nuclear waste aerobics

yabasha asked:

I must say, that your comic is lovely and I've been enjoying it immensely! I noticed that your style somewhat resembles Hiromu Arakawa's (author of Fullmetal Alchemist). Is that a coincidence, or has she been an influence on your style? Either way, keep up the work, I can't wait to see more from you! =')

Thanks! I get this a lot and yeah, Fullmetal Alchemist is important to me. I was a faithful reader of the scanlations for it’s entire run (almost ten years) and loved every chapter, so the influence must’ve rubbed on me more or less.

However I’m blind to my own style and don’t really get where people see the resemblance exactly! I’m not particularly impressed by Arakawa’s character designs so I didn’t imitate those on purpose at least. Her art is quite badass otherwise, though. Especially the action scenes!

Anonymous asked:

Thanks for elaborating on your writing process! it is always nice to hear what's happening behind the story and you tend to talk more about character design and other visual sections of your creative process more so more pondering about the writing is nice (◕‿◕✿)

Great, I’m glad you’re interested! I was worrying all this discussion about my writing would mostly bore people haha. But fuck the police, if there’s anything you’re wondering about the story or characters, I’m always willing to elaborate (while gracefully avoiding to give out spoilers of course). Ask away!

Anonymous asked:

I think what you said about the chief being the mother is really cool and good way to conceptualize that character - but maybe something that should be shown over time through actions & allusions instead of that specific line. I think what comes off as "cliche" about stuff like that is that it's just like the easiest, quickest way to address this big abstract relationship/idea - when something a little more subtle might be more interesting! just an opinion though

Weeell I don’t expect the reader to realize how serious she is about the family thing yet… So far there’s only a single line vaguely hinting at it after all :D In future chapters there will be a scene or two where the chief will more obviously rationalize her actions with her ideas about family and a mother’s duties. Look forward to it!

Anonymous asked:

A linear story actually is a good idea when you are an inexperienced writer. I could still advice you to maybe try avoiding really cliched elements e.g. chief going "we are your family now" and whatnot. You should be one step ahead of the readers so try to play it to your advantage. Playing with expectations doesn't even have to end to a gag, it can be used in a serious manner too. Do you feel natural with writing jokes into the story? They seem kind of out of place at times so I wanted to ask.

Hahaha… I guess there are details in the writing that may seem a little too cheesy depending on the reader. There are scenes that could’ve been entirely serious, but I don’t personally mind having the occasional tongue-in-cheek moment so I end up with stuff like this:

The part about family was relevant to keep because it’s an idea the chief actually believes in. She presents herself as this idealistic mother figure to her people, though of course that’s not the whole truth of her character. It takes a tough boss to lead all those tough people :’)

I’m pretty spontaneous with jokes, so if I come up with a decent one, I’ll usually go with it because what’s the harm, right? I totally see what you mean though; it’s going to be challenging once I get to the more serious chapters, keeping the mood intact and not ruining it with badly-placed jokes. Thanks for the feedback!

Anonymous asked:

Phantomland is really professional looking art-wise so I think that is working to your dissadvantage here. I find it hard to be invested in the story since it's way too safely written making it rather predictable. It's not bad in a "this does not make any sense" kind of way. I know the story is just beginning but the first chapter lacks a proper hook. There may or may not be awesome and interesting things coming in the future but in a story you should be able to hook the reader from the start.

And there we have it! Legit constructive criticism!

Thanks for calling it professional looking. I admit I’m not a very experienced writer at all. Before getting into comics I never had a hobby of writing prose or fanfics or anything so there’s still a lot to learn about storytelling. I went with a plot that’s fairly linear and easily comprehensible so it’s really no wonder if it seems “safely” written.

The first chapter has gotten a bit of criticism yeah. I figured it would be boring to have too much exposition thrown at the reader right from the start, so I made the beginning very action-packed while you’d still get a basic understanding of the main characters. Buuut it didn’t really appeal to everyone. I hope most of them still proceeded to read the following chapters, since that’s where I introduce things more thoroughly :)

Anonymous asked:

You can't expect everyone to get on their knees and bow to your comic :D Maybe you should start taking critique as a good thing and not get pissed off it someone dares to say that the story and characters aren't written that well (which I have to say I agree, but hey nobody says you can't improve). Maybe you've gotten cocky because your general anime style appeals to the masses or something? Something in your attitude seems to have changed over the months I've been reading your blog. cheers

Duuude where are you pulling this stuff from

Point me to a case where I received constructive criticism and got pissed off about it. “The story is badly written” is not constructive criticism. That kind of statement is completely useless and I can’t work with it. If you have a problem with the comic, here’s two options: either stop reading or take the helpful route and actually tell me what’s wrong with it.

If my general excitement & passion for my project and gratitude for the readers come off as cockiness then that’s too bad I guess! No plans to change my behavior.

Anonymous asked:

omg I just started reading the Phantomland comic online and I have an original world/story/comic that I've been developing since before I even heard of this comic but /coats/. the huge coats that sweep dramatically and show rank in a military type setting is the entire premise because /coats/

YES. This anon knows their stuff

The very first thing I decided when creating the comic was that it has to have cool uniforms! And to have uniforms, you’d need an organization. So that was sort of my entire starting point with the story…