Q & A

Messenger's current update schedule is Mondays, sometime EST-time. I was temporarily doing updates on Mondays and Fridays, but have since switched back to once-a-week updates. I might start doing more in the future, though.

You can also increase the frequency of updates by contributing donations or purchasing items from the shop! Visit the shop to find out more!

Messenger is the story of a group of people trying to survive in a hostile future world, populated by tribal warriors, genetically engineered creatures, and other unusual folks.

In short, no. I just liked making up creatures at the time I wrote the story, and despite being based on several types of animals, and being somewhat humanoid, they’re not furries and I’m not a furry, either. I know peoples’ definitions of what is and isn’t furry vary, so you can think whatever you want, but know that Messenger isn’t written with the intention of being a furry comic. That said, I understand the appeal of the characters to that particular fandom so if you’re reading for that reason, it’s cool. Just don’t expect me to understand or care about anything furry; I just really don’t get it most of the time.

Both Chapter One and Chapter Two are available in print! Each book also contains exclusive minicomics and other extras. Check out the shop for more information!

Some of them come from real-world names that I just think sound fitting, like Luke or Eldora. Other names are just a corruption of sounds or things I think sound interesting, like Akiara and Kenakobe. There’s no real trick or reason to it, I just pick what I think fits.

I chose not to put a specific date on things, at least for now. There are a couple of dates hidden in backgrounds if you look for them, but for the most part they’re unimportant. I’m just going for a generic “sometime in the future.” There’s a reason for this, but it’s spoilerriffic so I’m not explaining.

A broad, sweeping disaster which took place in the United States sometime in the mid-21st century. More than that is not currently known in the story, but might be revealed later on?

Because I'm American and I have a better understanding of the political/social/technological climate here over other places in the world. Basically, I wouldn’t want to offend by making the assumption that everyone has the same kinds of thought processes or makes choices based on the same social factors I do, and I don’t really think it’s something that can be accomplished just by research. There will be more story related to other parts of the world eventually, but we’re not there, yet.

Very similar to the kinds of things we have today, but with advancements. More specifically, advancements in computing and medical technologies. Not quite to flying cars, but computers are even more commonplace than they are today and are capable of tasks that our computers can’t handle yet, and medical science has solved many problems that exist now.

It just grows that way. It is real, genetic, not dyed. This will be explained eventually in the story, so I won’t get into it here.

They’re a species of creatures created through a series of genetic experiments in the mid-21st century. (See also: About the Chios)

Icy is Eldora’s blue stuffed cat. She’s had her ever since she was little, and takes her everywhere.

Yep, they’re dead. Nekos explains this in a very basic way in Chapter Six. They are something called “Messengers,” which you can read more about here. (Might be a bit spoilery if you haven’t gotten through Chapter Six yet.)

I realized in retrospect that Luke and Nekos are somewhat easy to confuse; I've learned more and more about writing as I've gone along with the comic, so it's one of those things I plan to fix as I revise the older chapters.

That said, here's a quick list of ways to spot the difference between Luke and Nekos:

	Luke: Has dark hair and white wings. Was killed by Zavier in Chapter One.
	(Kyle) Nekos: Has sandy-blond hair and blue wings. Died a long time in the past (closer to our present.)

Both Luke and Nekos are Messengers; dead souls who haven't finished their business on Earth before proceeding to the afterlife. However, they both have different missions and goals which will be revealed over the course of the story.

As a last resort, if you really aren't sure who is who in a particular page, you can always look underneath the page number and date to see which characters made an appearance!

It's based on a story I wrote when I was bored in ninth grade. I kept the characters and some of the original scenario, but changed a lot of things. I’ve always had an interest in “mysterious” things like ghost stories and mythology, so I thought it would be fun to base a story on some of those ideas. I don’t really believe in much of it, but it’s interesting to see how completely different experiences sometimes have overlapping details. I decided to try and come up with a story to “explain” that, which is part of what the comic is based on. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics.

The process has gone through quite a few changes since I started, but right now (early 2010) I’m using primarily Prismacolor or similar alcohol-based markers and watercolors for the colors, with Speedball ink and sometimes pens for the lines. I do all the pages on regular sketchbook paper, nothing special. My process changes from time to time depending on what I feel like doing. You can find out more about how pages are made and even see videos of a page in progress by clicking here!

I like digital media, and I think it’s a perfectly valid medium despite all the flak people give it, but as a professional designer it’s something I use all the time in my “work” work. The comic is a hobby for me, so I just “do whatever I feel like” with it, which for the past five years has been real media. Who knows, I might do a chapter in Painter someday for the fun of it. At this point, though, I’m too much of a consistency freak to break away to something like that suddenly. I don’t know. I just like it. Isn’t that reason enough?

I learned to draw by doing it all the time and looking at lots of art – all kinds of art. I also had to take several drawing classes in college, where I didn’t improve visibly a lot, but my mindset did, and that helped me learn to improve on my own. I learned how to look at things, which helped me learn to construct images differently.

Most other techniques or tools I learned by picking them up and playing around. I am a hands-on kind of person.

Because I've been working on this for over six years and things just naturally evolve. However, I am slowly progressing through revising the early parts of the comic to give the whole comic a more unified look. Usually this happens just before I prepare a chapter for print.

I am Bug. There's an entire page just for this answer.

Life.
But to answer more seriously; music, things I am reading, current events in the news, etc.

Absolutely yes! There are some banners on the links page, you can take whichever you’d like, so long as you save them to your own server. If you do, drop me an email at bug@messenger-comic.com and we can even work out some kind of link exchange – I don’t bite! I love hearing from people who liked my comic enough to add it to their links list, and can only do the same in return. :3

Sure thing! Send it to bug@messenger-comic.com in JPG, GIF, or PNG format if it's an image, or in whatever format works for you, and I will post it up in the Fan Stuff gallery! Also, if you have a specific name, web address, and/or contact e-mail address you’d like me to put by it (or if you’d like to remain anonymous), be sure to say so in your email. You can also submit art to Messenger’s DeviantArt group.

That depends. If it’s something like a forum signature or avatar/userpic/icon, that’s fine as long as you’re not claiming to have drawn it yourself. For anything else, please ask me first via comment, on the forum, or at bug@messenger-comic.com.