This art is drawn by Romiz

Hey guys! This will be our first blog post as an interview with John Vithor. Below, he has several questions to ask Crispy about the development of his personal works. It is worth reading this post for what Crispy is capable of despite its irrelevance to our game’s development. It could have some relevance to how Crispy gave out ideas with the game or in other media forms. I hope you enjoy reading this post.

1. When you started drawing out your characters, did you ever think you’d end up making comics with them?

Crispy: Kind of! Drawing comics was always something I had an interest in, I used to draw tons of pages when I was a kid/teen! But for a long time I felt afraid of starting something longer and serialized, but one day I simply started and didn’t stop anymore. It’s funny, it happened naturally.

2. When working on your art, commissions, comics, etc. do you turn on music or background noise, and if so, what’s your vibe to inspire to?

Cripsy: Unlike a lot of people, I feel more productive in silence! At least in the initial stages of the piece. Once I fully finish the sketch, I finally let myself listen to something, generally, I put podcasts in the background since they’re long, so I don’t have to worry about making song playlists or annoying YouTube ads!

3. What part of the process of drawing do you find the most tedious, and the most fun in your opinion?

Cripsy: Lineart is definitely the most boring part to me, I really can’t bring myself to like it, especially since a lot of the energy my sketches have to get lost in the process, it’s pretty frustrating! And my favorite part is definitely the coloring/shading! It’s so nice seeing your drawing finally get some depth and volume, it’s very satisfying!

4. When mapping out your comics, do you go with the flow and draw what you feel, or do you script it out beforehand and work with what should go into the art concept and what can be taken out?

Crispy: Oh boy, my writing process is VERY improvised, I do have important events planned out, but the in-betweens are filled in a very chaotic way haha! For example, the Goat wasn’t supposed to appear in the first chapter, Percy would find his cat by accident, but the idea of introducing him suddenly came to mind and I thought it would make things way more interesting! I tried to make more detailed scripts in the past, but I got bored really fast for some reason, so improvisation really helps me to stay entertained while I draw and write the story.

5. When developing the characters we all grown to become fond of, which one do you identify most with, and which is your personal favorite?

Crispy: Percy and Zoe are definitely the characters that resonate with me the most, no wonder they’re the main characters of both comics I’ve worked on so far! The other characters definitely have traits in common with me as well, but those two definitely take the cake haha!

6. Did you ever imagine you would get into RT-16 artwork like on your Alt account?

Crispy: Oh yeah, I always had an interest in doing more mature artwork, but struggled to decide what kind of stuff I’d like to do and what not, since I’m personally not interested in drawing explicit sexual stuff. So I always questioned if I should really bother doing a side account if I wasn’t even interested in going THAT far in the first place. But in the end, just like my comic, I kinda decided to make one out of the blue haha, I felt I needed to expand my horizons and be more experimental. I was very shy at first, but the positive reception my pieces are getting definitely helped me gain some confidence!

7. If your comics were adapted into an animated series or movie, which studio would you want to take it into production, and which voice actors would you choose for each character?

Crispy: That’s a tough question! I’d probably try to find a cool balance between anime and cartoons. The Owl House does a great job with that, so maybe the same studio as them? I’m really not good with studio names haha. As for the voices, I don’t have specific names in mind, but I can imagine them having similar voices to certain famous characters! Orly for example has a very similar voice to Hunk from Voltron, but with a softer tone! Percy sounds a lot like Bob from Tekken, Dennis sounds A LOT like Love God from Gravity falls, and the list goes on!

8. Did you ever feel that media needed to add more representation to their projects, if so what would you recommend if you had creative control?

Crispy: Definitely, if I had creative control over some animated shows, fat characters would be WAY more frequent haha, not only them but other social minorities as well. Diversity is fun and makes the world feel more alive, I really don’t get why studios are so allergic to it (I mean, I kinda do, but it sucks).

9. Which artist do you know would you wanna collab with some time?

Crispy: BearBoyJW is definitely on top of the list! He’s a good friend of mine and we have some projects in mind. It might take a while to finally get done, but I’m really hopeful that it’s going to happen someday!

10. Did Orly always know he has the beast within him or did the beast just happen to choose Orly as a host simply because it felt fitting to him?

Crispy: That’s very spoiler territory, but no, Orly doesn’t know he has a spirit inside him at the moment. Spirits can erase their presence very easily, they can even erase memories! Beast chose Orly in particular because he was in a very vulnerable state at the time due to some personal stuff, making it easier for Beast to get inside him. And then he spent the upcoming years in a very furtive state, feeding himself Orly negative emotions until he was strong enough to fully take control and become the Beast we know today. More details of this will be explained in the future, hopefully!

11. Does the Goat spirit have a name or is he simply a wanderer of the mortal plane, helping people, and if so; how many has he helped other than Percy?

Crispy: Goat doesn’t have a name, and that’s a very important plot detail that will become relevant later at some point! And yes, we could say he’s a wanderer, and he has helped a lot of people before Percy, he might have already helped characters we already know, even! (But that’s also very spoiler territory!)

12. How do spirits of your world enter this world, are they summoned or is there some rift between the worlds they manifest into without memory of themselves?

Crispy: I like to believe that there is a spirit world separated from the “human world”, but spirits aren’t necessarily originated from there only. Some do, and some others are born in the mortal plane. The birth of their existence is very mysterious and circumstantial and is generally tied to very strong emotions that transcend life and death.

13. Of the places, for Percy to work, does he enjoy the job serving ice cream, or was he hired simply cause he looked the part?

Crispy: He did kinda enjoy his work at first, he’s a big fan of desserts! And it also made him feel free from his parents’ claws somehow. He’s been working there for a long time now, but in autopilot of sorts at this point. He doesn’t care about it anymore, but at the same time, it feels too comfortable to leave, so he’s just… there.

14. Is the Fixerman within the same area as Orly and Percy, or is he a separate OC you are playing around with for the sake of creating, and if so will we see more of his story?

Crispy: Every OC I create lives in my webcomic universe until I state otherwise haha! His name is Anthony by the way, I don’t have many plans for him at the moment, but I’d love to expand his story someday! So… let’s wait and see!

15. Is The Punk Musician someone mysterious that will appear later on, and if so, is he gonna rock out hard or is he gonna keep his cool while drifting through?

Crispy: Ah yes… Dennis. He’s such a hard character to write to be honest! He’s so chaotic and always does what he wants, so I’m having a hard time inserting him properly in the comic. But I can assure you that he’ll definitely appear more in the future and have his importance. His small appearance in the current chapter was just a small taste of what’s to come!

That is all for the interview with John Vithor!