Kate, or Komiyan, if you prefer. I draw Darken, and I’m in the north of England.

Well, my first comic was a superhero parody I did for about two years, then I moved onto Darken, which has been sullying the fine face of the internet for another two years. I’d like to think I’ve advanced since the first few pages, even though my technique hasn’t changed much. I’ve settled neatly into this pencilly thing though. I’ll probably stick like this for a while.

I tend to scribble out a little storyboard, to work out the layout and script, and then.. well, get to pencilling. Then I add words and lines in photoshop. Nothing huge. Because of the silly amounts of shading I do, it takes me about three or four hours to pencil. If I colour, then it takes a lot longer, adds about four hours to the process.. hence why I don’t do it much.

Weirdest.. either the lego version of the cast by the fine Mr Legostar, or RA’s slash pictures. I’ve never had a slash picture before, it made my tummy go squiggly. As for specific people, well, I pretty much honour and worship anyone who draws for me. I wouldn’t really want to single anyone out, cause I’d miss people and the list would be really stupidly huge anyway.

I like plot advancement. I like not necessarily having to have a joke per strip, because some situations don’t call for it. I also like playing around with pacing, which I think I’m doing ok with so far.. But yeah, it’s difficult not to blurt everything out all out once.

The frustrating thing would be exposure. I saw a webcomic link thread on a random forum the other day, and every single link was to an extremely popular comic. I mean, sure, Achewood is really extra good, but we’ve all seen it.. And for God’s sake, Penny Arcade KNOWS it’s good, stop telling us. There are so many comics out there that need the spotlight, but they can’t shove the big ‘uns out of the way, which is a shame. In the future I’d obviously like for some of the underdogs to get the spotlight.. but who knows. Either way, it’s gotta be going somewhere - there are comics going from print to web now, like Girl Genius, and they’re doing pretty damn well for it.

Difficult? It was great fun! To be honest, a lot of the setting was taken from D&D, but kinda warped a little. I’m still trying to build the place up based on the campaign we played, adding bits and removing bits, making it a bit fuller than a background for a game. I still need to explain an awful lot, but I’d hate to yell it all out at once like a comic-based politics lesson, because no-one would actually read it. I’m including some stuff soon about Mink’s homeland of Hextoria, which will hopefully be interesting.

Nooo, I wasn’t the DM, I was the drow. The DM was a guy called Mike, who very much earned his nickname of ‘the Evil DM’ over the years the game ran. The characters I’ve taken pretty much nearly exactly, but I added a few personality quirks, and I took an awful lot from the situations. Oh, and those occasional cool bits you get when playing game that get stuck in your head. The dialogue, however, I mostly write myself, with a little help from the guys who played Gort and Mink. It’s hard to get real flowing in character banter like that when playing the game.. But yeah, I may divert a little from the story we played near the end, as I grow a bit more confident as a writer. It was still a great campaign, and I thought the excellent characters that came out of it were worthy of having their story told to a wider audience than six players and a DM.

Also, there’s a lot of D&D stuff that doesn’t work well in an actual narrative, though, like death and spells and things, so while yeah, the basis is clearly there, I don’t like it when people try to relate it too closely. Gotta keep the story flowing, the characters at least a little real, and the drama hanging in the background there.

I hear that I switch from dramatic to silly in the blink of an eye, which is true, really, but I can’t help myself. If there’s a daft joke to be made, I’ll have one of the jokier characters make it. I suppose I should cut down on it, but a lot of people react well to the jokes, so.. I dunno. I’ll play it by ear. As for the compliments? Any time I get linked by someone is a real buzz. And the fanart, that’s such an honour that someone sat down and took the time to draw something just because they liked your comic. I’m sure every webcomic artist knows that one.