Chapter 11: Skyrunners, Page 36

Dark Pascual on Jan. 16, 2013

Hey everybody!!!

Ok, so, there are a few things that I have to explain regarding a few messages that I got on those few days:

1.- Couple of people pointed me that they found kinda offensive the fact that Cyrus kicked the female pirate that was attacking him on the first panel of yesterdays page and asked me if I'm OK with violence towards women… I don't know if they are trolling me or is an actual concern… but… No.

In real life, no, I'm not OK with violence towards ANYBODY, be that male or female.

Now talking about fictional characters and fictional situation, that is kinda tricky… Shaman Quest is set in a world where any one is a potential danger to any one, gender roles are less of an issue (You have seen women on high ranks on the military) and for the most part, women are seen as equal as men (not everywhere and not entirely, of course, my fictional world is FAR from perfect, but that's for another chapters to explore).

Besides, I kinda don't want to spoil so much here, but Nomad's culture is a warrior one, where authority equals badassery and women are expected to be as good fighters as men. So, in Nomad culture, nobody bats an eye when a male returns a female punch. I'm not talking about abuse, of course. But when it comes to fighting (and everything else, actually), Nomad women are considered perfectly equal to men, so Cyrus never had an issue with defend himself against any enemy, male or female.

2.- Other couple of people have pointed that they see some sort of social-political commentary on the Dark Messiah storyline, since it portraits a band of fanatic savages following the orders of a psychotic prophet against a well equipped army of oppressors.

Again, short answer is no, there isn't any sociopolitical commentary on my work. I may have my opinions about politics and religion (or maybe not), but I have no intention of use my comic to state them. I'm glad that you see some deeper meaning on my work, but I can assure that it's not intentional.

3.- Few others have pointed that I don't have the same amount of “Likes” than other Poser comics, and have suggested me that I could “spice” things up by been a bit more explicit with my content.

Thing is… doing nudity and sex (be explicit, erotic, suggestive, pornographic, etc…) on comics is HARD. Specially when it comes to Poser.

I've seen tons of porn done in Poser (yeah, I'm not a prude) and 90% of it is unwatchable crap. Stiff posing, unnatural expressions, awful lighting and horrible proportions (love boobs as much as any heterosexual male or homosexual female, but at least have some sense of proportions). Having a half good sex scene is like having half of a kitty… is not half cute, is a horrible mess.

I'm not saying that I would never add nudity or sex, but given the type of story that I'm aiming for, I want it to have some reason for it and be sure that it comes across as I want it to be (be that comedic, erotic, romantic).

I've seen a couple of REALLY GOOD adult Poser comics (El Cid's Death P0rn and chrisdotclark's Bhaddland) and while they are more into the over the top side of the spectrum, they have a great management of both the tone and the art. Specially El Cid. And that shows me that I still don't have the practice to put that kind of scenes even when I feel that they belong.
And I will admit, I don't have that many favorites because I no longer update as I use to, I don't promote Shaman Quest as much as I should, and, well, there are plenty of waaay better poser webcomics out there, so I don't have that much readership…

Whoa, I think that it for now… Please don't take this as a rant, I appreciate the fact that you are sending these questions and observations, and I really hope that you keep sending them…

Enjoy and CYA soon!!!