QUILTBAG Queries: Ask T and Jason

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

Wait, I feel a bit confused. When did you decide to not finish QUILTBAG? Are you going to be completely done with it after chapter U?

You might want to read this thread, if you haven't already. Hope that makes things less confusing!

[TCampbell]

Looking back at the dialogue snippets page just before QUILTBAG debuted... we saw it was Sara who spoke the lines, "Who are you?" and "Secret identity! Secret. Identity." Any idea who would've spoken the other lines? (I'm particularly interested in the "You taste like math" snippet. )

And "taste like math" was Lisa at her most obsessive, as she is right now, pretty much.

Except for the fact that Jade wasn't even a "twinkle in your eye" (as they say) when you came up with this line, I could see Lisa saying this to Jade after a snogging session, since Jade was in a mathy/sciency major. Which amuses me.

I had the idea that Lisa would be in a fairly intense, borderline-obsessive relationship before I quite sorted out who that relationship would be with. (I mean, I knew it'd be someone who could keep up with her intellectually, physically and sexually, but not much beyond that.)

[TCampbell]

Wait, I feel a bit confused. When did you decide to not finish QUILTBAG? Are you going to be completely done with it after chapter U?

You might want to read this thread, if you haven't already. Hope that makes things less confusing!

Yeah, that answers the second question pretty well.

As for the first, this is something that's been building for a while. I had qualms about QUILTBAG from the start, but I have doubts about a lot of things I do, and some of them work out fine regardless. Though those doubts did not disappear during the first few months of "Q," things were going well enough that I essentially committed to a year of production with the 2012 preview page, which referred to upcoming events in the rest of "Q" and "U." About one-quarter of the way through U, though, it was pretty clear that I wasn't bonding with most of the new characters or the story ideas... for the most part, I liked them, I just didn't love them. I gave myself another three months to try to find a new groove for the series (the fact that it was paying for itself was certainly a factor in my desire to make it stick), but the relatively resonant Iseul story, rooted as it was in old Penny and Aggie material that I'd more or less mapped out in "Headhunt," only underscored how the new ideas weren't doing it for me. I finally pronounced it dead to myself about three weeks ago, broke the news to Jason, my other partners and Keenspot, then announced it here.

[TCampbell]

This one caught my interest.

These were in the notes! I tend to name any characters who get more than a line or two of dialogue, if only to make it easier to refer to them in script descriptions. Those names can be tossed off the cuff if I don't envision much of a place for the characters. If I had it all to do over again I probably wouldn't have named "Fred and Daphne" that.

Just curious, but, what would you have named them then? (Fred and Daphne, that is... Hope the answer is not Shaggy and Velma.)

Tom and Kaye are nice names. "Tom" has an association with masculinity that "Fred" also has (and which Fred tweaks and subverts), while "Kaye" is a little more off-center, but stylish, and a nice, subtle nod to Kai Cole Whedon.

[Alecat]

Something I've always wondered, T, were you being deviously genius with your choices of series titles? Whenever I typed Penny Arcade and saw Penny and Aggie come up, it reminded me to check P&A. Now whenever I type Questionable Content in I get QUILTBAG. (Over time it became the other way around!)

And you were totally time travelling when you started Fans up, because typing in Facebook kind of leads one to Faans.com...

Ok, maybe now I'm just stretching...

[TCampbell]

Something I've always wondered, T, were you being deviously genius with your choices of series titles? Whenever I typed Penny Arcade and saw Penny and Aggie come up, it reminded me to check P&A. Now whenever I type Questionable Content in I get QUILTBAG. (Over time it became the other way around!)

And you were totally time travelling when you started Fans up, because typing in Facebook kind of leads one to Faans.com...

Ok, maybe now I'm just stretching...

When starting QUILTBAG, I was aware that starting your feature with an uncommon letter was a good way to stand out (it also worked for xkcd) so you're not totally off-base there. The name was clearly a big part of the whole scheme of the story, though: it's not like I just picked "Quixotic Blues" out of a hat.

Gisele came to me with the "Penny and Aggie" title. And I'm not sure if it helped or hurt. Readers not familiar with webcomics who half-remembered our title and googled "penny webcomic" probably wouldn't have found us.

[Alice Macher]

What happened with the Waiting for Godot callback Sara and Temperance were to have shown up for, after coming back from Colonialtown?

[TCampbell]

What happened with the Waiting for Godot callback Sara and Temperance were to have shown up for, after coming back from Colonialtown?

This will probably be the last QUILTBAG query I ever answer with a "wait and see."

[Trefle]

What happened with the Waiting for Godot callback Sara and Temperance were to have shown up for, after coming back from Colonialtown?

This will probably be the last QUILTBAG query I ever answer with a "wait and see."

.......dammit.

/chokes up a bit

[Ameyal]

This one caught my interest.

These were in the notes! I tend to name any characters who get more than a line or two of dialogue, if only to make it easier to refer to them in script descriptions. Those names can be tossed off the cuff if I don't envision much of a place for the characters. If I had it all to do over again I probably wouldn't have named "Fred and Daphne" that.

Just curious, but, what would you have named them then? (Fred and Daphne, that is... Hope the answer is not Shaggy and Velma.)

Tom and Kaye are nice names. "Tom" has an association with masculinity that "Fred" also has (and which Fred tweaks and subverts), while "Kaye" is a little more off-center, but stylish, and a nice, subtle nod to Kai Cole Whedon.

Thanks for replying!
From now on, my fanon name for Fred is Friedrich Tavish Rudolph, III... but his friends call him Fred.

Kaye sounds a little weird on Daphne tho, but that makes it more appealing.

[Bo Lindbergh]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

[Adrishiana]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Cheese.

[DaFlipp]

Now that it's ending, something I was always curious about...

When you did the open call for folks to send in inspiration for the supporting cast of QUILTBAG, I submitted one privately via email and FPM. Did you ever end up using that submission in any of your character designs? (There are a few characters that I thought might have elements of her, but I couldn't pin any of them down as absolutely inspired by her.)

P.S. Sad to see QUILTBAG go, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Maybe I'll finally remember to give Fans or Guilded Age a look now...

[LookingIn]

Are all of the characters except Hank freshmen at MFU or are they are mixed bag of sophomores, juniors, and seniors?

[TCampbell]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I'd say it'd probably get tired after about twenty pounds.