Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Noosehead Edition
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"Who are all the original members of noosehead? I was just reading through the archive a couple days ago and I think only 6 of the 13 get named (Sidney, Nicole, Malcolm, Flick, Ox and the guy with a knife through his head)" -John
Ooh, fun! Noosehead's full line-up, during the actual Noosehead volume, consisted of:
Sidney - Lead Singer
Nicole - Back-up singer
Malcolm - Guitar
Flick (the dude with his head on fire) - Guitar
Ali (the cat) - Bass
Triangle (the normal looking man in a suit) - Triangle
Ox (Aaron's big old bud from the Ninja Mafia) - Drum Kit
Dixon (the dude with a knife stuck through his head) - Bongos
DJ Freshfoot (the dude with a cage on his head) - Turntables
Muffins (the dude in a rabbit mask) - Making feedback noises with a microphone
Limbly (the dude with a stitched mouth and no arms) - Timpani Drum
Dancing Guy (the dude with the big teeth and cape) - Dancing
Sheet of Looseleaf Paper - actual sheet of paper that was hastily added to the band's line-up during auditions so that they could say they had 13 members
You can see them all here, hanging out with a few other characters from that era of comics:
You can also see almost all of them here, in this ancient artwork! But this one features Noosehead's previous drum kit player, rather than Ox. I can't remember if he was ever named anywhere! He was fired and replaced by Ox during the gap between the Classic and Nooshead volumes. (Noosehead went through a lot of drummers before Ox.)
"I'm a high school student. What do I need to learn and do to make a webcomic?" -David
Oh boy! That's a big question, David, so I hope you'll forgive me for answering this question really broadly.
My simplest advice is to just read and draw as many comics as you can! There is really no substitute for that brute force grind of trial and error. If you've got a chance to take any writing or art classes in school, go for it... a lot of what you learn there can be applied to comics, too! But if you're interested in reading something that digs into the mechanics and creation of comics specifically, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Making Comics are a great place to start.
As for publishing webcomics specifically, this is something that's really changed since I got in the game! BACK IN MY DAY, the only way to do it was to make your own website and publish your comics there. I'd still recommend that for anyone wanting to do webcomics long term, but if you're just dipping your toes into the webcomics waters, there are a million other ways to share your comics now that are way easier and less work to set up. So I'd recommend exploring those when you are just getting started, and see how long you stick with it. Publish 'em on your social media platform of choice! Or maybe check out one of those comic-specific sites like Line Webtoon... I don't personally know much about them, but a lot of folks seem to be using them! You can always learn how to make your own website later, if and when you decide it's something you want to keep working on long term.
But above all else: make comics. Make lots of comics! This is going to sound silly, but when you're starting out, it's much more important to just actually finish comics than it is for anyone else to ever read them. Because after all... your first comics will likely be the worst comics you ever make. They will probably not make you famous. But they'll be fun to draw, and they'll help you learn the craft! I drew literally hundreds and hundreds of pages of comics as a kid that were never published online, and never read by anyone other than my friends. They were all extremely terrible. But they are the reason the first Sam and Fuzzy comic isn't even worse. So they were a good use of my time, I think. Ha!
That's all for this week, team! See you on Monday!
-Sam Logan
