Four Year Anniversary
HAWM, Guildies.
Y’know, the funny thing is, we’ve officially reached the original expected lifespan of Guilded Age. We initially envisioned the project to last four years, but we vastly underestimated both how much time the story would take to finish and how much of the story we wanted to tell. Characters keep emerging, stories keep rearing their heads… and you guys, our amazing audience, keeps growing.
How could we leave you after only four years?
Well, either way, we have a good four more years ahead of us, most likely. Could be a little more, could be a little less. I mean really, we’re only now approaching the actual midpoint of the story, and after that… woof. For the volume that follows the one we’re currently in, shit gets pretty cray! And yes, we say that keeping in mind how cray Guilded Age has been lately. This is still the tip of the Crayberg.
But enough about the future. Let’s talk about the present.
The FRIGGSTARTER’s production chugs along slowly but surely. We’ve got a million bajillion things coming out of the FRIGGSTARTER and production on the physical goods should hit full swing at the end of September, when I’m done relocating my life across the fucking city. Meantime, we’re hard at work on the Volume 2 bonus story and other goods. We have to take a chance to again thank you, regular readers and FRIGGSTARTER backers alike, for your continued patience as we keep busy trying to chew all this Too Much that we bit off. We love you to death, and digital goods at the very least will begin to roll out soon!
But today, as is tradition, we’re going to do our usual Annual Ask Us Anything! That’s right folks, barring plot spoilers or other unforeseen unsavory topics, leave a question of any sort that you like in the comments and Team GA will answer them! It is that simple!
And a CONTEST: Whosoever can come up with the best Adventurer’s Illustrated article headline gets a free button & sticker pack in the mail! Just submit yours in the comments below! It, too, is that simple!
Thanks again, and stay tuned for the conclusion to Chapter 25 during the remainder of this week, followed closely by Guest Week 2013! If you still want to submit your own guest strip, we still have slots open! Deadline is Sunday the 8th!
Paddle, E’Merl – paddle for your life!
Isn’t that a land shark?
I figure for them to be named land sharks, sea sharks must exist somewhere!
If they have two legs, they’re land sharks regardless of where they are.
“Fins to the left, fins to the right!”
we call them “land sea lions”
Rogue Boyfriend: How To Tell If He’s Sneaking Behind Your Back
Dating a Cultist: How to avoid the social faux pas of saying you sex up diagonally.
Hot or Not? This Month: Your Favorite ‘Fire & Ice’ Weapons
Forgot winning. I’m voting for this one myself! :P :)
“Does Size Really Matter?: Why Gnomes might be Gastonia’s Greatest Untapped Potential”
Exposed! Gastonian diplomat deep in “World’s Rebellion”
It was shocking to see a pillar of the Gastonian government checking in to a shady little roadside inn. But not nearly as shocking as the “accessory” wrapped around his arm. War makes for strange bedfellows indeed!
Are you an Ordinary John, Teabagger, or Genghis Kahn? Take our ‘Guildmaster Personality Quiz’!
(please don’t hurt me)
Isn’t salt water bad for plants?
Guess that’s why they’re holding the ladies above water.
About their legs, logs, whatever… guess at least those are as good as coconut trees – they can handle a bit of salt.
…Sounds good to me.
Yum, salty.
Oh, but Scipio certainly hopes it will be?
…Or were we talking the elves outright and not that leafy bikini?
He’d definitely like to see Fr’Nj barkydipping.
Congratulations on 4 years!
I want to compliment John Waltrip on this piece, because you can clearly see the family resemblance in Syr’Nj and Fr’Nj.
Thank you, Joseph. I’m glad somebody noticed.
(It’s the nose.)
Not for the first time I wonder, prompted by Fr’s complete lack of ink, just what the significance of Syr’s tattoos is.
Perhaps marking her as heiress to the throne?
I really cannot wait for a new gravatar, this one makes everything I say look condescending and sarcastic.
You know, if you make a Gravatar account, you can have any avatar you want (content guidelines permitting).
I like the random one though, it’s like getting a little present every time.
Maybe those are done when they are old enough for it.
What’s the age of majority for elves, by the way, 180? 210?
We haven’t nailed down yet whether elves have longggg lifespans as in Lord of the Rings or whether they age on a more human scale, let alone whether wood elves age faster or slower than shit elves, Sky Elves, etc. But biologically, Syr’Nj and Fr’Nj are the equivalent of fairly young women: Syr a bit older.
ive always seen the equivalent ages for Syr as being her late 20s and Fr as being in her early 20s
When Harky saw them, he immediately grinned, “I didn’t think I’d get to kill ROYALTY today.” His grasp of wood elf politics is limited: Naror’Nj was a High Elder and not a king in the Earth sense, but close enough from a troll’s perspective. So, while not all the ruling class have Syr’Nj’s marks, it seems unlikely that anyone outside the ruling class does. And that’s as specific as I should get for now: we may get into more detail about this later.
Fr’Nj, it should be noted, is not entirely without ink. We’re just not at a good angle to see her tat here.
we’ve seen her spine before, it’s true.
Thanks! I’d thought it was something like that, but the fact that I’d forgotten about the bit on Fr’s back made me discard the idea.
Wizard Romance: 10 Tips for Keeping That Magic In the Bedroom
Grats on your 4th year! What you guys gonna do to celebrate?
Honestly, this is pretty much it! We’ve both had kind of a lazy weekend and will probably be working a lot of today. I have a script to hammer out.
I wish Swimsuit Issues would stop photoshopping their cover models with blatantly obvious touch-ups to make certain parts of their anatomy look bigger.
…
What? I don’t remember Scip’s eyes being that large. Just sayin’.
Image gets a little funnier if you imagine Scipio just kicked Byron in the berserk bits.
Or that Byron just noticed the water is getting suddenly… warmer.
So I’m trying to follow the part of the comic that intrudes upon what I will call “our world”. The world inhabited by a gaming company where the head is trying to shut down his virtual world and failing to do so.
But it’s not like our world. The company boss has done things that seem to defy our physics. Like having magical abilities. I just want to make sure I’m seeing this right. He has somehow gained magical powers in his efforts to manage his game.
Or has he? I don’t recall seeing him do any magic in front of his assistant. So, I’m open to the possible idea that he is DELUDED into thinking he is doing magic, when in reality he may just be altering code for the game. It also seems that the cultist have actually gotten thing right and the world is all doom and the end is nigh and the only thing you CAN do is decide how you will die and give that some meaning.
Any chance of illuminating here?
Well, we are all going to die, and the only thing you can do is decide how you will die and give that some meaning.
The game is behaving in ways that confound commentators who know their way around computer science. Carol brushes that off with a “we’re just that good at coding, go us” speech, but it certainly seems like there’s more to it than that. Or to put it another way, the more you know about how games like this are actually run, the more magic starts to look like the likelier explanation.
However, if it is magic, then it also stands to reason that magic on this world is known only to a very few, or the questioning Carol faces there would be very different.
“Where Is the Originality Among Today’s Adventurers? by Ben Thayer & Don Thatt”
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Also: Byron. Look where your head and neck are. That, sir, deserves a smile, not a pensive look!
I see your alt-text and raise you a “Funny, she doesn’t look Druish.”
For a sword-n-sorcery fantasy game, somehow the space/sci-fi references don’t fit very well. It takes a lotta Space Balls to do that.
Ask you Anything, hmm?
Okay. Is there any character that you wish you had more chances to put into the story because they are so fun to write/draw?
Lots of ’em. I think we both hated to let go of Best, a little bit. It had to happen, but still.
In terms of more minor characters, I would’ve liked to do more with Gr’Zl, but realized pretty early that it would steal focus from too many other things we had to do. Maybe someday.
Best, obviously.
Although I continue to grow attached to Sundar & Rendar.
Any chance of a reoccurring gay character joining the story?
Thanks
Are you sure there isn’t one there already?
True.
I think Byron & E-Merl are cute, but we know they not gay and neither is Scipio. Gravedust?
At least one gay couple already exists. It’s just that they aren’t so sex-minded as our protagonists seem to be. So their “outing” hasn’t come up yet. But it will soon!
I mean, they’ve got a lot on their hands already.
It’s totally Jarvis and Ardaic :D
Even if it isn’t, this can’t be undone. I can’t not picture them any other way, and it’s all your fault. I hope you’re happy.
My guess is Bragga and Bert.
You probably get this way too often, but do you any advice for people interested in webcomic-making?
It’s a big subject! And hard to answer simply, because some people want advice on making comics (a big subject of its own) and others have the “comic” part figured and want to know how to bring them to the Web. Also, the scene changes rapidly. I’m just going to stick with my fave pieces of writing advice: use your courage, curiosity and compassion as much as your creativity, and look for the conflicts between things you believe in to fuel your stories.
I got the impression that Syr’Nj’s Sepia World silhouette looked male (see [this website]/comic/chapter-9-page-15/). If so, that would make Byron & Syr’Nj /perhaps/ a gay couple – depending on Syr’Nj’s* actual gender identity, or even if Syr’Nj* is one gender in Sepia World, and another in Arkerra/Guilded World.
*: Come to think of it, Byron’s gender identity would affect the terminology of their relationship (gay/lesbian/other, etc), too.
Question: If you’re definitely not going beyond 36 chapters (I think you said), and we’re on chapter 25 now, and that’s just approaching the midpoint… will the rest of the chapters be like 50+ pages each on average, or what?
I guess this is as good a time as any to formally introduce myself. Former Fans! reader, relatively recent finisher of the GA archives and working my way through the GA+ annotations. The Big Reveal put me off for a while, but I gave it another chance, and I’m glad I did.
This brings me to my next question: If you had started GA knowing what you know now, would you have scheduled The Big Reveal earlier than chapter 9? I think you’ve said that to you, it was like “30 minutes into the movie”, but it sure felt longer than that, even plowing through the archives. I can only imagine what it felt like to those who were here from the beginning.
We originally planned 24 chapters, which changed to 36 chapters, and then changed again to 60. The plan is to be fairly consistent about chapter length, on the whole.
Phil might answer this question differently (who’m I kidding: Phil might answer EVERY question differently than me), but speaking for myself, I might’ve pushed for a one-page scene in Sepia World right at the start… some little thing which seemed out of place and not to make any sense, until it did. The trick about the whole “would you do it differently if you had it all to do over again” kind of question is that I’d do some things differently just to see for myself what would happen.
That said, it’s not one of my life’s regrets. Waiting like we did meant that readers got more fully engaged in the lives of the Guildies, which you might not have done if there had been any hints early on that these characters were fiction within fiction. And are they, really, or is Sepia World merely observing? Arkerra, in many ways, has more “weight” and “reality” than Sepia World does, and, “God” knows, HR is not doing a stellar job of controlling it. We wanted that “push and pull” between the worlds, the feeling you didn’t know for sure which of the two was more important or the source of events or otherwise the “prime” reality. Since a world that looks like ours has an inherent advantage in that contest, we had to handicap it.
Surprisingly, I’m with T on this one. We might’ve telegraphed it, or set it up better or whatever.
Making The Big Reveal as sudden and jarring as it occurred was something of an experiment. I wouldn’t call it a failure or a success, but we learned quite a bit from it. Also, I kind of just wanted to know if we could do it and get away with it.
Oooo, 60! I felt like I was getting into this just as it was starting to wrap up, so it’s good to know I’ve got a lot to look forward to.
The ambiguity surrounding Sepia World is what got me invested in the story again. It’s really well done.
Hybrid Power: Why you should consider diversifying your XP investments.
That should read “Is Ur DPS FUBAR? RTHM R FAQ ASAP LOLS”
Dating in Arkerra: How to tell if he’s going to be BoE, or just another Pug.
Protection from Disease: why you should always have a scroll ready for unexpected encounters.
4 years. Tempus fugit, eh?
1. Is Gastonia the only (large) human nation in Arkerra? I get this feeling it might be the result of colonial (or some other type of joining) efforts by other different groups of humans. It just seems to be very diverse despite the apparent bigotry.
2. Are there elven and dwarven/savasi cultists? We’ve only seen humans and “savages” among them I think. What about women?
3. What is Best in life?
1. You’ve mostly got the right of it. There were smaller regions and lands that ultimately fused together to form one mega-empire for better or worse. Things seem to be going well for them so far, but that could all change of course.
2. Elven cultists exist in private, isolating themselves like nearly all other elven races tend to do. We may never get to address them, but they’re out there somewhere. There aren’t really enough dwarven cultists left to make a real presence within the brotherhood, but they’re in there somewhere.
There is a very deliberate reason why women aren’t shown to be cultists so far, but that’s another thing we may never get to. Oh, if only we didn’t have so much shit we wanted to cover.
3. Dazzle your enemies, see them applauding before you, and hear the adorations of their women.
I wish I could give you a Phil Kahn Star for #3.
Hear the adorations of their women!
Just how different are Wood Elves from humans biologically? We know that they can absorb water through their toes, that they have sap (Unless that’s a colorful phrase) and a few other things.
What else? Does their hair change color according to the season? Do they get greener the more they stay in the sun? Any dietary thingums?
Are they the only race that has such major differences from human biology? (Disregarding, of course, the obvious Beast Men.)
That’s about the size of it. They can sustain for longer on just sun and water than a human could, that’s for sure. But they will eventually starve without food. They also live a Hell of a lot longer.
They exhibit other non-specific plant-like traits but other than that, they’re mostly the same as anyone else.
Hokay then, thanks.
To be honest, I never thought of the color-change aspects and they strike me as neat ideas, but we’ve probably made them impossible to work with by having Syr’Nj around this long in this many different environments. Basically, they have a default human-like biology and a sort of “back-up” plant-like biology.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in their biological terms, though: they tend to call human hair “foliage” and things like that.
Good to know. Thanks for the answer.
What pleasant surprises has the story given you while you were writing it?
(Like, a minor character that became more important than you originally expected or a side-story that became important to the plot later. Or even just unexpected fan love for certain characters.)
I could probably have written a whole additional saga on the Cub Unit.
Other than that, Rachel was a character I expected to dislike on conception but she has become one of our most vibrant, funny, and interesting cast members to date.
Probably the Heads of Houses. I was not really expecting them to be better developed or more interesting to speak with than Star Wars’ Galactic Senate. Phil had a lot of ideas there, though, and they’re a big part of why this chapter is one of my favorites.
Salt and Vinegar, or Cheese and Onion?
You’re just cruel for making me choose.
Cheese, though. All day every day.
I don’t even remember the other three options.
You have chosen… Wisely.
Going a long ways back, whatever happened to Priestlord Gigundus?
When they took down the sisterhood of the bleeding eyeball, I assumed that the suit of armor they destroyed wasn’t the real priestlord, just a copy that one of the sisters controlled, and the real guy was elsewhere with the other Gastonian leaders. Several hundred pages later, no appearance from him in the House of Houses.
Did they take down the real thing?
He was already dead. Or he never was!
Only Scarlett knows, and the secret’s buried with her.
Yeah. What she said was that Gigundus died too soon, which necessitated her ruse. It’s not like she’s super-trustworthy, but no one’s in a position to contradict her.
So when can we expect Best to return and one-shot the epic raid boss that the rest of the guildies are struggling to defeat?
I dunno, man. That dude is never on time.
Congratulations, and here’s to a fifth year!
This might be too vague, but how much of the story was mapped out from the beginning, and how much is off the cuff? I ask since there are tidbits that are “hinted at” in the early days, and then “revealed” later on (such as Syr’s tat’s) that seem really well thought out, but then you guys mention that the story keeps growing in a more-or-less organic way, so I wonder where the divide lies.
Oh and for the cover: “Mad love: How to tell if your Berserker is crazy about you, or just plain crazy”
Cheers,
Cote
PS Congrats, good work, keep it up and all that too. ;-)
A little of Column A and a little of Column B. We have plans upon plans upon plans but remain flexible to take a sudden detour or shortcut (or longcut as the case may be) when it feels right.
Yeah, and the details are getting hammered out CONstantly. There’s a lot of back-and-forth and revision on the page-by-page level.
Is there some sort of magical algorithm that matches up the random gravatars with the content of comments? For example, if someone mentions Gravedust in a comment, are they more likely to get assigned Gravedust as their gravatar? I feel like this sort of thing happens too much to be coincidence.
Swimsuit Edition headline: “DATING’S A DRAG: Crossdressing common among male adventurers”
There is no algorithm that we are aware of.
Fuckin’ computers. How do they work?
Also, since this seems to be a time where all of you are paying close attention to the comments, I want to take this opportunity to say you all Rock. This comic is easily one of my top five (out of the sixty-some I read) and I can’t wait for more.
Haha, thanks!
Flesh to Stone: How to harden up for that statuesque body.
Attention contestants:
This is the entry you now have to beat.
Decorating your Guildhall and other exciting uses for your scroll of Colorspray!
Eh.. I got nothin’.
Aaaaaand we’ve got a winner!
Either Syr’Nj is made from iron wood, or Byron is shorter than he looks
Scipio is hoping for early autumn >.>
Was E-Gurl already paddling? Or did he only start paddling when he saw it was a Great White Frigg? (damn, look at that grin, Mac The Knife would be envious of those pearly whites)
Question to the GA Gods: Is there a reason why you have to put a chapter limit? Why not just keep going, adding everything you want/feel should be in, until you get to ‘The End’? Even if you have already plotted out how things will end, could still add things (and as HR Macy has discovered, sometimes your creations develope a life of their/its own and goes in directions you never imagined)
In short, the chapter limit is a promise we’re making to ourselves to not do a series that runs indefinitely, because while we certainly hope this is our big hit, we don’t want to work on it (or with each other) forever.
But who knows? Maybe I and T are the Simon & Garfunkel of Webcomics.
So look for the launch of my stunning solo career at Guilded Age’s conclusion!
(late entry, i know there’s already a winner)
“Hello darkness, my old friend…” and other sooth sayings from Brother Tom.
Also, we want to manage our tendency to drift somewhat. It’s the only way to control the pace of a story that goes this long. Otherwise, I think we might get caught up in too many digressions that were interesting to US but dragged the story down.
Googlestonia+ – Heralding a new wave in arcane socializing! Who’s in *your* magic circle?
Vorpal Diet! Lose 15 ugly pounds in a Snicker-Snack!
Aegis Sunblock: Does it really protect against everything the sun hits us with?
I wish I had a better question, but all that I’ve come up with today is thus:
Is Scipio with the cigar in the water a Futurama reference?
Season 2 Episode 12, “The Deep South”:
[Dr. Zoidberg’s underwater home has burned down]
Zoidberg: Ah! My home, it burned down! How did this happen!?
Hermes: Actually, that’s a very good question.
Bender: So that’s where I left my cigar. [Bender walks over to the rubble of the home, picks up his lit cigar, and starts puffing on it underwater]
Hermes: …That just raises further questions!
I’m pretty sure that’s just a coincidence. He’s got his cigar with him almost everywhere, but he doesn’t quite defy the laws of physics with it.
That’s what I figured. Thanks for the response :)
I’ve been assuming that the “second generation” of adventurers (Bandit, Scipio, E-merl, Rachel) are, from the Sepia World perspective, PCs, and there are Sepia World players that correspond to them. Do those players perceive that there’s something unusual about the Five?