Who are you?
My name is Dylan Meconis (my parents are the enterprising kind who believe in gender-neutral names; this landed me in the boys dorms at summer camp once or twice, but luckily there was always a boy named Loren who switched bunks with me). I'm a college student, which means that I try extra-hard to come off as witty and have tons of suppressed anxieties about Real Life.
If you're looking for personal information on the wonderful creature that is me (oh, how wonderful I am!), you should mosey on over to the Biography and FAQ on my main website. You can only mosey, though: those found ambling or wandering will be shot without warning.
How often do you update?
I try to update once a week on Fridays, in general by late afternoon or early evening Eastern Time. Every once in awhile my pitiful excuse for a life causes me to be late or postpone, but I promise not to kick off permanently. Have you ever noticed that the cool kids never get to places on time? Okay, well I'm the girl that shows up to everything fifteen minutes early and then pretends to do athletic stretches to put forth a relaxed, devil-may-care image while all the time I'm thinking "Okay, five minutes until it starts. Where is everybody? Do they not care? Am I in the wrong place? Why, god, WHY!?!"
When did you start doing this?
I think I started somewhere around late December of 2001. Good lord. I feel like I should be taking the comic out for a romantic anniversary dinner. ("The three-ring binder would like to see the wine list.")
What media do you use?
First of all, you get brownie points for saying "media" instead of "mediums". (If you want real approval, say "fora" to me one of these days. It sends shivers up my spine.) At any rate: nothing too inspirational. I pencil with any old pencil that's handy, then ink directly over it with Micron technical pens---a .08 for thick lines, a .01 for thin lines, and a .03 for anything in between.
For shading I use a combination of Tria or Prismacolor markers and then toss on some pencil shading to add depth and hide my intense laziness. The white lines are done with "Gellyroll" pens. Originally I used white colored pencil, though. Don't do that.
As for other media, I always liked Dan Rather; I just think he's cuter than Tom Brokaw.
Do you have the whole story thought out?
ahahahahahahahah! Hahahah! Wooo�
�no.
At the beginning I just cranked out eight pages and let the comic run itself. Now generally I have an idea of what's coming up in the next few pages, and I have some increasingly likely notions of what's going to happen (yes, I do know the ending, and no, even my best friends don't know...); and every now and then I'll have a specific joke that won't show up for twenty pages. But beyond that, I'm flying blind. I didn't even know Luther was going to exist until two weeks before he made his appearance. So it's like improv comedy, only lots slower, and it gets you considerably fewer dates.
Of course, I'm also in an improv comedy troupe and I STILL don't get any dates, but that's beyond the point.
Is this all historically accurate?
Let's just say first off this is a comic about the walking undead, so realism is sort of low on the priority ladder. I started this comic in high school, with a minimum interest in anything beyond using the word "wench" a lot and making some off-handed guillotine gags. Since then the actual history of the era's been put more into focus for me: the comic moved to 1792 from 1789, I toss in the occasional joke that only History majors will understand, and have tried to insert a few minor costume tweaks to make things less glaringly out of period...but this is still a goofy cartoon about vampires. Next time I'll do research first. Scout's honor.
How long does it take you to do a page?
A few hours, definitely. I'm not a fast artist, and even given a whole evening in which to pencil a page, I still have to put down art that I'm not entirely satisfied with. This is really a writing comic rather than an art one---in addition to cutting production time, silly material just seems more fun to me when it's not stretched out by really intricate page layouts or mind-boggling detail. Additionally, I wind up making each page its own miniature story, so that's actually fun to read it a page at a time---this makes it a little strange to read straight through, but that's my attention span for you. As it is, though, I'd say it takes a goodly few hours to pencil, ink, and shade, and all the rest. Generally I stretch it out over two to three evenings.
Someday I might actually farm up the time to put together a (quote) pretty (unquote) comic, in which everybody dies and has angst. That'd be cool.
I want to make a (web)comic...any advice?
I don't feel like I'm very qualified to answer, since my comic is pretty much pulled off in whatever semblance of free time I might have. It's a webcomic only in that the web is where it's "published"---even the media I use are real-life, rather than virtual. I enjoy doing it, but I don't consider it to be a magnum opus or anything to be used as an example for somebody else. There are things I do in it that I will never, ever do again. Like pencil shading. Stay away from that one.
Basically...just look at webcomics and print comics you like, think about why you like them...and do it*. Get a scanner, a decent image editing program, and sally forth. And please, please remember:
STORY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING PRETTY.
I don't know how many comics caught my eye for the first three pages, only to be dropped because of bad grammar/spelling (HUGE problem with far too many comics artists), lame dialogue, and characters who exist solely to show off their breasts. Don't do it. Make somebody your editor, spellcheck like crazy, and find a blazingly honest reader. And if you're sure that you really don't give a damn about the story and just want to DRAW a comic, find somebody to write for you.
Secondarily, believe Carla Speed McNeil when she says that anything worth doing is worth doing badly. I don't care if you're not good enough to do it yet, do it anyway. Sometimes this rule will have to be broken for reasons of pure reality (see above rant), but if the only thing stopping you is your own hesitation, to hell with it. I wasn't good enough to maintain a webcomic when I started, but I just chose to ignore that fact and interpreted every forthcoming page as a sort of nifty present from fate. Heck, I still do. I have no idea what I'm doing! COOL!
As for extra advice making a webcomic that you can actually commit to, I'd recommend reading this. Because he's right about everything.
*Everybody starts by ripping off their faves, but in my estimation, you should be done with the truly humiliating stage of this by the time you're legal. Get it out of your system, and then hide it where nobody can see. Points to anybody who finds my old websites.
Will the comic ever go out in print?
Maybe, when I finish it. I have no idea how I'd finance or sell it, though, and given the slapdash state of the original pages, pre-production work would make Dante's Inferno look like a pleasant frolic on the beach; so take that as an "I'd like to" with nagging doubts. I'm not literary enough for a Xeric grant. Heh. Subscribe to girlamatic and we'll see how much cash I can amass.
Will you link to me?
I can't promise anything, and when people ask point-blank I find it to be a bit of an Internet faux-pas. I like to keep my links list short and composed of (a) geniuses or (b) people I'm close friends with (a and b collide at a shocking rate...) so I can't promise anything, but if you send me a link I always have time to waste*. I like comics. They're like dating somebody, only they don't buy me dinner.
*not true
Do you like Anne Rice, author of The Vampire Chronicles?
The same way I like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. It's fun, it's a little embarrassing to admit you like it, and it's cheap and easy to digest. As such, I feel like I can read the books seriously, enjoy them as such, and still think they're intensely hilarious. I admit that I lost a lot of patience after Queen of the Damned, though; sometimes you should just quit when you're ahead.
At any rate, call this comic a loving parody. Or call it Steve: that would work too.
Why did you move the comic to girlamatic?
Read my extensive and even-tempered explanation here. If you're still mad at me, it's too late: the contract is signed and I'm happy, and I'm done justifying myself. I'm not at all convinced or impressed by people who write and tell me to "get a job at Burger King, lazy ass, so I can read your comic for free."
My universal response to this tactic is: so you'll pay me $3.00 through an evil corporation for a hunk of beef, but you have a problem with paying me the same amount through a small, communal, artist-run business for access to the archives my comic (with free updates), and those of nearly a dozen other artists? Man.
How can I subscribe to girlamatic?
The best way to pay for the site is through Paypal, an online payment-exchange system. This works with your ATM/debit card or any credit card. If giving a site your numbers gives you the willies, you can also set up a Paypal account with a money order. You don't need a checking account, a credit card, or generally even ID to get a money order, and it is good for only the amount of money you specify, so if you are a minor without independence-minded parents, this is your best bet to buy things safely online. I love money orders.
To get one, go to your local bank and ask to buy a money order, for whatever amount you like. Generally you can give the bank that amount in cash (if it's your own bank they can sometimes draw it directly out of your account), and they will in turn give you the money order. This is essentially a paper receipt saying that you paid the bank a certain amount, and that they will give that amount of money in turn to whoever cashes that receipt.
You can send the money order to Paypal, and your account will have that much money in it, minus a small service charge, for you to spend online wherever Paypal is accepted. You can sign up for an account at Girlamatic through Paypal and never use it for anything else. Therefore nobody knows anything about your credit cards or bank account, and even in the case of the most horrible failure of economic surety, you're only out the amount you paid for the money order.
If even this is beyond your means, you can send a money order (or in case of desperation, your firstborn child) directly to Joey Manley himself, the director of girlamatic, and he will furnish you with an account. The address for doing this is available on moderntales.com.
In case of total paranoia, while I'm in session at university, you can send me money at my school box number and I'll sign you up. However, this will take a LONG time, I don't have the power to create accounts like Joey, anything you send will be put in a shared mailbox, and frankly the responsibility makes me nervous. I love you all, but my tendency to lose track of little slips of paper is notorious. (That's why I do Bite Me on 8x11 instead of little notecards like the criminally insane Bill Mudron.)
And, lastly, if you just don't have the werewithal to sign up and your relatives are stingy about birthdays, don't forget that updates are free!
Can I send you fanart?
yes! Yes! Yes you can! You MAY! Send it! Oh! OH! STROKE MY EGO!!!
�er�
�yes, that'd be lovely. If you can upload to a web address and then e-mail the address to me, I'd really appreciate it, and I'll be more likely to get it up on the website soon. However, barring that, as long as it's not a vastly huge file (read: over 300k), you can e-mail it directly to me, too. My e-mail accounts tend to be feisty, so if you don't get an answer right away, try again or try another address. Because of time constraints and ongoing hand injuries, I update my fanart gallery once every other century: it sucks but I can't help it. Know that I love everything I get, and be patient. :)
Is Claire the same person as Zanya?
Yep. Don't worry, we'll get there. There's already been one semi-mention of it. But yep.
So, are Lucien and Claire gonna get together?
Ask this question of me twice, and I shall slap you across the face with a trout. A live one. I've done it before. Seriously. And lemme tell you, that sucker will STING.
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