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Hey Everyone,

I figured since Bill is going to be doing sketches on Fridays for the next month or so, I’d step up my game and actually write a blog post. It’s been awhile since I’ve really written one, and I thought this would help me get back into the groove.

If you didn’t see, I put a call out on the Facebook page for people to write in some questions for us. Since I never have any idea on what to write, I figured asking you guys for questions would help me write something.

First question comes from Joie:

“Which character do you find most compelling in this iteration as compared to the characters as they were in Silver Rage?”

Wow, that’s an awesome question, and one that’s really hard to answer.

The characters of ANI are different from the ones found in Silver Rage. They are based on their former selves, but we decided awhile back that Silver Rage happened in an alternate universe. That way I could change back stories if I wanted and flesh out the personalities differently.

Silver Rage first started as a collaboration between Bill and a friend Jamie. Jamie wrote the first handful of strips and Bill took it over on his own, until he ended it. For me to join in on ANI, I had to be able to make it something that was ours.

With that being said, I think it might be Todd. I’ve come to find Todd is my favorite to write. I do my best to make sure the strip is somewhat grounded in reality, but Todd is my way of occasionally pushing those boundaries. Dee comes in a close second. That character was never really fleshed out in Silver Rage so I like the idea I can take the template that was created for Dee and mold it into mine.

Second question comes from Facebook. Amber Love asks:

“What’s your history as a creative team? What’s the strangest project you’ve work on?”

I guess I answered some of that question above. Ever since Bill stopped working on Silver Rage he’s wanted to create another comic. He’s had other ideas in the past, but he always came back to these three characters. When he first started working on the strip we’d brainstorm together, I’d come up with a storyline idea and he’d write the strip. One minute I’m helping him brainstorm, and the next thing you know I’m writing out the dialogue, and then I was writing the strip. It was very organic in the way it happened. I still have no idea how he tricked me into writing. I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. Much to Bill’s annoyance, I still don’t refer to myself as a writer.

And I think the strangest project we’ve worked on is… our relationship. I’m not kidding. We’ve been friends for years, and I was in a very serious relationship for a good chunk of that friendship. Bill and I have always been close, but for most of that friendship we were like brother and sister. It wasn’t until after a lot of heartache on my end that we saw each other in a different light. It’s definitely been a weird journey to get where we are, but I’m glad we’re here.

Brian on Facebook asks:

“Have yall discussed the backstories of your characters? Where they’re from, what their families are like, etc?”

That is a fantastic question. I’ve actually been giving a lot of thought to the characters families and backstories. Who has siblings, who’s parents are divorced, who’s parents are still together, what are they like. I have ideas on some of them, but I haven’t pinned down everyone. I know Jason has a sister, Karen has a couple siblings, and Todd’s an only child. I’m not sure about the other characters. A lot of my writing comes from real life and I’m an only child. In my world no one has siblings. But I figure that might be a bit weird, so I’m still sussing out who else might have some siblings.

I imagine in the future we’ll be learning more about the characters backstories as I write them. We know Jason and Robyn have been friends forever, Robyn and Dee went to college together, Gavin and Todd are more recent BFFs, and Karen is still sort of a mystery. She’s actually the character I’m most excited to explore. She was a throwaway character in the first strip. We never had any intentions of bringing her back, and unlike all the other characters, she isn’t based on anyone we know in real life. Jason, Todd, Robyn and Dee are bits of Bill and I at different times in our life and Gavin is based on our friend Myke. Karen is an actual blank slate.

And last, but not least, our friend John asks:

“Gavin, what is his entrance music?”

I really have no idea. That’s something we’d have to think on, but a very important question. Any thoughts guys? What do you think Gavin’s entrance music should be?

OK, that’s enough for now. I’m going to finish my tea and watch an episode of TV before I go to sleep.

If you have any questions for next week let me know in the comments. This was fun. If everyone likes it we could make this a weekly thing.

-Dani