About Grenn and Asia
The System
Grenn and Asia is based upon the world introduced in WhiteWolf's tabletop RPG "Werewolf: The Apocalypse." I myself own many of the books for this RPG, both the core rulebooks and multiple expansions. It shows a gritty, real world where while we carry on our normal lives, supernatural wars are being fought on every streetcorner. But there is some joy and wonder to it too, and that's what I decided to try to bring alive when I started my comic.
Early Beginnings
The creation of the characters happened without comic roles in mind. I created Asia by-the-book for a WhiteWolf story I wrote called "The Fine Art of Pranking the Wyrm." She was such an addictive, quirky, happy character I decided to keep her, and after a while she stayed on in my mental menagarie.
Grenn's creation happened much later, after my mate Will's introduction to the WhiteWolf systems. Grenn was created on impulse, and wasn't really meant to be introduced to Asia at any time. However, in one of our conversations, we wondered what it would be like for the two to meet, and Will concluded that Grenn would probably adopt Asia as a younger sister. The idea of this relationship--the mature garou and the hyperactive nuwisha--spawned a number of one-panel comics, at first on lined notebook paper, then gradually swapping over to clean drawing paper. Eventually I grew tired of the one-panel format, and decided to start including plot. Grenn and Asia was born.
Random Wanderings
Deciding how to open the comic was easy enough: recap the story that I had written that included Asia, therefore setting the stage to continue past that. Deciding how to introduce Grenn was a bit harder, but made easy by the fact that he was a Bone Gnawer, and that's often who Asia hangs out with. The introduction of Shamira, Grenn's truck, was pretty much inevitable. That's one HELL of a fetish, and Will spent a lot of points getting it onto his character sheet by the rules. I've never really drawn trucks before, so I had to learn.
I have six or seven stories planned out for Grenn and Asia planned out, so needless to say this comic is going to be around a while. Relax everyone.
Technicalities
Why Angelfire? Nothing better available. I'm familiar with how to use the system, as I've been here three or four years, and it's almost always up, which is more then you can say about Keenspace (which is down at least once a week). Angelfire's also free, which makes up for the large addresses, almost.
Why once a week? I don't personally own a scanner, so I have to use a scanner at my college, and I don't have the time to get stuff scanned very often, so it makes sense to scan and post everything at once. I'm happy with how it's turning out, if I ever get a scanner, I'll update more often. In the mean time, we're stuck with this for now.
How It's Done
Grenn and Asia is hand drawn, inked, and colored, using no fancy materials at all. I use colored pencils when color is done, basic spiral-bound sketchpads, and mechanical pencils. The only thing I use that's expensive is the pen I use for inking, which costs like five bucks alone, and two bucks for refills.
Once I've drawn a strip, I scan it in on the computer, resize it in Photoshop so it's a manageable size (both as far as viewing and file size), clean up any ink-smears and other boo-boos, and upload to Angelfire. All done.
Here's to more insanity for many years to come.
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