Worrisome

Aaaaand new character again! Have you seen my last post on the Facebook page? There is cute girl there that needs your help! Right now! Or else there will be blood and suffering… Naah, I’m just kidding, but I have updated vote incentive so please support Replay on its yourney to the top 3 at Topwebcomics! Let’s make the impossible happen!

Seriously I don’t believe we can get this many votes but we can only get as far as our imagination allows, right? Gotta dream big!

vote

 

There was a chat about quality of dialogues in this comic – it might be that I rushed through the dialogue too much, I will be trying to find a healthier compromise between action and text in the future. Please have patience with me since this is my very first comic and sometimes I am just too eager to show you something fun and rush through all the stuff that I find boring – like dialogues, since I know what Ada or Robert want to say anyway…

What I am trying to say: if there is anything you find worth improving in this comic please don’t hesitate and let me know, I’ll be happy to think about it and find a way to make it better. After all I am doing this for you to read and enjoy.

And I’m off to update the cast. I figured there is no point in concealing new characters’ names and other details. So look forward to the update~

52 comments on “Worrisome”

    • Lone Wanderer Reply

      Vote suffragium crudo deus, Vote suffragium crudo deus, VOTE SUFFRAGIUM CRUDO DEUS!! *Votes*

      • NotImportant Reply

        Lol FINE, I won’t ask for them anymore! ʕノ•ᴥ•ʔノ ︵ ┻━┻

        • Rateus Camp dweller Reply

          No harm in asking, you give us beautiful work and creative effort for free! It the least we should do, take 3-5 seconds to click a link to vote our thanks.

  2. Refugnic Reply

    Quite personally I’m the ‘Vote on Update’ guy. Meaning, each time the comic updates (and I can find the vote button on the page), I cast a vote for the comic.
    So there, here’s your ‘reward’ for updating again. 😉

    Regarding the dialog debate…it really depends on the situation.
    Let’s look at the current one. Demons are attacking, slaughtering everyone who isn’t getting away in time.

    I think if the dialog appears a little ‘rushed’ in this context is perfectly natural, cause if you were on the run from the demons, you wouldn’t sit down for a pleasant cup of tea with your friends either, right?

    I think you’re doing a very fine job and I’m always happy to see something new from you. 🙂

    • NotImportant Reply

      Thank you very much for support, votes and your opinion 😀 We will see how I’ll do with the dialogue when we stop running around and killing things. I look forward to your judgement then~
      Vote per update? That’s better than awesome, I am really happy. I don’t want anyone to feel like I am pestering to vote, please just treat it like a friendly reminder! 😀

      • Refugnic Reply

        I’ll put together both of my replies in this one, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to clog the comment section too much.

        First off, thanks for replying. I’ve seen plenty of people who couldn’t care less and I think that’s a shame. After all, art like this lives from the interaction with the audience. At least that’s my opinion. Plus, if I had known that you never respond, I wouldn’t have comment either, because I would’ve been under the impression that you don’t even read the comments to begin with.

        Yes, we will see. However I am in no position to pass ‘judgment’…however if you are asking for opinions, I’ll be more than happy to oblige, because I’ve got plenty of those.

        Haha, don’t worry, I don’t feel like that even one bit. I merely meant to alert you of how I do things and maybe encourage someone else to do the same (instead of not voting at all ;)). It really isn’t much work compared to what you’re going through.

        On that note, I believe in one reply you said that it takes you some 8 hours+ from start to finish for one page…I’d like to thank you for saying that.
        Confused? Don’t be, explanation coming right up. I’m often frequenting deviantArt…and some of the artists there who produce really nice eye candy put out stuff like ‘had 2 hours to spare, so there’ and I’m like ‘…WHAT?!’. I mean, I often take 2 hours to write a chapter and that’s just letters! (Okay, ~10k of those, but still).
        Thanks for breaking the illusion that what you’re doing is ‘quick work’ or ‘easy’. I am well aware that it’s neither and it makes me appreciate what you’re doing all the more. 🙂

        No. For example I couldn’t. Not because I don’t have any ideas (I’m a writer after all, I’m all about ideas, I could probably shell out about a dozen your way right from the top of my head if you wanted). But because I can’t draw worth jack. Furthermore, what you’re producing here is quality work in my opinion. I’ve seen people go from scraps which basically hurt the eyes up to pretty much amazing and you just popped up with ‘amazing’. I know you’ve done drawing before and you learned a lot from watching your friend (you don’t have hundreds of comments yet, which is why I tend to read through them.), but it’s still great stuff you’re supplying there.

        So yeah, from where I’m standing, I’m doing fairly well. I have…I don’t know, like 4-5 people who read the stories I write and that’s just fine. They’re good people and I have fun talking to them. That one time, during my most successful story so far, a reader dropped an idea…or much rather a wish my way in the comment section.
        I looked at it and a smile crept up my face. A short sprint (3-4 chapters) later, I had fulfilled that wish and somehow pulled it off to make it look as if I had planned that to happen from the get-go…so yeah, I think I’m doing fairly well in my little corner of the world.

        But then there’s people like you. People who excel. People who captivate their audience. And if we are all stars in the night sky, you are Polaris and I’m that star over there, somewhere behind the dark side of the moon. Which leads to said jealousy. But you know, jealousy isn’t a bad thing in this case. Because it spurs me to become better myself.

        I can look at you and tell myself: There are people like that out there. It’s not impossible. You just have to try harder.

        Someone once said, ‘Aspire to inspire before you expire.’, which is one of the things I’m striving for. And it would seem that you have done so quite fine already. 😉

        Regarding courage…I think I’ve got ample of that too. I’m on dA and wattpad for my art, dishing out written works on a regular base, I play in an ensemble and sing both in a choir as well as solo, all in front of people. Just yesterday I stood before a wedding party (or what remained of it) and sang ‘Perhaps love’ for them. Okay, I screwed up royally, but it was 1 AM and I had been waiting for hours to do it, so yeah…shit happens. 😀

        Regarding that award…I think you may want to look at the comments I tend to write on dA. It’s not rare that it takes me 30+ minutes to type down a comment.
        Wattpad has a good feature for that, they limit your comments to 2000 characters encouraging people to: ‘Whatever you’ve gotta say, keep it brief’.
        So yeah, maybe I am eligible for this particular award, but not for that tiny comment you received before. 😉

        • NotImportant Reply

          I know you like to write lengthy comments but I still feel flattered that someone decided to invest his time like this. Thank you!

          And fine, as JW skillfully pointed out, I just feel bad about people being jealous of me. To be completely honest with you guys I tend to make people around me feel uncomfortable because I am a workaholic who just can’t spend the Sunday watching new TV series, I jump from one project to another, make things. My creations are not always good and I am aware of that (that’s why I can’t accept the position of Polaris, although I am very happy that you see me as such), but if someone has fun watching my drawings or reading the comic – that’s great!

          It was mostly luck and good people who encouraged me that I have reached this point with Replay. It’s a first time for me, working on something this popular (although Replay is not THAT popular at all – yet), I don’t feel special because of that and I still think that anyone could do it – be it comics or story or just blog with photos, whatever. Maybe I’m wrong, but I like to watch people struggle and fight for their dreams and I will be forever optimistic and encouraging on that point.

          And for the last note, I am also jealous because although I love to write and do it on the side I am not a good writer at all haha 😀

          Thanks again and I hope Replay won’t bore or disappoint you!

          • Refugnic

            Oh good, you replied.
            For a moment or two I was a little worried that I might’ve scared you with the overlength reply I gave you back there (I do tend to go overboard, one of my many charming little faults :P).

            Hah, it would seem we are similar after all. I’m just the same. The moment I have to sit still, I get all fidgety and nervous. I always need something to do, something to keep my mind occupied and TV just doesn’t quite cut it. In the back of my mind, I’m always pondering some programming concept or plot point I want to explore (my world is small)…people call me an addict because of that (because everything I like to do relates to computers…they just fail to see that I’m not just playing games.)

            Nobodies creations are always good, because nobody is perfect. (And wouldn’t it be boring if we were? Because you see, perfection is the one thing no mortal must never ever achieve, lest they’ll be unhappy for the rest of their lives, for once you have achieved perfection…just where are you to go from there? Moving in any direction means to go downhill from where you are and standing still is equivalent to the death of art. But I think you knew that already, didn’t you?)

            *Ahem*, getting back on track: Polaris has been used as guiding star for centuries, because of its apparent fixed position in the night sky.
            Those who knew about it, used it for orientation and that’s what helped them stay on their way.

            But in the end, even Polaris was nothing more than a star, like all the others in the night sky. The one thing that made him special was, that people came to rely on him for guidance…because he was steady like a rock as the tides tossed against the planks of the ship. Many a sailor owed Polaris his life.
            And I believe that people like you, people who actually care (and produce good art), are like Polaris. Guiding beacons to follow while the world around you is cloaked in darkness. This may sound a little dramatical, but I think you get what I’m trying to get at.

            Either way, that’s what I want to be for people too. Someone to turn to, someone to look up to…someone worth being noticed in the sea of stars.
            That’s the real source of whatever jealousy I have directed your way…because I simply feel underappreciated by the people around me. But that’s of course none of your concern.

            You know what’s funny? Usually, when I read webcomics, the authors are kinda surrounded by that air of ‘better than me’, simply because they can do what I cannot. You on the other hand I can relate to pretty well, which is one of the reasons why I’ve decided to comment here of all places.

            If you ask me, Replay WILL become fairly popular. At the very least it has the makings of a top ranking webcomic. And the higher it reaches, the more likely it is that more people will find it (I also found it via TWC, btw.).

            Regarding the ‘anyone can make it’…maybe. However I do beg to differ in this case, I don’t think anyone can make a decent (or better) webcomic…however I do think that with the talents we have, we can make an impact on the people around us. Just as long as we try our best and use whatever we’ve got.

            I can’t draw like you do. And I’ll likely never will be able to either. However that’s not important. Because I’m my own person, with my own talents and skills. And this isn’t a competition. So I hope you’ll forgive my jealousy towards you, however I think you’ll come to understand that it is quite natural…to be jealous of people who possess a skill you don’t. As they say: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. 😉

            Hah, you don’t even know what I write about, yet you automatically assume they are good, just because it’s my primary form of art?
            Really, I’m just mediocre with a tendency to write way too long stories (who’d have guessed, huh? :P). However I’ll keep trying. Because only the sky’s the limit…for now 😉

            I’m sure it won’t and if that should ever change, I’ll make sure to alert you. 😉

            Oh and in regards of ‘investing time’: If I didn’t believe that it was worth the time and effort, I wouldn’t do it, so don’t worry about that.

            Ah yes, a final curiosity question: Which programming language do you work with most?

          • NotImportant

            Are you testing me? Those are getting longer and longer! 😀

            I’ll start from the end: right now my job requires only my knowledge about PHP and Javascript but before I’ve started it I mostly used C# (personal preference). I have touched many languages during my university life and feel comfortable in pretty much anything. I didn’t program before I went to uni and didn’t develop any particular likes or dislikes towards imperative, object oriented or functional languages. I don’t play games either, only Japanese visual novels and only when I am in the middle of eating.

            I didn’t assume that you are a better writer automatically, my judgement is based on number of people reading your stuff (for me it’s 2, including me) and general writing style of your comments. Gap is evident 😀

            No one will make me change my stance – anyone could do it. You just need to be willing to learn how to draw if you can’t now. I didn’t have any special talent, I have met and known people with gifted hands, mine aren’t like that. But I am stubborn and I really wanted to give life to my characters. And one day, if I live that long, I will also become a decent writer because there is no way I would quit 😀 And if not, who cares, I had my fun haha.

            I wouldn’t be so quick to talk about our similarities or differences – it’s easy to fill the gaps with familiar stuff, isn’t it? You see I never wanted to be important for other people, never wanted guide them or inspire them, damn I don’t even like people. But I am a curious person and I like to learn so I approach them and ask and pester and get to know them and find out that they have dreams they are afraid to work on and I kick their butts and they get angry at me and… Oh well, never mind. People are tricky things.

            And just like you see me as Polaris I can just laugh and shake my head because I am nothing more than a distant moon, reflecting someone else’s shine. But maybe it’s not important if I can lead and be of use to someone.

            Plus I don’t believe in perfect things, at all! If you think you achieved perfection that only means that now you need to expand your horizons~

            I hope I didn’t omit any questions. If so, I am sorry and feel free to ask again. It’s too easy to miss something. Goodnight! 🙂

          • Refugnic

            For some reason the ‘reply’ button vanishes once the comments have reached a certain depth, so I hope you’ll forgive me that I’ll reply here instead of where it’s due.

            No, I’m not testing you, however I go about it the same way you do. Block by block, replying to whatever I can reply to. And as you already correctly noticed, I like to build on what’s there in the exponential fashion. 😛

            PHP and JS, huh? I’m not too big on those, mostly because they’re tied to HTML, which is a design language (I have next to zero artistic vision, which leads to a dire lack of visual detail in my stories.) I mean, I can do HTML…as long as someone tells me what they want it to look like 😀
            So you went to the university to learn programming? I only attended two years of school which taught me the basics and everything else is self-taught (as I came to learn, there was a lot left to learn about the art of programming). I’ve done some C# in the past, but it just wasn’t in demand at my workplace, so whatever little knowledge I had has pretty much withered. Ah well, I’m sure it’d come back if we ever went to Visual Studio for a compiler. 🙂

            Oh, it seems you misunderstood. I do play games. Quite a bit actually, though it has declined quite considerably over the years (having a family leaves little time for anything else :P). I’ve tried a few Visual novels, however they’re not exactly my kinda thing. If I want to read a book, I’ll take a book, I don’t need pictures to go with that (as I said, not a very visual person).

            Well, that’s not necessarily because of the quality of your works, but much rather because of the same reason why the comment section of Replay isn’t as flooded as it is with the ‘popular’ webcomics…most people simply don’t know you exist yet. I’ve been writing for about 12 years now (with gaps) and about my entire ‘following’ is based on the simple fact that I’ve done to them what I’m doing to you right now. Commenting on their stuff, telling them what I think, striking up a conversation. It naturally gets them interested in ‘Who the hell is that guy?’ and they tend to go check out what I’m writing. It doesn’t always work, but it’s still a lot better than the ‘Hit and Run’-mentality I’ve seen happen a lot on dA. (Leave a favorite 3 seconds after the deviation is submitted, move on, repeat and if they come back to thank you for the favorite, they automatically see what you have to offer. Mission accomplished, no effort invested). Sure, my method is slower and a lot more work, but as you correctly noticed, the impact is a lot larger and I get to leave them with a sample of my writing style without them having read a single of my pieces.

            Besides, I don’t think the ‘gap’ isn’t that great. Let’s see, which of my stories does compare to Replay best…I think that would be Anti-Zombie. The living dead (demons in your case) roam the world freely, the survivors huddle together in hopes of seeing another day, nobody knows what the hell happened and there’s a few select ones who have the means to fight against the menace. Yup, sounds about right. That story is full of terrible stereotypes, I made a 2 year gap while writing and came back with a different writing style and even had to change the genre from ‘Horror’ to ‘Fantasy’ somewhere in the middle.
            Now, if you’re still saying the ‘gap is evident’, it may well be, however you might have the positions the wrong way around. 😛

            Good attitude, really. I still don’t believe that you aren’t gifted at all. Sure, with training and practice, I could probably learn to draw somewhat decent, however it would likely take me years to get anywhere near that ‘decent’ and that’s years I’d rather spend on improving what I am gifted for.
            I’m pretty stubborn too, I think you need to be in order to be a programmer, simply because it’s so damn frustrating sometimes. 🙂
            Computers always do exactly, what you tell them…which is not automatically what you want them to do. – One of my personal favorites in programmer’s wisdom. I’ve got a whole stash of those for days like that, but I’ll save them for another occasion for now. 😛
            So yeah, quitting is out of the question. Because giving up is for losers and I’ve fought too hard to lose now or in the future. Knowing me, they’ll have to yank the keyboard from my dead hands one day. 😀
            You’re right, the most important thing is the fun to be had. And if people take notice and tell you what they think, the fun multiplies all the more with the discussion that’s born from it. 🙂

            I like to look at the similarities and differences, simply because everybody has them. Even if two people are vastly different and it appears that they have nothing in common, I like finding that one trait the two of them share, even if it’s just living under the same blue sky. 😉
            Though yes, the differences can easily be overcome, simply by reaching out.

            You shouldn’t have went and made a great webcomic then, because that’s bound to get people to notice you. 😛
            However take solace in the little fact, that I’m not too fond of groups either, mostly because whenever there’s a crowd, I feel out of place.

            Haha, they only get angry because you call them out on their bullshit. Nobody likes to be told that they’re not ‘doing perfectly fine’, even if it’s always true. And you’re right, there’s always that one dream they have on the horizon…but many keep that dream out of their reach on purpose, saying: ‘One day, I’ll travel the world’, but they never do. Simply because if they did, they’d need a new dream. And then another. And it just never ends. So they sit on their lazy butts, staring at that dream on the horizon and keep saying ‘One day, I’ll travel the world’, knowing that they’ll never do…because that’d mean getting a move on and venturing into the unknown. And only few like not knowing what’s going to happen next. I could probably go on about this topic for a good while, but I’ll draw the line here and simply agree: People are tricky and if you don’t kick them into the ass, you’ll get to wait a long time until they do themselves…if ever. 🙂

            Hah, can’t argue with that.

            As I said, objective perfection as such doesn’t exist (so once again I agree with you).

            A little saying for you to take with you in the coming day: ‘The personal horizon is the distance between your head and the board in front of it.’
            Have a good day to come. 🙂

            Ah yes, may I ask, where you’re from? I don’t think you stated that on your profile. I’m from Germany.

          • NotImportant

            I wonder if other commentators are getting scared off… 😀

            Once again from the very end: I am from Poland, so pretty close. I figured out you are from Germany because I have checked your IP hehehe, I’ve got admin superpowers here.

            I suppose there is no reason to dwell on topics such as ‘unreasonableness of human beings’, ‘how important of a virtue patience is for a programmer’ and ‘when can you say you know someone’. We would go on forever and I feel we wouldn’t reach any meaningful conclusion haha 😀 Problem with my writing is very simple – I need an editor for the text to look professional enough. My written English is simply not good enough. All I’ve written is in Polish and it’s without value because to get published in this country you either need to know someone in the publishing company or have a lot of many to print and advertise it yourself or be born under the super lucky star. I am neither so I write for myself for now (Replay doesn’t count, I am talking about books only here).

            In Poland higher education is free and almost everyone goes to university. And at some point I just shrugged and went to learn programming because this was something I didn’t know. And after a year I went for theoretical physics too. Currently a bachelor in theoretical physics and working on my master thesis from computer science.

            Have a great day too 🙂

          • Refugnic

            Well, at the very least you’ve still got me, eh? 😛
            Besides, a long and avid discussion is a good thing. It gets people thinking and maybe to add their two cents to it…well, probably not for the things we’ve come to stray to, but it at least it garnered one more commentator to chime in, am I right? 🙂

            Heh, I kinda figured you were from the European region, because of the small time difference apparent from the time you replied and of course the ‘good night’ from your last reply was a dead giveaway. 😛
            See, you don’t even need to check the IP to see where someone is from. Pesky logic is all it takes. 😀

            No, there really isn’t. Those are some of the philosophical topics I mentioned earlier, questions one won’t find a good answer for, even if they looked for all their lives. Though I will say that patience isn’t as important for a programmer in this day and age any more (it once was, but thankfully you don’t have to wait 3 days for the computer to finish compiling your program any more :D). However I believe that persistence is a key virtue to have…the ability to not just give up once you hit a roadblock. At least in my opinion that is. 🙂

            It’s the same here with the publishing industry:
            a) Know someone
            b) Be so damn good that you don’t actually need a publisher but can sell your stuff in droves by yourself.
            c) Be known by someone important (i.e. famous)
            d) Have enough cash to pay a publisher to publish you.

            Obviously, ‘d’ is the wrong way to go, ‘b’…let’s face it, barely anyone is that good, ‘c’…I’d rather never be published than be published just because people know my name. And a…well, you know how THAT is.

            Besides, I’m not a professional either, except that I’ve been selling a few books (I think a total of 20, go me! :XD:). I used a book on demand service to make the books and then went out and sold them for fairly cheap. I think I made 100 € from the sales (that’s my margin, not the total money that moved around), but it’s a start.

            Your English seems to be ‘professional’ enough to me. At the very least it’s on a very solid conversation level, which is more than many can claim and, again in my opinion, enough to write a book in that language. (I know I sure did :P). Whether anyone will actually purchase/read it is on another page, but unless you try it, how will you ever know if you might not succeed?

            Heh…I most certainly didn’t know that (over here, higher education is quite costly and also quite brutal to say the least.)
            You know, you do sound like some sort of Genius, despite you saying otherwise. Because those are incredibly difficult topics as far as I know.

            Either that or your university is easier than it is with us or your schools are better at teaching difficult stuff than ours are or people are generally smarter where you are, than they are here. Which will it be?

          • NotImportant

            I have written a long reply but stupid WordPress erased it, I hate doing same things twice, ugh =_=

            Can’t really compare anything about university, education and teachers since I have studied only in Poland and don’t know that many people from other countries. But from what I’ve heard the one I have attended was/is on a competitive level with the ones in the rest of Europe and it was not easy for me. It was nerve wracking, damaging experience to do my best on both courses and keep two scholarships. I was told many times that I have problems accepting that I’m smart but impostor syndrome is fairly popular among intelligent females so here you have it. My teachers were many and of different kinds, don’t think it had an impact… I just really wanted to know so I studied.

            About my own writing – I will probably sit and translate something to English when I am less busy and just pay some editor to clean it up. Then publish it in the net. If it ever reaches paper it will be just because I have printed a copy for my own satisfaction. Your aspirations reach further than mine on that field, good luck, it’s way easier to create a mildly popular webcomic than produce a selling book.

            And your pesky logic is flawed~ Knowing you are from Germany I could have said ‘goodnight’ to you, without any relation to my own timezone. And quick replies are irrelevant, US was after work too, mostly 😉

          • Refugnic

            Hah, I know that all too well from dA. Which is why I’ve made it a habit to press CTRL-A followed by CTRL-C and only THEN hit ‘Submit’…that way, if the website decides to be an asshole, you’ve still got it sitting in your clipboard, ready to try again. I don’t even want to know how often that saved me from a nervous breakdown (especially since I don’t write my online chapters in a offline editor, but in an editor window right there on dA. Without that little habit, I might have lost countless chapters already, though it really got better as of late.

            Yeah, that sounds like university life around here too. I mean, I wouldn’t know, I only attended a single day visiting my (now) wife, who (fortunately) was smart enough to hit the brakes after the first semester and instead do the sane thing and go down a different job route. Sure, the pay isn’t the same, but that’s like 5-7 years you’re earning money earlier than if you’re going down the academic route. Plus, you’re spared from the nervous breakdown.

            On that note, do you have any idea, how rare female programmers are? In my course, there was one among 30 students. To be noted, that job training was easy compared to what I had to go through the following two years and still some failed, but that’s beside the point. Impostor syndrome, eh? Just looked it up, quite honestly I thought it meant the exact opposite (as in: The person affected chronically claims to be more intelligent/capable/qualified than they actually are, because that’s what an impostor is for me. Someone who pretends to more than he is.).

            But back to topic…ever since my training days, I have never seen a female programmer again. Agreed, I don’t get out all that much and I know that they have to be out there somewhere, but this particular way of thinking programmers tend to have is far more dominant amongst males than it is among females.
            Glad to finally meet one. 😀

            Well, it would appear that you really are a genius then. I mean, I know that I’m smarter than the average population (or so I’m told), but I know for a fact that I wouldn’t survive studying informatics full scale…that’s because I have one huge flaw in my personality.
            If I’m not interested, I don’t care. Ruined school for me, ruined society for me, left me with music, programming and writing. Lovely, eh?

            I do support that notion, however I do oppose to the idea of having an ‘editor clean it up’. Because as soon as someone else starts messing with your stuff, it’s not your stuff any more. Sure, you can ask for suggestions and ideas and I really recommend doing so (including the audience makes writing all the more fun, believe me ;)…oh wait, you know that already :P), but ultimately the decision what to put in and what not needs to remain yours.

            Now if you are to go to a publisher, going through a professional editor may be a good idea, but for the net, where you’re offering people your story for free, whatever you write is good enough…and I know for a fact that it’ll be better than at least 60 % of what else is floating around, if not more. Our conversation alone has taught me that much about you and your writing capabilities.

            Don’t stop with your ‘own satisfaction’ though. If you can’t find a publisher, register for a free PrintOnDemand service (I’m with http://www.lulu.com, btw.) and tell your friends and colleagues about it. Show them what you made and ask them if they wouldn’t like to read it. What’s the worst that can happen? Them saying ‘No’? Just ask the next person and I’m sure you’ll find a few people who’ll be willing to invest some time into your stories…into you. And the best of all: You don’t even have to translate anything for that, since you can get it printed in whatever language you want. 🙂

            My latest milestone has been 2 months ago or something…when someone I didn’t know personally bought one of my books from Lulu (and loved it from the feedback I received via dA). Sure, it was only one sale and you certainly can’t call that ‘selling’, but for me it was a major milestone and who knows…maybe the next book (which I’m writing in German due to the higher factual audience who would care enough to buy a book) can be considered ‘selling’, even if it’s just small scale.

            I’ll have to agree and differ at the same time though…it is easier to become mildly popular with a well made webcomic than it is with any amount of good books. 😀
            Making them on the other hand I deem about the same difficulty, completely depending on the personal skills and experiences.

            As a matter of fact you could have, yes. However that would have implied that you purposefully checked ‘Where the heck is that guy coming from’, then looked up the timezone I live in and chosen the correct greeting…all on purpose. Experience shows, that people don’t go to such lengths for a greeting but simply throw out whatever applies to them. 😛

            After work yes, however acquaintances show, that most people have other things to do than surfing the net just ‘after work’. Most people I’ve met on dA and stuff accessed FROM work or school or during the evening hours when everything else was taken care of.

            Oh, just in case you haven’t noticed, one of my key traits is the ability to weasel myself out of almost any contradiction I may maneuver myself into. Good ability to have while writing. 😀

          • NotImportant

            I’ll be brief because today was too short and I’m way behind the schedule, sadly…

            I do realize that being female programmer is rare. There were some girls among 200 people who started studying with me, it was worse on the physics course when I was the only one most of the time. I also know how it’s like to be doubted all the time because everyone thinks that girls can’t be good programmers and they just copy everything from their male friends. Maybe some girls do that, I wouldn’t know.

            With writing I am mostly focused on selling the story, not words (I don’t like my writing style if there even is any) so editor sounds good to me. It’s not like I need to accept every change, right? And print on demand sounds good, I’ll probably try it out once I will be ready to come back to that project, thanks 😀

            And I am not going to argue with a weasel then haha

          • JW

            I wonder if other commentators are getting scared off… 😀

            It is a bit intimidating. And a bit hard to follow sometimes, with the block-by-block responses where I need to scroll up a few pages to see what is being replied to 😛
            It’s interesting to learn a bit more about the people here though.

          • NotImportant

            Believe me I am also scared of what is going on here haha, but higher number of comments makes me happy (I will let myself forget that half of those is mine….). It’s also great to get to know all those people who come here to read the comic. If it’s possible to get to know each other through comments, that is.

          • Refugnic

            How peculiar for someone else to join the conversation in this depth, this comic really attracts the most interesting people as it seems. 😛
            Welcome to the depths, JW, please enjoy your stay. I’d offer you cookies, but I’m afraid that dark side took them. 😛

            Tell me about it, NI…in one of my chapters I had about a 100 comments, of which 50 were mine…so yeah, I know how you feel with that 😉
            Still it’s a good feeling to see that people are actually interested in both the comic as well as you as a person, wouldn’t you agree?

            ‘Female programmers can’t do it right, so they copy’? I beg your pardon, but who told you this load of bull? That’s like saying that men can’t be good with children. (Okay, most men aren’t, but those rarely have aspirations to become kindergärtners (damn, that looks so weird in English) or something the likes, do they?). No really, maybe there are some girls who weasel themselves through, however I’ll just bet that there are guys like that too…and if they are, they’ll fail as soon as there is nobody left around them to ‘steal’ from. That said, I don’t see why ‘building atop what others did’ (which is essentially copying) is wrong.
            Imagine that everyone kept their programming to themselves. There wouldn’t be libraries like ZLib, there would be no Linux, the ‘Open-Source’-movement with its vast array of tools wouldn’t exist. It all only becomes possible, because programmers do share their work voluntarily.

            I know that’s not how you meant it, but if you were to be strict about ‘copying’, you wouldn’t be allowed to use anything that’s not yours, would you?

            Everybody has a writing style of their own. It is constantly developed each time you write and sometimes it even changes radically in the course of a single story (which of course needs to be cleaned up to a more homogeneous style if you are to actually sell it :P).
            So don’t say you ‘don’t have a writing style’. It may be undeveloped, but it’s still there, waiting for you to pick it up and refine it, just like you’ve done with your drawing skills.

            Regarding the POD, you’re welcome, I’m always happy to help someone out.

            I’m not a weasel (too little hair :P), I’m just good at weaseling. Big difference. 😛

            Now for a final note, to commemorate this lovely little conversation we’re spamming the comment section with, I have a little gift for you…or much rather, I will have.
            You see, I am fond enough of my writing to offer commissions for a low charge (even sold two of them, both were well received). And because I like you and your work, you’re getting one for free.

            So name the characters you’d like to appear in it and maybe give me a few directives about what you’d like to happen in it and once I’m done, I’ll post the link to it in a reply. 🙂

          • NotImportant

            I have replied about copying to JW’s comment, I hope that’s okay. Two words about female programmers: I know perfectly well that girls can do most things guys can, I met some brilliant ones too, but the issue is a bit different… All students cheat, that’s a given, and all teachers try to prevent them from doing so. But when you have a course with 190 guys and 10 girls, those girls will have it way easier. Because all those poor guys who spend days in front of their screens, they all want to ask one of those 10 girls out for a coffee. You get my point 😉 Teachers were naturally weary. But on the lighter note all who doubted my skills later apologized and congratulated me, I don’t feel bitter at all. But it was a hard burden to bear while I was still studying.

            Very grateful about the to-be-commission, but you know… I think what I would like the most is fanfic for Replay later on, when everyone knows characters a bit better. I would make a fanart/fanfic section where you could post a short introduction too, damn if I like it enough I will even make illustration for your story. I think it would give you more exposure and readers and that’s mostly what you are after, correct? Nah, you will just weasel your way out of it, I have a feeling like that. Anyhow – it will be an honor if you ever write anything with Replay’s characters.

            And damn it’s getting harder to answer everyone, too many comments! ʕノ•ᴥ•ʔノ ︵ ┻━┻

          • JW

            Personally (as yet-another-programmer), I think copying is probably one of the best skills a programmer has — provided he/she copies things that are worth copying. Ideally you should only ever program new things or better things, not existing things, because the latter is a waste of time and effort. In practice integrating someone else’s work has it’s own costs, so sometimes it’s easier to reinvent the wheel in an ever so slightly differently wobbling shape.

          • NotImportant

            Well it’s very cool to be able to use different sources and build things faster but just think about this: those are computer science students, they are learning, they don’t know much. If they copy everything, how are they to develop their own style? How will they learn how to INVENT new algorithms when stackoverflow doesn’t know the solution? They won’t be worth much if they don’t even understand what their code does. You need to learn on things that exist, but there is no learning in ctrl+c and ctrl+v.

          • JW

            All students cheat, that’s a given

            I didn’t. And probably not even just because I didn’t need to. I’d feel bad for days if I did that.

            And damn it’s getting harder to answer everyone, too many comments! ʕノ•ᴥ•ʔノ ︵ ┻━┻

            Muahaha! Suffer the burden of popularity!

            How will they learn how to INVENT new algorithms when stackoverflow doesn’t know the solution?

            Blasphemy! Stackoverflow knows ALL! 😉
            Yeah, you’re right. After all, they need to be able to judge what’s worth copying. There’s plenty of code floating around that’s awful — whether it has awful performance or is full of security holes or makes stackoverflow moderators cry and/or gauge their eyes out. In that sense copying should be taught as an advanced skill, after you’ve got all the basics down. Not too different in some respects from how people need to learn to read, judge and cite research papers.

          • Refugnic

            3 programmers come together in the comment section of a webcomic…I’m sure there’s a joke to be cracked here, though I’m really not sure what that would sound like. Though I did notice, that webcomics (especially the more advanced ones) tend to attract a more intelligent clientèle…why that is, I don’t know, but I’d sure love to hear a mathematicians (or a statisticians) opinion on the chances that 3 people with the same kinda job come together at something, that’s completely unrelated to their job like this. 😀

            I’ll start with your last one NI.
            You make a valid point, however we were talking about ‘programming in the real world’. That’s a major flaw in school systems all around the world in my opinion…that ‘every person for themselves’-mentality. In reality, you need to be able to work in a team and be able to utilize whatever you can in order to get the job done. Nobody cares whether you’ve copied the code from a hundred sources and just pieced them together (which also takes skill, mind you) or if you’ve carefully crafted it yourself. The latter just takes longer and that’s what employers see (and don’t like).

            However I do agree, it’s important that programmers have a good understanding of what the code they’re using does…okay, I’ll admit whenever I utilize cryptographic functions (md5, sha-1, CRC), I’d be lying if I claimed that I understood how exactly it works, but I know how to use it and that’s good enough for me. Does that make me a bad programmer? Or a smart one?

            @JW Fully agreed. Just recently I reimplemented the ZIP standard. Sure, it’s been done before, but I needed it to run fast and with little overhead and just for appending files, so I left out all the extraction functions and only used what was necessary. Sure I would’ve used a ready-made library, but the only thing I could find was the ‘minizip’-example from the ZLib-Library (which was indispensable for this particular endeavor) and as NI correctly stated: If you don’t understand it, don’t use it, which leads me to the other reason why I made it myself: I didn’t want a cluttered implementation in C, which might’ve required me to jump through 20 hoops to maybe get what I want and instead of sorting through all of the code, I just took what I needed and got it to work (quite well at that).

            @NI Yes, that is okay and just why wouldn’t it? I mean, it’s not like I can’t read it there all the same.
            No, not all students cheat. Only those who have reason to do. I for one had no reason to, that’s just how easy my course was 😛
            Haha, yeah I know what you mean. However that still doesn’t mean that the girls need to take advantage of that. Though I know what you mean, the general impression is, that the girl in question just needs to look nice at the poor boy and he’ll do whatever homework/assignment she wants him do for her.

            However that won’t help her in tests, where everyone needs to do the same work at the same time in a limited timeframe. She can’t ask anyone for help…and that’s when this kinda behavior will come back to bite her. Because, as you already correctly stated: If someone else does the work for you, you don’t learn anything. And in a test of knowledge, that becomes apparent pretty damn fast.

            Why would you be bitter? After all, it was the hour of your triumph. Victory tastes all the sweeter, if it was hard earned after all. Though I think I know what you mean…I was in the completely opposite corner. My talent for this kinda stuff was apparent from pretty much Day 1 and even though I’m a bit of an odd duck, I was one of the guys the others came to when they didn’t understand something or wanted to know something that wasn’t on the curriculum. It was really interesting and I really enjoyed that, also because I’m not a fan of that ‘Every man for himself’. It wasn’t a competition after all and I took it as a good opportunity to repeat what I had learned myself.

            I won’t lie, I’m always looking for more readers/exposure, that’s right, but that still doesn’t mean that I write fanfics for just about anything, which is mostly because I suck at fanfics in general. (I tried with ‘Wildelife’ and it turned out next to horrible XD).
            I mean, sure, I could write fanfics about popular things and ride the hype train to get more attention. I might even be able to pull it off. But that wouldn’t be me, know what I mean? I only write fanfics for things that inspire me to do so.

            And yours does, so you’re still getting one, I’m just offering you the chance to decide what it’s going to be about. 😛

            That would be a great honor for me, to say the least. I’ve only gotten one illustration for one of my stories so far and that was as part of an art trade. 🙂
            I think I already have a pretty good idea what I should write about…one of the key question marks of the story so far…I wonder what’ll be done first, the fanfic or the next page. 😛

            Haha, that’s what it feels like to be popular, deal with it. 😉
            No really, I’m grateful that you’re being so active about replying to our messages, otherwise this wouldn’t be close as much fun. 🙂

          • NotImportant

            @JW and @Refugnic – I shall wrap up programming topic and fix things that led to small misunderstandings. Being a programmer is inventing new solutions, using foreign code and teamwork as well. University, at least mine, aims to prepare student for all those tasks. In some it is completely fine to use available solutions, build on top of someone else’s code or modify it for our needs. There are group projects too and if someone is a lazy butt he is a lazy butt and it’s up to the team if they want to cover for him/her. But there are also tasks that shouldn’t be copied as they are meant to teach how to build from nothing and understand algorithms. All aspects covered. And of course it was an unfair exaggeration to say that all students cheat, I didn’t cheat either – would be a waste to spend 5 years studying without learning anything.

            @Refugnic – Ha! I am not making it easy for you, oh no 😀 If you want to write something, do it, but if you can’t come up with a decent idea with my characters, oh well, thank you for trying I guess huehuehue… I think there is no point if you need ME to state what I want you to write about. After all I will include all of my own ideas in the comic. But it could have been interesting to see what you can come up with. But please don’t be hasty! Write if idea comes~ And for now you can just add links to your writings here in comments, if you like, I believe others would be interested to see them too.

          • Refugnic

            Eh, I don’t think being a programmer is about inventing new solutions, but much rather ‘finding solutions for problems’. Whether you need to make them yourself or if you can take/adapt a premade solution is completely irrelevant. But yes, I see what you mean.
            And I think all three of us agree: Those who cheat only cheat themselves in the long run. But then again, there are ample of things you learn, you’ll never need again in your work life and by the time you eventually may need it again, you’ll have to study it from the get go anyway, because it had been too long already. 😀

            I was offering you the option to make a decision, you turned it down, I started writing anyway (about half of it is done already. :P)
            Besides, as I already stated: There’s a ton of ideas sitting in my head…the most problematic issue about my writing is picking the one that’s the most worthwhile to pursue. 😀
            So once again, I never said I ‘needed’ you to know what to write about. I was just giving you an option to influence what it’s going to be about. 😉
            Whether you’ll still think it interesting after you read it remains to be seen (Quod erat demonstrandum after all, eh?).
            Regarding the hasty…you know, I wouldn’t have offered the commission if I wouldn’t have had an idea in my head already. ;P

            Eh, honestly? I always thought that self-advertising was frowned upon in forums (and the comment section basically is one).
            However in the sense of humor, allow me to share a little something with you: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Refugnic+Eternium
            Really, it’s that simple. 😛

            Thanks for taking interest in my work.

          • NotImportant

            I think that part got eaten by WordPress previously, since there is nowhere to be found and I remember writing it but: I have made the search already, few days ago, and found your Deviantart and your lulu 😛 And normally I would remove links to random things but I think you have earned a comment section advertisement at this point haha. It’s not much anyway~

            And surprise here, I didn’t think you have already started! I wonder what was your idea… Should I be worried? 😀

          • Refugnic

            I kinda figured you made the search already and seeing how I am still apparently the only bastard in the whole wide internet who ever got the idea of calling himself ‘Refugnic’ (the surname is just a bonus), it’s pretty easy to find me. Which is why I decided to take the humorous route about it. 🙂

            Now, now, this isn’t random, after all I have been asked! 😀
            And yeah, the chances of anyone except for the three of us finding this are beyond slim. I’m still grateful.
            And I also hope that you’ll find some entertainment with what I wrote so far. 🙂

            Well, I’m not very good with Fanfics, so you might have a little reason to be worried, however I don’t think you have that much reason to. I’m not going to butcher any of your characters…I hope. 😀

  3. Refugnic Reply

    Oh, and here’s a little something I forgot…you know, I’m pretty jealous of you.

    I’ve read through the ‘About’ page and was like, ‘Damn, that person is like me and yet so much better.’

    Allow me to introduce myself (I rarely comment on webcomics and this will be the first time I actually introduce myself to the creator, that’s just how good this one is. ;))

    My ‘net persona’ is Refugnic Eternium. Just like you, I’m a programmer (specializing in C++, dabbling in PHP, Java and Objective-C and really whatever needs programming), philosopher when my thoughts are allowed to run free (not like they ask for my permission, mind you :P) and for hobbies I do writing and music (playing the trumpet and singing).
    So you see, we are very similar in both having the same kinda job, in ‘thinking about stuff which isn’t going to pay our bills, but is still too interesting to pass up’, in doing art (I can’t draw for the life of me though, but I sure can type! :P) and finally we both are making music.

    I’m really glad that you worked up the courage to do this and I thank spirits of Chance that lead me here a few weeks ago, otherwise we never might’ve met. 😉

    Well then…pleased to meet you. 🙂

    Keep up the good work. Thanks.

    • NotImportant Reply

      There is one very different thing about us – I certainly wouldn’t feel jealous of someone just because she/he drew ~50 pages of comic and threw it into the web, anyone could do that! Apart from that there is nothing in your introduction or on my ‘About’ thing that should make you feel inferior, or I simply fail to notice it. Thank you for your kind words, I am pleased to meet you too and I wish you a lot of courage, life is mostly about doing stuff you want to do after all.
      P.S. I think you just won the ‘longest-comment-ever’ award, congrats! (╯°□°)╯

      • JW Reply

        I very definitely could not draw 50 pages of comics and throw them on the net. I can’t even draw a proper stick-figure. (Though, admittedly, I may be a wee bit biased by people who draw friggin’ awesome stick-figure comics.)

        Honestly, I wish I could draw half as well as you, but alas I’m too lazy to put in the effort to become that good, or half as good… or 10% as good.. or any good. I suppose it’s a lot like how I wish I could understand Japanese, but I’m too lazy to work through a textbook to learning it (even though I have bought one, and did get to chapter two. But now it’s been collecting dust on a shelf for several years.) There’s just a big difference between wishing for something and putting the effort into realizing it.

        So maybe if I had put as much effort and time into drawing during my life as you probably have, and was willing to put as much love, time and effort into a page as you clearly do, then maybe I could have drawn 50 awesome pages and put them on the web. But I haven’t. So therefore I get to be a bit jealous that you have. And you get to be slightly uncomfortable about people expressing their jealousy 😛
        (But you don’t have to worry that I feel inferior — other than in this area — I’m sure I have my own talents.)

        • NotImportant Reply

          10 points for you JW, I DO feel uncomfortable about people expressing their jealousy towards me 😛 And you are right about the difference between wishing for something and turning the dream into reality. But I am an ignorant fool who is willing to try out all her crazy ideas and make the impossible happen because why the hell not. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but I have no regrets, there is nothing better to do than try and make your dreams come true (wow it even rhymes).

          But all in all I will still run about and tell people that they can do this too, hell, I will even help them and lead the way, beat the monsters and everything. Just to see spark in their eyes when they realize they can be epic if they only try.

          And for Japanese – nothing is better than playing games! I tend to play visual novels in original, it’s fairly easy to set up translating soft around them.

          Above everything else – thank you! For reading, staying here and reaching out 🙂

  6. OptimismToInsanity Reply

    I’m sure she’s safe and sound.
    Please just ignore the never ending screams of the dying as demons tear them limb from limb.
    It’s fine, I’m sure.

  7. Insomniac Reply

    Holy Crom it’s already been a week since the last update? Where does the time go.

  9. anoymous Reply

    There is a free series called comics with krita to help you get started

  10. Refugnic Reply

    Alright, I’m done with the fan fiction. It’s not my best work, but I think it turned out alright.
    May I ask how much FF you’ve received already?

    Oh and you know, you could already put Laura’s name on the cast page.
    I mean, ‘Miss Ponytails’ is a very descriptive way to talk about a shadow. 😀

    Either way, you may find it here: http://fav.me/d92luwn
    Please look at it at your own leisure.
    Thanks for inspiring me. 😉

    • NotImportant Reply

      It’s really cool! I love it! \(-ㅂ-)/ ♥ ♥ ♥
      I didn’t expect you to deliver THIS fast and didn’t expect it to be this entertaining haha, I’ve never received a fanfic before (why would I?) so I had no idea how will I react. Great job, I shall create a fanart/fanfic section, hopefully this weekend.
      Thank you so much!

      • Refugnic Reply

        You are most welcome.

        I enjoyed working on it, though I did meet with a few roadblocks along the way (mainly people needing something from me, that really tends to break concentration…disadvantage of writing during your lunch break, you are at your workplace and people automatically assume that you are available).

        I’m really glad you liked it and who knows, if you keep it up, I may have another one for you before long.
        As you may have noticed, when doing fanart, I specialize on things not told in the story itself (giving them a different spin), but much rather incorporate ideas about a possible background. Much more fun that way and also way more freedom for interpretation. 😉

        And I think you’ll receive plenty more when more people find Replay, I’m sure of it. I mean you’re already on rank 8 at TWC, that’s pretty amazing by itself for a webcomic that’s as young as yours.

        So yeah…thanks again for reading. 🙂

        • NotImportant Reply

          It will be a looong while before I will show Adam’s real story so it will be fun to see people speculate about why and how it happened 😀 Great idea and I loved the diary layout, especially since second volume of Replay was supposed to be called… Diaries of Adam Levicky xD So you can imagine how funny it was for me to read something like this!

          We’ll see how many fanarts and fanfics I’ll receive, I don’t want to wait and then get sad and disappointed. We’ll see! I am very happy right now anyway 😀 Never ending thankyous.

          • Refugnic

            Which is exactly why I chose him as the protagonist of the fanfiction. Canon won’t tell people that I’m wrong for a long time to come. 🙂
            Furthermore I like writing about the characters that aren’t explored fully, for the simple reason that I have more freedom writing about them.

            Hah, really? I could’ve written a novel from the idea itself, but I decided to do the diary layout, because it allows to tell a complete story in fragments. All the important things are in there without all that ‘life stuff’ obfuscating it. It also allows bridging greater time spans believably.

            But honestly, what are the chances, eh? However I do get why’d Faust would keep a diary…if you end the world, you’re not likely to have that many friends to confide in left. And, from personal experience I know, that bottling up everything without anyone or anything to confide in can be quite a burden to bear..

            Yeah, we’ll see, though I really don’t think that this one will be the only one. Maybe they won’t come in droves, but one every blue moon is at the very least more than 90 % of the other artists in the world are getting. 😀

            Glad to hear it. And once again, you’re very welcome. 🙂

      • Refugnic Reply

        Why thank you. I’m very glad you liked it. 🙂

        And yeah, it kinda seemed fitting for the occasion. 😉

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