How to take over the writing gig for an established web comic without being lynched
by Andy Floyd

Seriously, "Eat the Roses" ran for FIVE years under the the lone thumb of the awesomely talented Meaghan "The Lone Thumb" Quinn-Damonk. Under her care it grew a "fan base" (not to be confused with a fan soprano! [i almost deleted that joke, but it was just too bad not to share!]) and "The Lone Thumb" herself became known throughout the comicsphere! And because I have a death wish, I'm going take over the writing duties!

So how on earth did this happen? Why is "ETR" coming back and why is this utter-n00b writing it?

Well, first off, I'm not a n00b. (besides, only n00bs use the word n00b anymore!) I had an extremely crappy and unpopular college gag-strip that ran for a few years back in the early days of web comicing. Because I realized it was crappy, I gave it up. (When the funniest thing in your strip is the stick-figure filler drawn by you're friend and college roomie, it's time to stop!)

Then I discovered a little thing called "writing." See, it's this novel newfangled concept I had never tried before. I thought it was more important to be "current" than anything else, so I'd wait till the night my strip was to go up and freak! "OMG! I NEED A STRIP!"

Needless to say, this was NOT the way to do a comic. Since drawing took so long for me, I'd end up writing down the first thing that came to me - and the first thing that comes to me isn't often the BEST idea.

But this "writing" thing - it was neat! You see, you THINK things through first. Then, you write them down. Then, you DEVELOP them until you have a "story" that not only makes sense, but is actually kind of cool!

I spent the next few years writing. Novels, scripts, short stories. I didn't care what, I just wrote. And for some reason, people seemed to like it. The damndest people too. Hell, one person even bought a couple of my spec scripts recently for a cartoon show that's going to be pitched! (Don't know if anything'll happen with them though!)

So, yeah, I practiced! And just when I start thinking - "Hey, it would be really nifty-keen to get back into web comics! But I'm too lazy to draw, so I need to find an artist!" - I get an E-Mail. It's the Lone Thumb. She asked if she could pitch an idea for me to write because she wanted to draw but was too lazy to write.

It was a match made in LJ!

The pitch was based on this guy named Samuel Orange. He's apparently from the five year history I mentioned earlier. So it would be sort of a spin-off of ETR. Now, I read ETR back in the day, but I didn't finish it. I dropped out of the web comic world before it ended. And on top of that, it had been YEARS since I read it. So I decided to sit down and read the entire archives.

Which I did - in two days.

Ideas flooded my head. Characters I wanted to use and manipulate, events I wanted to capitalize on. I was already writing the Sammy story, but I couldn't get these ideas out of my head. So I counter-pitched a new ETR spin-off of the Sammy spin-off of the old ETR. (Did that make sense?)

Lone Thumb liked my ideas, but didn't want to do two comics side by side. I mean, she's already doing two (but I dunno if I can talk about that other one since I'm not involved with it!) and it might get confusing using the same characters doing similar things in two different series. So we combined the two ideas. Longer slightly more serious ETR arcs book ended by Sammy silliness. So, whenever the art is finished you'll get ETR Issue 0, the silly Sammy comic, and then we'll go straight into a four issue deeper arc which is already written. After that arc, another Sammy comic. Then another ETR arc, etc . . . for as long as we can keep it up.

So, that's the story, morning glory.

And cuz I'm nice, and a spoiler-ho, here's a dialogue sample from page 25 of issue #0:

"Sweet God in Heaven!"

That's right, I'm turning ETR hyper-religious right wing! You heard it here first! I'm actually going to kill EVERYONE and recast it with Jerry Falwell as the "Captain Mal" character and . . . okay, I can't keep that up. It's just too ridiculous!

In all seriousness, I think you'll like what's to come. Cuz Lone Thumb does, and that's really all that matters, isn't it?