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!
