Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Reinvigorated Friday Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"What time does Sam and Fuzzy actually update? 3 AM? 4 AM? When I stay up past Midnight I never see the magical event occur." -Daniel

With rare exception, midnight PST. That's when the auto-updater runs, anyhow! Every now and then I'll clock in a little closer to one or two... usually because I was out somewhere and forget to set up the auto-updater before I left!

"So I noticed that this comic used a nice spacing out between the thin panels to add to the humor. Did you do this intentionally, or not?Just curious how much thought you put into the layout of the comics." -Danny

Utilizing the size and shape of panels, as well as the spaces inbetween them (which we comic book types call "gutters"), is something I'm really trying to work on.

It's pretty amazing how you can change the "feel" of a panel just by changing the amount of space around it. For ages, I just flipped back and forth trying to pick the one "perfect" gutter size to use uniformly in every comic. But treating it organically gives you a surprisingly powerful tool... you can alter the reader's perception of time and mood and all sorts of other strange and intangible things.

Here's another recent attempt that I was really happy with.

"Why aren't there any ninjas visible in the new chapter? (Other than Blank in "The Big Cheat".)" -Anthony

Well, you saw a few of them in the "Ninja Mafia Services" storyline. But the end result of N-M-S's current budget and staff cuts is that the comic is now considerably less... uh... ninja-enriched. Which is probably just as well! If there was such a condition as ninja-fatigue, then Volume 4 of Sam and Fuzzy would be one heck of a pathogen.

That's it for this week. See you on Monday!

-Sam Logan

M-O-U-S-E

As the followers of my twitter feed are all too aware, I'm pretty much completely obsessed with every slowly-trickling detail of this new Mickey Mouse game. That might seem like slightly... strange behaviour for a grown man, I admit. But consider:

• The game's concept art depicts a bizarre-looking post-apocalyptic steampunk world populated by nightmarish, razor-edged Disney cyborg people.

• The rumoured plot involves Oswald the Rabbit leading an army of obscure and forgotten Disney characters out from the miserable prison void in which they are forced to live to revolt against the mouse and company.

• And most mystifying of all, this madness is actually being directed by Warren Spector. Warren Spector!

Can you blame me for being so fascinated?I mean, how does a project like this even exist? What Disney executive actually signed off on this project? "Hey, you know what the kids will really like? A Warren Spector-directed game where Mickey battles a dark army of mutated Disney extras in a steampunk nightmareland." It's like it's been beamed in from another dimension. It is not from our reality.

-Sam Logan

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Belated Monday Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Do you have the dreaded swine flu?" -Myles

Nope! The bug that kept me from doing the Q and A on Friday was of the quick and brutal variety. I was feeling pretty much fine again the next day. No cause for alarm!

"So now that no one is actively trying to murder Sam... did he ever tell his old friends (Lance, Alexa, Andrea, Ackerman, etc.) what was going on? (And did he ever finish paying off that taxi?)" -Richard

Yup! You can actually see the start of that conversation back in this comic. I'm sure he's had lots of chances to expand on the subject since then... especially since N-M-S is currently renting Alexa's upstairs office.

As for the taxi, I'm pretty sure Sam managed to pay it off while he was working for Noosehead. Sure, he wasn't earning much of a salary... but it wasn't much of a taxi, either.

"When Sam and Fuzzy were on the run from Black's men, they had help from Aaron and Ox from Fuzzy's ninja squad. So why was Commander Scott on the opposite side when his original platoon was in danger?" -Jordan

Probably because Scott hated his squad... not to mention most of the Ninja Mafia command! After all, they did make him into a table. When Black was recruiting traitors, Scott was likely the first in line.

"Have you thought about how you’d eventually like to end Sam & Fuzzy? I hope its not for very long time, but I know that the comic has to end eventually, and I just want to know that, when it is over, it will get a proper ending instead of just a sudden halt of updates like so many other comics that have hurt me in the past. " -Danny

I generally think about each era of Sam and Fuzzy -- the taxi/bookstore years, the Noosehead saga, and now the N-M-S stuff -- as it's own distinct comic. And just like it's predecessors, the current comic will gradually build to a definitive and (hopefully!) satisfying conclusion.

After that, I'll launch the next one! It might be a new Sam and Fuzzy story, or something focusing on other members of the cast, or something completely different and unrelated! We'll see what makes the most sense when the time comes. It's still much too early in our current story to be worrying about the next one. (I know I have a reputation for obsessively planning ahead, but even I'm not that organized!)

That's all for today. See you on Wednesday!

-Sam Logan