Writing the Webcomic: Cujo
Jun. 9th, 2004 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
richardf8Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
makovette, kelloggs2066 discovered my webcomic Cat-Tharsis. Visitor logs say he plowed through the archives, and then he paid me the highest compliment imaginable. He said, in my forum, "I dated Cujo Hachatulian for four years."
This is striking to me as a writer, because it means that I have created a character that someone was able to recognize. Even more noteworthy, Cujo is the most completely fictional character in the strip. She is also the easiest to write for, because she is one of those characters who virtually writes herself.
My earliest vision of Cujo was "Hothead Paisan with enough of an attention span to write a paper -- fun in seminars," according the the yellow legal pad on which the initial premise and earliest ideas were laid out. But something seemed missing, some cruel irony that would make the character both tragic and funny. And that's when it came to me -- she hates men, but she's straight as hell, and feels just terrible about that.
The GTO she drives wasn't part of the original plan either -- she just sort of wanted it, and I just had to give it to her. And as for her penchant for wrenching, that was an exceedingly late development. The site was fully developed, the domain name registered, a format change had just taken place, and I was getting ready to take the password protection off and make my first tenuous hints at the site's existence when she came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said "hey, you're not going to just let me be this bimbo that keeps pestering Grendel with stupid computer questions with no skills of my own, ARE YOU?!" "Yes" is not the right answer to that question, especially when it's posed by a Hothead wannabe with access to hammerspace.
Cujo's been telling me other stories about herself too. I won't go into much detail here, because that would be spoilerish, but one of the stories she's telling me is part of the Great Arc which has existed from the days of that Yellow Legal Pad and continues to govern the story structure. The other story she tells is a fun bit of her own backstory which I'm refraining from telling for the moment. If I let her have her way she could easily take over the strip, but that far she doesn't get to go.
Cujo is also the first Cat-Tharsis character to inspire a piece of fan-art, and from one of the best artists out there in the world of webcomics, no less,kevinjdog.
makovette, kelloggs2066 discovered my webcomic Cat-Tharsis. Visitor logs say he plowed through the archives, and then he paid me the highest compliment imaginable. He said, in my forum, "I dated Cujo Hachatulian for four years."This is striking to me as a writer, because it means that I have created a character that someone was able to recognize. Even more noteworthy, Cujo is the most completely fictional character in the strip. She is also the easiest to write for, because she is one of those characters who virtually writes herself.
My earliest vision of Cujo was "Hothead Paisan with enough of an attention span to write a paper -- fun in seminars," according the the yellow legal pad on which the initial premise and earliest ideas were laid out. But something seemed missing, some cruel irony that would make the character both tragic and funny. And that's when it came to me -- she hates men, but she's straight as hell, and feels just terrible about that.
The GTO she drives wasn't part of the original plan either -- she just sort of wanted it, and I just had to give it to her. And as for her penchant for wrenching, that was an exceedingly late development. The site was fully developed, the domain name registered, a format change had just taken place, and I was getting ready to take the password protection off and make my first tenuous hints at the site's existence when she came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said "hey, you're not going to just let me be this bimbo that keeps pestering Grendel with stupid computer questions with no skills of my own, ARE YOU?!" "Yes" is not the right answer to that question, especially when it's posed by a Hothead wannabe with access to hammerspace.
Cujo's been telling me other stories about herself too. I won't go into much detail here, because that would be spoilerish, but one of the stories she's telling me is part of the Great Arc which has existed from the days of that Yellow Legal Pad and continues to govern the story structure. The other story she tells is a fun bit of her own backstory which I'm refraining from telling for the moment. If I let her have her way she could easily take over the strip, but that far she doesn't get to go.
Cujo is also the first Cat-Tharsis character to inspire a piece of fan-art, and from one of the best artists out there in the world of webcomics, no less,
kevinjdog.
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Yay for characters that write their own personalities!
CYa!
Mako
Soon to be Hammered Zzyzxian
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Date: 2004-06-10 05:41 pm (UTC)I have the feeling she'd be too transfixed by that 'Vette of yours to take much notice of whatever noises your mouth was making.
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Date: 2004-06-11 05:29 am (UTC)Thanks for the compliment. :) I know how it is when a character writes him or herself like that. I have some insight into that too, which'll have to come later, as it involves spoilers into next week. :)