About The Strip

Q. Is The Crown Prince based on your own family?

A.  The long story can be found in the About page.  The short answer is “The strip is loosely based on my own family.  Very loosely based.”  I will add that all strips and storylines that have anything at all do with early childhood or parenting in general are inspired from events in real life.

Q. Why do the King and the Black Duke fight each other?  Why does the Witch think that the Princess is a demon baby? (Or any other question about things that have happened in the past.)

A. Maybe these events happened before the strip, maybe they happened in earlier strips, maybe they happened simultaneously to earlier strips.  Either way, I am not going to answer these questions.  Some answers might be found in the archive if you read them carefully.  In other cases, there may simply be clues.  And finally, some answers will come in the future, so keep reading.  But since you’ve submitted these questions, I’ll give you some cryptic hints: (1) the answer goes back to their childhood; and (2) crystal ball.

Q. What happened to the Knight?  When will we see the Newt again?  (Or any other question about things that will happen in the future.)

A. For the same reasons as the with the previous answer, I am not going to give specific answers.  You can pretty much bet that any and all characters will reappear some day even if it’s been a long time since we’ve seen them.  But again, since you’ve taken the trouble to ask the question, here are some hints: (1) career decisions are being made; and (2) when the King and Queen think the children are ready to be left with a babysitter.

Q. Will you do flashbacks of when the Queen and King first met?

A. Yes.  But since it won’t happen for some time yet, I’ll give you a couple of clues by way of naming two other characters who will appear prominently in this flashback storyline: the Black Duke and the King’s cousin.  I will say one last thing on this note: before the flashback, we will meet one of the Crown Prince’s grandparents.

Q. Will you add more characters?

A. Definitely.  But I like having a smallish main group.  This will never be a story with a cast of thousands.

Making a comic

Q. How do you make the comic? Drawn first, scanned, colored? Or drawn with a tablet?  What tools do you use to create The Crown Prince?  How much is physical media like pencils, pens and paper, and how much is digital?

A. I draw everything on actual paper with a mechanical pencil and then ink it with Micron pens of various sizes.  I’ve also recently started using a “brush-tip” pen by Faber-Castell which is really cool but more difficult to use.  It gives you a nice fluid line but is easier to mess up.  (Before getting into webcomics, I used a professional kind of illustration board and strictly crowquill nibs and actual sable brushes, but those materials are pretty expensive and I didn’t always feel that they generated better results.)  After I scan in the line art, I do a fair bit of cleaning up in Photoshop.  I sometimes use my Wacom graphics tablet for certain touch-ups and certain effects.  Photoshop and the Wacom tablet are not absolute musts but they definitely make things easier if you can afford them.

Q. How long does it take you to create one strip - from coming up with the concept, writing the script, early designs, sketches, through to inking, colouring, scanning etc. and posting the final version up on the website?

A. It’s hard to know exactly how long it all takes since I do it in separate chunks.  Whenever I get an idea, I will try to jot it down on whatever piece of paper is at hand.  (I try to keep things organized, but it’s hard.)  Every once in a while, I collect these random ideas and add them to a very large Excel spreadsheet where I organize my scripts.  This is organized by upcoming strips (the next few weeks and months) as well as long-range ideas that I like but don’t have a set spot in the storyline.  This “scripting” work is generally done well in advance of when I draw the strip.  It’s fairly common for me to have written a strip a year before I actually draw it.

As for drawing, inking, scanning, lettering, coloring and posting, I would guess it takes me 2-3 hours per strip.  When I started off, I spent the same amount of time on each strip, but now I find that I’m able to do more in that same amount of time because I’ve learned all kinds of tricks, mainly in Photoshop.

Q. Do you have a buffer of strips, or are you posting as soon as you create them?

A. It varies.  When I started The Crown Prince, I posted 24 strips all at once, and I had a buffer of 30 additional strips ready to go.  I did that because I wanted to be positive that I had enough “in the can” so that my readers could depend on regular weekly updates.  (If I was going to slip on posting a new strip, I definitely didn’t want that to be in the early days.)  Lately however, I rarely have a buffer of more than one strip!  On the one hand, that’s stressful because you feel the pressure of doing a strip every week and have no slack, but on the other hand it’s fun because it allows you to react very quickly to any reaction you might get to your most recent strip.  Generally, I do like more of a buffer so I can plan out the coming storyline with more wiggle room for anything I realize I have forgotten and need to include somewhere.

The Wonderful World of Webcomics

Q. Do you think doing a short form comic makes it easier to gain readers faster than a long form comic?

A. I’m totally unqualified to answer since I’ve never tried my hand at long form comics online.  My gut tells me that an excellent long form comic will gain readers faster than average short form comic, bu what if they’re on an even scale? 

Other

Q. What does it take to become a King or Queen in The Crown Prince Memory Game?

A. If you match all the tiles within 15 seconds, you will have that honor.  By the way version 2.0 of the memory game is in development.  Hopefully you’ll see it on this site before too long!