Annotated 24-7
And you thought Brix and Stokla were throwaway characters. Here’s Kazuya and Plutus, whom we killed off before introducing them.
It was important to Phil and me (and John, considering how he designed them) that even such briefly glimpsed figures should feel like they could have been the stars of their own series, had we gone another way. This reinforces the Arkerra-as-game concept, of course: everybody wants their character design to look cool even if they don’t end up playing long. But it’s also like real life: we’re each the hero of our own story. And so was that COVID casualty you read about on the news last week.
One of our Kickstarter bonuses was to “suggest your own GA character,” and really big spenders could have a walk-on part in the story. I was a bit worried they might not want to do that if we got a reputation for butchering our walk-ons without even giving them any cool moments first. We did a bit better by our sponsors when the time came.
Anyone else think that Plutus looks kind of like Kingsley Shacklebolt from the Harry Potter movies?
hmmm… maybe. ;-)
While I understand the feelings of worry about the paid, walk-on characters, I also enjoy the concept that Pete Abrams (of Sluggy Freelance) employs: his guest, paid-for characters ALWAYS die. I know that’s the thing he runs with now and he’s upfront about it but I’m not actually sure it was always explicitly stated that the character you were inserting was doomed before it was ever drawn.
That happened with the 2 Homestuck cameo fantrolls too. They got to pose for one frame before dying in some cataclysmic explosion. I forget whether that was made explicit in the Patreon tier, but I don’t think it surprised anyone. And it was a cool pose.
For the Spacetrawler Kickstarter, a good number of Patron’s homes got destroyed by a space craft landing on them. It became a running gag of the first chapter of book three. The last one was particularly funny.
Huh, I’ve been reading Sluggy since like 2002 and I never knew there were paid walk-on characters.
Whoa, a sluggite in the wild?
That looks like a pretty bitchin party.
Why are the archers always the short guys?
So they can better shoot the bad guys in the nuts?