So...you want some answers to the questions you frequently ask? That's what this page is for. Why does your comic focus on these Gabby and Ty people, who I've barely ever heard of? You just answered your own question, dude. Let me take this moment to say I love delving headfirst into obscurity. I focus on them because they're so unheard of. With that freedom, I can fill their lives in with whatever ideas I like. There was additionally an extra point to employing a pair of reporters- the initial premise involved them randomly interviewing fictional characters across the multiverse. But before that could happen, the story morphed into something completely different. So now I focus on Gabby and Ty anyway, and I'm pleased with the amount of personality they've grown in the meantime. Why do you break the fourth wall? It's horribly cliché, isn't it? In webcomics, and especially sprite comics, yes it is. I know this is a lousy excuse, but I didn't realize that when I started doing it. I had never heard of Bob and George, the infamous source of this sort of thing in sprite comics, when I began making Reporterz. I had heard of the self-representing Author character, though. Around the forum where I began, all the comics had one of these "Authors" as their main character, and principal figure, so I thought, "Wow, I'll be brilliantly original! I'll make an Author character who only interacts with the cast sometimes!".....Which, as anyone who's read Bob and George can attest, is precisely the what happened there to produce the cliché that so irks people. However...I'm too stubborn to let an idea die like that. My current plan, which slowly developed in my brain after my own self-insertion appeared, is to do something that's never really been done with Author characters. Use them with definite purpose. Take them apart, see how they tick, give them a reason for existing and tie them into the whole "infinite universes" idea of this comic. The introduction to Reporterz, which was added years after the comic began, hints at some of these ideas, and if I'm lucky, I'll at some point get to unveil the whole story. Perhaps that will satisfy you, perhaps it won't. In any event, that's one cliché I'll continue to employ. Why does Link speak in Olde English? And for that matter, why does Zelda hardly ever talk? Simply odd character quirks, my friend, which I may explain someday. What's your updating schedule? I find that it works best to just do it whenever I feel like it. Which for me turns out to be about once every three days. Sometimes. I'd love to be more punctual, but life doesn't always allow for that. It's kinda stupid to have so much reliance on some other guy's comic, isn't it? You mean, tying so many of my plot threads into Wisest Pikachu's comic strip? Yeah, I admit that was probably a mistake, but I'm not about to go back and mess with the story, mainly because it's the groundwork for the story now. To make up for thrusting you into someone else's work with out a clue, I do try to explain a few things in the commentary, but don't hesitate to let me know if you're confused, whether it be on Wisest Pikachu's comic, or on the whole deal with his character Logic, or whatever. What's with the lack of swearing? The worst I've heard a character say is "crap." Simply put, I've never liked swearing that much. So I try to avoid it in Reporterz. What program do you use to make the comic? Good ol' Paint serves for the most part. Most of the special effects are done in Adobe Photoshop. You can't mix Pokemon-style heads with Megaman-style bodies! Yes I can, and I do. The Megaman bodies have a greater range of movement than do Pokemon sprites, and they look better against these backgrounds. The Pokemon heads have a greater range of variety than do edited Megaman heads. I put them together and for the most part, they work. Yes, I know that a heck of a lot of people feel that anything that uses sprites from Megaman in any way is the scum of the earth. Yes, I realize that Megaman sprites have abnormal arms and legs. It's my style, I'm afraid. If you must, think of it as caricature-like art. I have no intention of changing the way I illustrate my comic, so drop it. As a side note, part of the reason I continue to use this particular style is because it's a play on styles employed by average sprite comics, and Reporterz itself has become a play on sprite comics, comics in general, and in fact, fiction itself. So it's fitting, then, that as I toy with the worlds of Pokemon and Megaman and countless others, that I employ images taken from their own video games to depict them. Can I have a cameo in Reporterz? I'm afraid not. My storylines are already pretty much planned out as it is, so I don't have any room for random characters. If you're a nice fan who I keep in touch with and like, I may decide of my own free will to fit you in a centennial or something, but asking for one will seriously lower your chances. Why do you use recolored sprites? Like that black charizard guy and that blue-haired dude. Bleargh. I have gotten this quite a lot, about all sorts of different characters, and it's not always even accurate. And if I don't recieve a rant about recolors, it's a rant about "frankensteins" such as Madoom, meaning a conglomeration of different sprites found as one entity. Sigh. This is one of the side effects of writing a sprite comic. Look, I totally realize that tons of sprite comics out there, when they want to introduce a new character, simply recolor Megaman X black and pretend he's someone completely different. Or they give him someone else's boots and arms. And I totally understand that when you see this happening a million different times across the internet, it can make you want to cry out in despair. That's not what I'm trying to do here. Look , when I show you a black Charizard and a Machamp with a Houndoom head, I am by no means trying to distinguish either of them from some official character called Charizard or Machamp whom they look just like. Rather, I am showing you oddly mutated members of the Charizard and Machamp species, which contain many members. That is to say, they are literally a discolored Charizard and a furry Machamp who has a Houndoom's head growing out of his neck. This is significant. It is a part of who these guys are as characters and where they come from. Don't insist on infuriating me by constantly critizing them for being "recolors." Now, what bugs me even more is when people call other characters, such as Kyo, recolors. Kyo is not by any means a recolor. Yes, his face is taken from a Pokemon sprite most who've seen the Pokemon games can, with modest effort, recognize. But that's how faces of original characters are often generated in Reporterz- by thoroughly editing miscelaneous sprites that simply aren't relevant to the story. And the precise reason that Kyo's face has been turned white and framed by blue hair is because he's part whale/fish/ocean god thing. Furthermore, apart from that, the rest of his sprite is a rather complex medley of different whalish features. Please, please, don't attempt to make these things an issue. As I've already said, it's a waste of your effort to try and get me to change my method of illustration. You can, perhaps, offer me suggestions about what I might add on to what I've already done, but do try to be polite about it. Are we clear? Pokemon is stupid. So why should I read this stupid comic? ...Oh, I see. When you think of Pokémon, you see little Ash Ketchum, and his little friends, and his cute little Pikachu who just says, "Pika Pika!" all day, and all the other cute little Pokémon you can't stand. Is that, perhaps, what you're thinking? Then you might be relieved to know that Ash Ketchum isn't in this comic. Nor is Pikachu, save for the five-foot tall megalomaniacal hyperviolent humanoid version I've borrowed from somebody else's work. The Pokémon world is not always filled with fluffy bunnies one can market to small children. The mainmost Pokémon here are not cute. They range from serious, thoughtful, and sometimes depressed, to at the very least, a bit smart-allecky. I don't mean to say that there isn't a sense of fun in this world, or that it's some dark dystopia or something, but this isn't marketed to ten-year-olds as Pokémon itself so often is. And hey, if you're worried about being bogged down by all the Pokemonitude, relax. It's just one part of the story. My hope is to make something that both Pokémon fans and non-Pokémon fans can enjoy and understand. ...And if you really don't want to read it, that's your call. Isn't it against Comic Genesis policy to use sprites or copyrighted characters? I don't know if I fully understood their policies on that subject when I first signed up for Comic Genesis hosting, but I was concerned it might be an issue. So I explained thoroughly in my sign-up message that Reporterz was a sprite comic and that I would recognize the copyrights of all characters and ideas referenced in it. In fact, I stated each copyright there in my message. I then crossed my fingers and hoped they would accept my sign-up. ...And apparently they were fine with it, because within a week they emailed me to say that my hosting space was ready. So it seems they were okay with the idea, at least at the time. It looks like, so long as I recognize the copyrights, there's no need to worry about it. Why do you have a comic on such a random assortment of topics? Because I can, and it's more fun to explore a vast number of stories glued together than sticking to a single one.