Call for new Q&A questions

Is Esther a fan of the Replacements album “Don’t Tell A Soul”? Or does she prefer the Matt Wallace “Dead Man’s Pop” mix? Or does she just know a good cheese pun when the opportunity presents itself?

What I find most fascinating about your Destroy History series is unlike other alternative history you step away from Grand History (I.e. Leviathan, KaiserReich, The Man In The High Castle, Fatherland, Stephen King's 11/22/63, etc.) you focus instead on arts and culture alternative scenarios (though I suppose Shelley succeeds in getting Hedy Lamarr to get her paton while the world where the Beatles never become famous is still ongoing). I was curious as to what motivated you to take this approach. Also what kind of research and/or speculation did you do before writing NEMS?

I’m very curious to know why you use lined paper for your sketches? I would have thought that plain paper would be much less distracting.

In the masterclass video you shared the other day you talked about starting Bad Machinery because you didn't want to keep doing comics about 20-somethings so switched to doing kids. It occurred to me that those kids are 20-somethings. Is this inevitable? I was also thinking about how you manage writing young people as you get older without being all "hello fellow kids". I'm in my 50s now and sometimes wonder if I would be reading about these exploits if I hadn't been following your work for two decades. Is it that it just takes a long time to get as good as you are so of course you're going to be writing about younger generations? (I'm clearly overthinking this but see if you can pull a decent answer out of that mess...)

There are so many jokes about men writing female characters - heaving breasts, manic pixie dream girl, etc. You, however, perfectly capture the women that you write about. I especially love Susan, both driven to succeed in medicine and a shameless smoker. How is it that you are able to channel the female psyche, and why are you drawn to mostly female protagonists?

You often update readers on the status – returning; dustbin of history; stymied by cruel US publishing industry &c &c – of beloved J. Allison properties. But if you could revive *someone else's* sadly defunct series (comics, TV, film, "other"), what would you most like to get your soft illustrator's hands on?

How are you so "tapped in" to cultural phenomenons from over the decades? As a Gen Z, you capture a lot of specific modern as well as Gen Z aspects in such a funny and real way

Is there a reason why Charlotte, a professional "solver" in a comic of the same name, so rarely finds herself actually attempting to solve a crime? I would have assumed you just weren't comfortable with doing long-form mystery comics if not for the fact that Shauna has her own spin-off dedicated to solving murders!

A few weeks ago I read the pages you did for the 2012 collaborative comic Nelson. They were great! What was that experience like? Aside from that, have you ever thought of doing a comic that wasn't a comedy or even a dramedy? Or would that be too weird.

Besides the questions I asked back in July’s QNA call, here’s a few new ones. -Do you have any plans for Sarah Grote to appear in Solver? Given how Lottie’s friends and family have dipped in and out of the run, it would be a little strange if her sister didn’t show up at least once. -What city in Yorkshire would you say Tackleford resembles the most, or that you at least had a general idea of when creating stories in that setting? -There’s a recurring pattern in your main leads where a generally grounded but still eccentric character (Amy, Tessa, Lottie, Susan, Maggie) gets paired with a bespectacled individual who’s often loopy but [usually] very sweet (Shelley, Rachel, Claire, Daisy, Billie). Is there something about this recurring dynamic that appeals to you, or is the pattern more subconscious? -Where’s Daisy’s hometown? We know where the other four leads of Giant Days hail from, but the most we have for her is that it’s in a mountainous region (shown in Chapter 13).

Every now and then, I'll see a commenter suggest you use Kickstarter to fund a new comic. Since you have never done it, I assume that you have reason to believe it won't work for you. Could you explain what you think about Kickstarter? I'm always interested in the business behind art careers. If you want to say anything about other funding models that you've decided against (or may consider in the future), I'd like to hear it.

I'm reading Solver again this time on WebComics, and I've been enjoying it more in the long format simply because it makes me read more attentively and I catch more of the jokes on the first read. Which makes me appreciate how joke dense your writing is. Tina Fey wrote in her biography something to the effect that the goal for joke density on 30 Rock was so high many jokes went unnoticed on the first pass. Do you have a joke density philosophy or goal when writing?

desmond??? where?

Over the years I have found that you might be ruthless with your characters: breaking friendships, making love stories die, and in general having resolutions not reset the situation to the starting point. Is this something that you do consciously to keep stories and characters interesting by not letting readers sit too much in the comfort zone of "everything is going to be ok"? Or it is just a vein of realism that reflects your view of the world?

I've noticed that for a fair number of your older comics - particularly Scary Go Round and Bad Machinery - you sometimes revised the art when re-releasing or collecting them. What motivated you to update certain comics after the fact - was it due to how people reacted to them or moreso your own evolving standards?

I recently collected physical copies of Bad Machinery and Steeple (to go with my hardcover Giant Days set) and I wondered if you'd ever put out the whole mad run of Bobbins, Scary Go Round, Bad Machinery, etc into some sort of omnibus format. I know you've mentioned before the challenges in collecting some of the earlier webcomics work, but I would happily sell my second-favorite kidney to pay for that omnibus. On another note, I know you've said you wouldn't want to bring the Giant Days characters into the present day, thereby eliminating 8 years of potential stories. Do you think those 8 years are ground you'd like to cover one day?

How do you stay funny?

I'm very curious what inspired Glenn's character for you. Charlotte, and to a somewhat lesser extent Claire, was a long-established character with a strong "brand". Glenn is more understated, but he has worked remarkably well as a complement/foil to Charlotte's wilder impulses. Did you think a lot about that dynamic beforehand, or has his character emerged more organically?