The Xcentrikz - Interactive Comic

Interview with those X-tra Talented Creators of Exterminatus Now:

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney, Martin "Silversword" Faulkner,

Garry 'Lothar" Webber, and Alan "Virus" Graham

July 19, 2009

Hey gang, if you haven't checked out Exterminatus Now, do so - NOW! It's a fun, popular adventure comic updated every weekend. Learn more about it in this interview! The mature content ain't appropriate for the kids. I had a great talk here with the creators, so enjoy, and thanks for the read. :^)

--- Kirk

Kirk from The Xcentrikz Team: Hey gang, thanks for doing this interview with us. I bet your dedicated fans out there enjoy it. But we’d like to drive new viewers to ya guys too… So tell them a bit about your awesome furry genre comic, and why it’s so cool?

Alan "VIRUS" Graham: Oh don't tell anybody it's 'furry'. It's strange, 80% of the cartoons I watched as a kid starred talking animal characters - Duck Tales, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tiny Toon Adventures, Ren and Stimpy, and so on - but put anthropomorphic characters in a webcomic nowadays, and people think you're a bizarre fetishist. There's this stigma that's developed. So to new viewers out there: Don't panic. It's just a cartoony style. Think of it like Bugs Bunny. You like Bugs Bunny, right? 'Course you do.

Lothar: I think TVTropes does a better synopsis than we do:

“Exterminatus Now is what happens when you mix Sonic The Hedgehog, Warhammer 40000, and a truckload of black comedy.
Yes, seriously.
This webcomic is the story of four members of the Mobian Inquisition, who remain living and employed only by pure luck (and blackmail). These brave men are:
· Harry Eastwood, a lazy, womanizing fox addicted to coffee;
· Syrus "The Virus" Zuviel, a cowardly rat;
· Lothar Hex, a trigger-happy genetically-engineered cyborg echidna who'd have a criminal record spanning pages and pages if he weren't recruited by the Inquisition as a mercenary. Nice Hat, though.;
· and Ryoushi "Rogue" Nekittou, feline member of a demon-hunting order who seems to be the sanest person on the entire team. Not that that's saying much.
The comic began in 2003 and has been ongoing ever since.”

THE XCENTRIKZ: When did your webcomic get started and how did you decide to do it?

VIRUS: Well, three of us, Eastwood, Silversword and I, were doing a worldbuilding project, a setting for stories and roleplays, based loosely on the Sonic the Hedgehog 'SatAM' cartoon (the dystopian one with Princess Sally and the Freedom Fighters). We were dystopian-ing it up even further, drawing some inspiration from the hellish future that is the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game, among other sources. We were getting too GrimDark for our own good, so we'd make up running gags to make fun of ourselves. One day, in 2003, I drew up a comic based on a funny bit of dialogue Stuart had written for his Inquisitor Eastwood character. It went down well with the lads, and I told them that if they could keep writing stuff, I could probably keep drawing it.

Martin "Silversword" Faulkner: So well, in fact, that the more seriously vibed worldbuilding project, (entitled "The Grim Darkness") got shelved pretty quickly in favour of making fun of it, which by most accounts is for the best. All that remains now is a collection of background notes and character ideas; some of which are useful and aspire to one day become storyline material for Exterminatus Now, and the rest of which are just so much unparallelable junk.

Garry "Lothar" Webber: It was at about this point Stuart told me about the comic. We met on the Sonic HQ forums where we all used to be members until we all kinda grew out of the fandom. Having failed miserably to do my won sprite comic (I don't think there's anybody in the Sonic fandom who hasn't done at least one), I asked if I could join. After the initial storyline more and more of my stuff ended up getting used since I kept whacking it out at a decent pace and I gradually became the main writer.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Cool to hear this behind the scenes stuff. What’s it like for you guys to work together as a team? Do you assign certain schedules and plans for each other?

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: Hah. This wasn't exaggerated for comedic effect. That's how it happened, and happens every damned year.

Silversword: Heh, plans. No, the only one of us working at all closely to a real schedule is Virus, and that's because he's the one drawing the final comic that gets posted every week. The rest of us work in cycles, coming up with script ideas, storyline ideas or design material at whatever random intervals they strike us, anywhere between a couple of weeks and a couple of years before they're actually going to be needed, and coming back and refining them when we need them.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What typically gives you ideas, inspires your great ideas? Do other comic creators and entertainers influence your work?

Lothar: From a writing stand point, anything really. One of my favourite recent comics, "Mercanaries", was inspired by simple typo. I've had completely random ideas on buses or driving. I've come up with ideas while watching films, playing video games, reading books, real life events, work etc. Though I think most just come up in casual conversation with the guys.

As for influences, probably too many to name or know consciously. Renowned author Terry Pratchett definitely comes to mind however. I love his style and wish I could have ten percent of his talent and eye for detail.

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: Most of my own stuff is looted wholesale from practically everything I read or see. A good bit of advice for writers of all stripes is to keep a notebook or Word document filled with various bits and pieces you're, aha, inspired by. Go over it every few months, and ideas should form up.

Silversword: Everything I do boils down to either "how can I take this idea in a way nobody expects" or "how can I mesh these two very different ideas in a way that actually works". I enjoy taking peoples usual expectations and purposefully shattering them. The component ideas can come from anywhere, though. Usually, it's a case of seeing something done in something - anything - else, and going "well, that was fun. How can I take the basis of that idea and take it in a different direction".

VIRUS: I think every creative person takes inspiration from the other works they're exposed to. I remember that during the Morth story arc, I felt we needed a bit more oomph for the titular badger's evil scheme. I'd watched the anime Full Metal Alchemist around the time, and there's a certain big reveal about the method Scar is going to use to forge the Philosopher's Stone which inspired a twist that I proposed we add to Morth's already twisty scheme. It just added that little something extra that strengthened Morth's status as a devious genius.

Artwise, I take a very blatant cue from Yuji Uekawa, character designer at Sonic Team from Sonic Adventure onwards. Other artists I'd cite are Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade, Jhonen Vasquez of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Invader Zim, Amber M Williams of DMFA, Ian McConville of MacHall and 3 Panel Soul.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Alright! Those are definitely some awesome inspirations. So Exterminatus Now has a really great following of viewers… What do you think of your fans?

Lothar: I kid that most of our fans are gits, but honestly, they're a great bunch of people. We even try and give them cameos from time to time. I'd like to make particular mention of three. Jon "Pixellated" Bennet, who built us a decent archive and hosts it free on his site http://www.7-0-7.co.uk. Our good friend Darren "RedFox" McRoy, who backed us early on and was rewarded by having his character set on fire, and Jeffrey "Jeffk28uk" Kan, a talented artist. They've all recently banded together to create their own comic Panthera, and I'd like to think they were partly inspired by us to do so.

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: They're weird. But I do appreciate those who can tell the difference between me, the 22 year old miserable bugger, and a fictional anthropomorphic fox. Because those that can't really gets on my bloody nerves.

Silversword: I've made some good friends out of people who've struck up conversation just because they wanted to say something nice about EN. Sure, the ones who can't tell my EN character and my other characters apart (Seriously, I am blatantly Not a Cat) can be a bit tiresome, but on the whole they're a good fun (if sometimes weird) bunch.

VIRUS: I think they're expensive; I've just spent £500 on a new computer to play Team Fortress 2 with a group of them. Then again, a few fans did send money to help pay for it, so they're not all bad.

THE XCENTRIKZ: What’s it been like getting Exterminatus Now to be as popular as it is today? Was it tough doing publicity for it early on, or?

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: Truth be told, we haven’t really tried to be popular. We do this because we derive, to a greater or lesser extent, some amusement out of the whole shebang. In the very early days we did pay for a bit of advertising (Like on Fully Ramblomatic, long, long before Yahtzee hit it big with Zero Punctuation) and we were part of those godsawful webcomic ranking sites. You know, the ones where people beg for votes by drawing incentive “comics” that are little more than fanservice? I’m glad we’re out of that.

Silversword: Honestly, I forget we even -did- any publicity stuff. It's never been hugely necessary to go out of our way to advertise. We let the work speak for itself, generally, and let people who enjoyed it find their own ways to spread the word.

VIRUS: We made a bit of a splash in the Sonic fan community when we were starting out, and word of mouth did us some favours there.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Awesome. So what do you like most about creating Exterminatus Now?

Lothar: Pretty much being able to make fun of things and make jokes. That's it.

I'm dead insightful me.

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: You're making a rather bold assumption in my case.

Silversword: The worldbuilding, mostly. I like creating settings and characters within them. Getting myself to focus in on a story to show it can be difficult, but at least in EN's case, the other guys can cover that for me.

VIRUS: I put a lot of work into each comic, and I like seeing that pay off with a great-looking finished strip, and then knowing that others enjoy it too gives that extra validation. I'm not one of these emo artists who hates their own work -- I like the final product, even if it does go through several stages of looking like arse before it gets there -- and I think I'd stop doing it if I didn't like the outcome each week.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Are there moments when you’re working on Exterminatus Now that are REALLY tiring? Do you try to make it fun, or do you just work fast to get it over with?

Silversword: I don't think any of us can really do "work fast".

VIRUS: Me especially. Sometimes I try to do the thing were you go "eh, it's late, that'll do." And I then look at it and go "...NO! NOT GOOD ENOUGH! MUST BE PERFECT." What can I say, I'm a prefectionist [sic].

Lothar: From time to time I’ll be writing a script and just can't be bothered continuing, mainly because it’s just not funny or not working. I think I’ve got some old old scripts still lurking in the deep dark recess of my hard drive that are incomplete and probably never will be because they’ve amounted to a big steaming pile of inadequacy.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Random fun stuff: What’s your best… Talent? Friend? Video gaming experience? Vacation? Comic page?

VIRUS: Talent: Drawing EN? I'm not good for much else. Friend: Pass... Vacation: Edmonton Canada, March '09, visiting my girlfriend Jessica. Comic page: I tend to like the most recent ones the most. The current stuff going on with a certain daemonically possessed cyborg is kicking some serious bottom.

Lothar: Video gaming experience: Recently it’s been the regular gaming nights of Team Fortress 2 with some guys from the forums. Always a great laugh when I play as a Heavy and manage to go on a bit of a killing spree.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Cool. Is there anything you’d ideally improve with Exterminatus Now? If so, how do you think you’d achieve it?

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: There’s stuff I’d like to see happen, but with one strip a week (Which works out at around 52 a year, if you don’t discount Christmas, Halloween and Virus getting locked in a car boot), and a backlog of scripts that could keep Virus going if the rest of us died in a horrific climbing accident in Bavaria, if it somehow does come to light, it won’t be for a while.

A big storyline, akin to the Silas Morth and the Cult of Untrue Stripes, probably won’t happen again because of this. That ran for well over a year, so it does somewhat limit what’s possible short of us taking on a team of unpaid artists. No, that’s not an offer of work.

Silversword: Ideally? I think our release schedule could do with being faster. At one comic a week we travel very slowly through storylines, and that rather limits the scope of the stories we can tell and the places we can go. At a more usual webcomic rate of two or three a week, some of the storylines we'd done would have been over by the time we actually finished the setup phase for them.

I have no idea how we'd successfully get that to work though. If I -did-, we could already be doing so and I wouldn't be saying this.

VIRUS: I would like to update more often. They take far too long to do, and you'd think after five or six years, I'd've worked out some methods to increase efficiency and productivity. But no. Takes forever. Even after I'm done procrastinating (which can last a while).

Lothar: I dunno really, be nice if we could make a little money out of this, nothing extravagant, just a little extra along with the day job. If you’re expecting something deeper you’ve come to the wrong guy.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Do you have any advice, to share with newbie comic creators out there?

Lothar: Beware of rule 34! But in all serious, if you’re doing a webcomic, do it for fun. If you’re doing it for any other reason it’s the wrong one. We’ve always said the second we stop enjoying this is the second we stop doing it because there’s no point doing something creative when you’re not enjoying it.

Stuart "Eastwood" Edney: You'll never be the next Penny Arcade, so don't even try. If you're not enjoying the exercise, give up and try something else, as forcing the work through creates lousy comics. If you can't draw, get a decent artist on board - Comics are a visual medium, after all, and 99% of readers of any comic are shallow buggers who come to look at pretty pictures and couldn't give tuppence about the words.
Oh, and for the love of all that's right, don't do two geeky gamers on a couch as a basis for the comic. That trope is as dead as tieing a woman to a railway line whilst twirling your moustache and cackling.

Silversword: Think ahead. Try not to introduce anything you're going to have trouble rationalising (or profiting from, if that's your thing) later. Retconning early ideas you didn't edit properly is a terrible, terrible thing to do; better to catch the problems you're going to have before you've had them, rather than trying to work around them later. And above all else, have fun.

VIRUS: Never turn a funny comic into a serious epic drama. We have a murder-suicide pact that says if we ever turn into a drama, we're going to end it all rather than inflict that on the world.

Eastwood: No, I said I was going to murder the rest of you, change by name and spend the rest of my days as a painter in Brazil.

THE XCENTRIKZ: Heh heh heh. Well you guys have been interesting and a laugh a minute. Thanks again for the chat and the great comic. Have a good time!

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