'm sure I could place an order at a "real" T-shirt shop and clean up.  But that's high risk; Cafe Press is zero risk.

Single comic panels with out-of-context text like that impart a really cool Pop Art vibe, which clashes interestingly with the creepy fantasy theme, IMHO.  :)

[ejh]

That wasn't so hard:

http://www.cafeshops.com/edworks

It could use a little work -- i.e. putting some identifying information on the image, the comic url, my name even -- but it's not bad for less than half an hour's work.  I'll update it with more goodies later.

I didn't realize this but you can set your own price on cafepress; I set it so that I'd get $5 per shirt.  Cool.

[James V. West]

Dude, that's awesome! You just inspired me to set up one of those rip-off shops...

Fourth strip, second panel. My fave.