Yuko Ota's Blog, page 39

JW Letters Column 4/17/2015

Hey everyone! It's our second letters column! This is where we round up the questions we received from Patreon backers and respond. In case you're confused, here's the deal: patrons can ask us questions by hitting this link. If you'd like to become a patron, head over to our patreon!

This time we're only answering one question because we give a reaaaaally thorough answer:

Oh geez. Oh man. Hello. I've been reading since Johnny Wander started back when Applegeeks was still updating and Yuko did some guest strips and god I must have been in the middle of high school then and I had never seen anything as lovely and genuine and fun as Johnny Wander before. It was a bright spot in the teenagery gloom and continues to be an upshot in my day. Thank you.

SO HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS

How come Death turned Ceclia's hand all neat and supernatural, but since they've been together, none of the rest of Cecilia has turned supernatural?

Could you maybe talk a little more about the non-Johnny-Wander stuff in Cuttings? There are notes in the back of the book explaining a lot of the unfamiliar content, but I sort of want to hear more about these scrapped (if they were in fact scrapped) projects. What's Walking Gods? Who's the lone girl with dark hair and neat clothes? (I want to ask more about Cuttings, but left my copy at home and won't be back for a few weeks. D: Maybe next time?) <3

- K

Wow-- you've been with us for a long time, thanks for sticking around. I'm gonna try to run through all your questions:

 
DEATH & CECILIA: In the moment, Death wasn't entirely careful and accidentally gave her the kiss of death. Now he knows to keep his wits about him! This is something we plan to revisit, actually... 
 
Haha, this is tricky since we didn't put page numbers in CUTTINGS... I'll try to be as clear as possible. 
 

 
JOANNAH WITH THE HEART OF STONE: This was about a dryad living among humans, who does her best to fit in but can't quite. At the end we see her cut through a cemetery, up a hill towards two trees that have intertwined-- her parents.
 

 
THE TWO LITTLE MAIDENS - THE CASE OF THE WAYWARD WIFE: This was going to be a follow-up installment to the first Maidens two-pager we posted online. It was 10 pages long, and followed their investigation for a man's missing wife. 
 
P1-4: Open on the elder Maiden brother, Matthew, consulting with their dad (a retired cop and private eye). The dad just lectures him to quit being a private eye. He bumps into his dad's second wife, Daphne. 
 
P5-7: Meanwhile, the younger brother William was supposed to be staking out a lead, but ditches to get a burger at Hamburger Hamlet. He bumps into their mark in line. The brothers chase him down and interrogate him. Yeah, he knew their client's wife. He thought he was stealing her husband's valuables so they could going to run away together. But all she wanted was some filthy old fur coat. 
 
P8-9: They confront their client. They know the truth: his wife was a selkie, and she found a patsy on OKCupid and strung him along until she could convince him to (unwittingly) steal back her seal-skin. The client refuses to pay them - they didn't find his wife! Matthew gets irritated and throws him off the pier. 
 
P10: William talks to his Dad and stepmother about Matthew. Matthew is taking the case pretty hard-- he's estranged from his wife, he still wears his ring around, he still thinks about her all the time. 
 
The story was meant to shine a light on Matthew's failed marriage. There was also a running joke that culminated in the story's punchline-- Daphne (their Dad's second wife) is the same age as Matthew and he's SUPER awkward about it. She keeps asking him to call her Mom "just once!" and he won't do it. At the end, William (who's younger and much more easygoing) calls her Mom when she gives him a bag lunch, and it weirds Matthew out. 
 

 
It's not as funny when you have to explain it, but it still makes ME laugh. Mission accomplished!!
 

 
WALKING GODS: Walking Gods is NOT the project we're starting in 2016, but it's the one we'll be tackling right after. It's based on a fantasy world that Yuko's been working in for a long time now, but there's a lot of organizing and pruning that needs to be done before we can really put our minds to it. It's probably the only sweeping epic we'll ever do. It's coming for sure!
 

 
The lone dark-haired girl with neat clothes is a character from a story we planned and outlined in 2008. We did a ton of world-building and there are hundreds of drawings and pages of notes. I don't think we'll ever do this one, but we learned a lot of good lessons. Keeping mum about some of the details just in case... 
 
I hope I got everything! These are great questions, keep them coming!

JW Letters Column!

Hey everyone! Welcome to our first installment of the Letters Column (that we still need a good name for). This is where we round up the questions we received from Patreon backers and respond. In case you're confused, here's the deal: patrons can ask us questions by hitting this link. If you'd like to become a patron, head over to our patreon!

We got some great questions this week! Let's get to it:

How is Yuko's wrist/arm doing these days? Is she ok?

- Kim N.

It's doing much better these days! It's still healing and Yuko still has to wear a brace some of the time, but Yuko is at a point where she can work a couple of hours each day and it stays manageable. 

Hi Yuko and Ananth,

I wanted to ask about what you guys were planning in the near future now that you've finished Lucky Penny (which was awesome btw!). Will you be returning to the previous format for the duration, or can we look forward to something different altogether (also sorry in advance if literally everyone is asking this)? I have to admit, as much as I enjoyed LP, I've always adored your autobio comics, but I'd really be excited for anything - your work is hugely inspiring.



Anyway, thanks for doing what you guys do, and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next!



Best,
Alison

Thank you! We loved doing Lucky Penny. We're not totally done... Yuko is still toning a lot of pages behind the scenes, and we have plans for some silly little follow-up stuff later this year. 



We're definitely returning to autobio for a while, beginning with the travelogue pages that have been going up. 



We DO have plans for launching a new long-form project in 2016, and it's going to feature some characters previously seen in our fiction work on Johnny Wander. It's too far away to say more than that! But we're very excited about it!
 

 

Sorry if this isn't the type of question you wanted, or if it's off limits for being personal. But I've been curious since the campaign kicked off: Why did Ananth change his name?

- Jason F.

Hey! I've gotten this a few times so I just wanted to address it. It's not off-limits to ask, but my answer is that I've been thinking about it for a long time, there are a lot of reasons, and it's personal so I don't really want to get into it. Sorry! It won't change anything major as far as Johnny Wander is concerned. 

What were some of the art and/or artists (both anime and not) that influenced Yuko's art style?

- Kevin D.

Yuko: "When I was in middle school my mom gave me a book of Audubon paintings and I copied them diligently (to be honest, I did it to help me draw better and more realistic dragons).  My first major comics influence was definitely Jen Wang. I was in high school- I saw that she had an ongoing webcomic and she was roughly my age and her art really appealed to me.  Terryl Whitlatch's creature designs helped inform my own at an early age. I first became interested in fashion and drawing clothing because of the Tite Kubo's chapter breaks in Bleach. Studying Kali Ciesemier's art made me pay attention to design and layout. My current favorites are Florent Maudoux, Aki Irie, Ivan Bilibin, and Charley Harper."

That's all for us!  Catch you next time! And keep those questions coming!

Patron questions are officially open!

Hey everyone! Here's our Thursday update. As I mentioned last week, we're returning to a twice a week schedule! 

I also wanted to mention, the weekly mailbag is now open for questions! Supporters of our Patreon can go here to send us questions. If you'd like to become a patron, head over to our main Patreon page! First installment will be tomorrow! Thanks guys!

See you next week!

Japan Travelogue 2014! Updating twice a week!

Hey guys! So begins our return to autobio comics for a little while. These travelogue comics are from Yuko's trip to Japan in 2014. And good news-- WE'RE UPDATING TWICE A WEEK AGAIN! That's right, we're back to Tuesday and Thursdays! Get HYPE!!

If you want to get those updates early, on Monday & Wednesday respectively, consider backing our Patreon! And if you'd like to otherwise support us, we have lots of fun stuff over at our Topatoco store. AND Yuko's got a bunch of jewelry and more over at Hey Chickadee! Wow wow wow! Thanks guys!

That's all for us! See you THURSDAY!!!!!!

Thank you for reading Lucky Penny!

IT'S OVER! I can't believe it. Thank you so much for reading... this has been years in the making, and we're so happy we made it. Yuko drew a little something for the occasion: 

We crossed the goal on our Patreon to start a Penny Advice blog, so that'll be coming along in a little while.

Thank you everyone who came by at ECCC! Always great to see you! We're taking today to decompress and get our heads straight for the rest of the week. 

Next week: Yuko's 2014 Japan travelogue comics! See you then!

We'll be at ECCC this weekend! Booth 1102!

WHOA! We're going to be at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend, at booth 1102 with Topatoco! Out on the Skybridge! WE WILL HAVE COPIES OF CUTTINGS! And a heads up on that, we're bringing a limited supply. Anyway, come say hello! Here's a map:

If you can't make it but would still like to support us, there's always our online store with Topatoco, or our recently launched Patreon:

That's all for us! Catch you next week!

JOHNNY WANDER PATREON!

Hey guys! We'd been getting some e-mails and occasional tweets telling us to set up a Patreon... so we did! The truth is that, despite the freelance we do, the majority of our income comes from you-- our readers! And so we thought that a Patreon would help us refocus ourselves on our personal work. There are a couple of different pledge levels and various goals to hit! And we did a short animated video for it because we like you! But also because I cut my lip SUPER BAD shaving and that's a bad video look... Oops. Check it out! And thank you for your support!

That's all from us! See you next time!

CUTTINGS Kickstarter surveys will be locked at midnight tonight!

Cuties!

Very important - CUTTINGS backer surveys will be locked at midnight tonight! Please log in and make your address changes ASAP! And please don't e-mail me your updated address-- you MUST log in and do it yourself! Very important! Thanks so much!

KICKSTARTER BACKER SURVEYS WILL BE LOCKED ON 3/10 - READ BELOW

MIDNIGHT RIDE...........

Hey guys! I just put up a backers-only update, but I wanted to mention it here as well. Backer surveys will be LOCKED on 3/10/2015, so please make any updates to your shipping address IMMEDIATELY. After we lock them there will be no way of changing them. Thank you! 

Epilogue

Here's the first page of the epilogue... It's Boyfriend!

That's all for today-- catch you next week!