Ask Novil questions about Sandra and Woo
└ posted on Monday, 4 May 2015, by Novil
Last year, I posted a news entry which I asked our readers to ask me general questions about Gaia. It was a pretty popular format with lots of questions being asked, so I decided to also give it a try regarding Sandra and Woo.
Do you have any questions about Sandra and Woo? Then add them to the comment section of this post. I will try to answer all questions which I don’t consider to be spoilers for the future story arcs.
Will you offer Sandra and Woo merchandise in the future? Perhaps a Woo plush, graphic novel, or animated strips?
Milestailsfox7 wrote:
We tried to sell merchandise twice, mainly t-shirts. That was not very successful, especially the second try failed hard. I don’t think we’ll ever try again to sell “standard” merchandise. That just doesn’t seem to be something our readers are interested in. But I think you could say that the adventure game in development is also some kind of “merchandise”. And I hope that it will sell a lot better than our shirts. There’s also the possibility that we’ll sell a book collection at some point, but that is also a lot of work and I think the time is better spent on the comic or rewards for our Patreon patrons.
I gotcha sounds good. Sorry about the t-shirts, I wish I would’ve seen them I would have bought one. Well I look forward to great comics anyway… If a graphic novel comes out I would love to buy a copy! Thanks for the super fast reply!
do you plan on ever ending Sandra and woo? and if so do you have any ideas for another comic.
mr skwid wrote:
At the moment I have no intention of ending Sandra and Woo. That said, it’s not as easy to come up with new ideas as it was at the start.
I had some ideas for the last story arc, but it doesn’t fit anymore and I’ll have to come up with something else instead.
mr skwid wrote:
Yes, I have some ideas for another comic. But it will be a comic with a continuous plot like Gaia. It will feature anthropomorphic animals (foxes, raccoons, wolves) and humans in a medieval ice world. I will definitely not do another humor comic.
If you could go back and rewrite only one story arc, which one would it be?
Is it even possible to make Sandra an woo better?
Otherwise quicker updates on the comic would be nice 🙂
DestinyofAwe wrote:
I would not write the “Hit-Boy” story arc again, starting at http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2010/07/01/0178-hit-boy/
And I would rewrite single strips of a few story arcs, for example I’d exchange http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2013/11/21/0530-the-special-one-football-manager/ with something else.
But I would not rewrite large parts of a single story arc.
Will Richard ever find out that Woo can talk? How about Cloud? Also, if Woo has a much higher intelligence quotient than most raccoons, has this mutation/thingy affected him physically in any way?
Will Larisa’s secret be brought into light at some point in the near future?
Can you make an animated episode for sandra and woo? You don’t have to make it yourself
is woo talking a separate animal language with the other animals that he interacts with or are all the animals in the forest actually talking the local human specific language?
Will we ever find out how Woo learned to talk?
Hey there! Longtime reader here, I love the strip!
So, my Q is about the comic itself… How much do you tailor the strips/storylines for your audience? Is there a specific audience to speak of? S&W is pretty much kid-friendly, but sometimes the stories/jokes go to unusual places. Do you yourself consider it a kids’ strip (if so, what age group?), or something different? (I’m a 38-year old father of two, btw)
What is your favorite webcomic (other than Sandra and woo and Gaia)
Also, what gave you inspiration for woo’s personality? And what personality type would you say woo has
Larisa is painted as way into enjoying her sexuality well ahead of any of her peers, without any of the negative associations that American culture usually inflicts. Would the character manage to be free of those connotations if she weren’t also physically dangerous (pyromania, restraining orders) lending a tomboyishness to the character and paired with a clearly less head strong partner? Would this be a bigger issue if Larisa was limited just to the artistic talent and opportunistic sides? And finally, does one trait require the higher number of specific traits, as Sandra is more generic everygirl rather than this, this and that hedged with these particular things?
Dragon wrote:
I currently have no plans for that.
Woo doesn’t make the impression to be much more intelligent than the other animals shown in Sandra and Woo.
Gram91 wrote:
I wanted to publish a strip about it several weeks ago, but the dialog just didn’t work although I worked for hours on it.
secretqwerty10 wrote:
I’m not sure if that’s the right format for Sandra and Woo. Animation is also extremely expensive.
jacky wrote:
Yes.
Bob Schlacter wrote:
Only if Seeoahtlahmakaskay tells us.
Yarner wrote:
I use all ideas that I personally find funny and where a major or minor character exists that can appear in the strip. I believe that Sandra and Woo is appropriate for all children who are at least 12 years old.
Crazy Ginger wrote:
The inactive “Edmund Finney’s Quest to Find the Meaning of Life”: http://eqcomics.com
Crazy Ginger wrote:
Woo has several character traits of a real raccoon. He’s also similar to other famous raccoon characters like Sly Cooper and Bert Raccoon.
Kirbilius Clausius wrote:
I don’t really understand your questions. Larisa is probably the most extreme character in the comic which makes her particularly funny. However, you need more down-to-earth characters like Sandra to balance that out. Otherwise your comic becomes totally wacky.
@ Novil:
Personally i found the oroiginal José Mourinho joke quite funny. Most strips have some jokes that only work with a small number of people, although apt again as he took Chelsea to another league title losing 2 games this season with 3 games to go. However making a strip to appeal to the lowest common denominator is probably worse. There are always going to be strips that people from one country, age group or even culture will understand and will need to be explained to everyone else (lots of American webstrips, Japanese manag, etc).
I suppose I should ask a question now, are you ever going to do a story arc on Ye Thuza Williams backstory?
Is the group still going to explore that bottomless pit that soccer ball/ football went into at some point? I always really enjoy the “adventure”-oriented arcs.
Are you ever going to explain/address how Richard and Melody went from bitter rivals to dating?
I hope you don’t mind walls of text. Sorry!
I have two questions about Larisa. She’s easily my favorite human character; I love her in-your-face free spirit.
First, I realized that we [or just me, maybe I missed something while going through the comic] don’t know why she is the way she is, and considering what a unique personality and worldview she has that no one else seems to share, that’s a big question mark waiting to be unveiled. Do you have any plans maybe to build some more backstory for her, like you have with the other characters?
The second question is not so much my concern as it is an idea about what other people think. This was brought to the forefront of my mind when I saw her restraining order map. I don’t read comments much, but I can imagine there are people who disagree as to how Larisa is portrayed. Moral Guardians aside, some people might have their sensibilities crossed even if they think of themselves as very Liberal. They might not care who Larisa kisses or whether she shows respect to her elders, but they might be concerned about her pyromania and her unpredictability. They might even be concerned about all of these things, but in a rational way [eg. being concerned, but not alarmed over the consequences of the behavior]. Often I see unanswered questions as to what she might do, rather than her own actions being the main source of this. While jumping to conclusions about what else she might do if she has these certain attitudes commits the slippery slope fallacy, I can still see questions all over the place about whether this bad thing could happen or that bad thing could happen due to what we’ve seen her do. However, I believe that changing how Larisa acts would be a great injury to her character. After all, this is a humor comic, and as you said above, the other characters are more down-to-earth, while Larisa has her head in the clouds. Still, in a comic like this, Larisa is far from a joke. We don’t just laugh at her, we laugh with her, too. We’ve grown very fond of her as a person.
My question is, do you think it’s better to [A] continue leaving the issues in the background, giving the humor more of an edge from the ambiguity while missing an opportunity to make Larissa more three-dimensional, or [B] address them, bringing the issues forward to show the negative consequences or lack thereof, and using that to flesh out Larisa’s character, while risking softening the blows of some of your jokes? Are there subjects in the [A] category might move over to [B] in the future?
For me, on of the best parts of the strip is the interactions between Sandra, Cloud, Larissa, and Landon-not only as a group of friends but as a pair of couples as well.
I hope at one point we could see them out on a date, either each set individually or as a double date to help explore and advance their relationships. Cloud and Sandra seem very comfortable (to a degree most kids their age might not possess) but I’m sure there’s room for growth of course.
Landon and Larissa as such polar opposites I find myself rooting for them despite the fairly recent reveal of his mother’s viewpoint towards Lar as well as the BIG LOOMING SECRET ™ that is not-quite-yet the elephant in the room and how it will effect everyone around Larissa once it’s revealed.
I love these characters and I can’t wait to see the young men and women they’ll (eventually) grow into.
Thanks for all the hard work!!
The Magus wrote:
Maybe. But the bottomless pit of doom was never planned to become the focus of a whole story arc. I used it because it was a funny idea.
TheSkulker wrote:
No. The sudden transition is what made the strip in the car funny in the first place.
Novil wrote:
OK. Thanks for responding. However, FWIW, from a long time avid reader, it was not funny to me.
Not criticizing, just feedback. The aboutface was too sudden and immediately begged the question, “Why?”
For me, it totally displaced any humor that you intended.
But, keep up the good work. It’s a great strip.
Will Shadow and Sid interact with Sandra? 🙂
do you try to create all story arcs or ha powree contributed some ideas also?
what inspired you to bring in the character Melody and tie her to Richard?
How do you pronounce Seeoahtlahmakaskay?
I used to know that you updated every Monday and Thursday. Now that doesn’t seem to be the case all the time.
Can you please tell me what your schedule is? I checked the FAQ but it had no info on that.
Is there going to be more sketch on Zoey and Michelle (together) ?
Are there any plans for a spin-off for any of the characters?
Will Zoey ever openly come out? Maybe find a love interest at some point
MathAddict wrote:
If the story requires it, sure. But currently I have not planned such a story arc.
izZ wrote:
Powree has contributed a few good ideas how to improve single strips over the years, but not more.
I try to think of stuff that is funny and/or that might happen to the characters. The Melody arc was not different from that general approach.
izZ wrote:
Go back in time and ask the Aztecs. Take care to not get sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca.
NZ wrote:
Huh? It’s always been like that apart from a few times a couple of weeks ago.
Yesvil wrote:
If I have some good ideas for it.
phantomdj wrote:
No. At most a mini comic.
swoosh blade wrote:
Only if I can come up with a nice story arc dealing with it.
Will Landon get his own arc that gives him a bit more development. Because right now he feels like kind of a satellite love interest for Larisa
@ Novil:
You answered a question from “DestinyofAwe” by saying you would not write the “HitBoy” arc if you had a second chance. Of course I then had to go back and re-read that one, and I thought it was good! Now I wonder… Why not??
And, THANKS! to you and Powree for Sandra & Woo! 🙂
Were my questions too long?
Have you ever tried to get Sandra and Woo into an actual newspaper? It seems to follow the structure pretty rigorously.
What were your favorite comics growing up?
This is a dumb question I suppose but it’s been bugging me since the Pyro Class arch…are Landon and Larisa still dating?They’re so cute together and go well with each other and it’s just been bugging me that they may have broken up over his choice of superhero
is the symbol speak shown that racoons speak the same as in the Book Of Woo?
@ Novil:
I was only asking if the character trait could survive within a character that didn’t have the other traits.
Despite living in Germany, you’re often using purely american phenomena (Smokey the forest fires bear serves as an example of the last one).
Why is that? Have you lived in the States?
swoosh blade wrote:
I currently have no plans for this, but it’s certainly possible.
Iron Ed wrote:
Because I don’t like it anymore. I still like the strip with Yuna, but not much of the rest.
Paul wrote:
Yes.
Evan wrote:
No. We would have to produce seven strips a week and I would never be able to come up with enough good jokes for that, even if it were my full-time job. And there are many Sandra and Woo jokes that would be completely inappropriate for the extremely old-fashioned American newspaper comic pages.
NicCageTheMage wrote:
Of course, they are.
SurferWeb wrote:
I can only think of http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2013/05/16/0482-a-dark-and-stormy-night-xii/ which is obviously entirely different from the Book of Woo.
Kirbilius Clausius wrote:
I still don’t understand the question.
Aboubek wrote:
More than half of our readers are from the United States. I knew from the beginning that it would be like that so I already set the strip in the United States.
Okay, cool. I’ve had a bunch of questions that have been bugging me for a while.
1, are you a boy or a girl?
2, is the first page a reference to sly cooper?
3, do you read any furry webcomics like 2 kinds and uber quest?
4, are the characters in this comic going to continue to age?
5, will there ever be a sandra and woo book?
6, will there be another story arc that focuses on cloud and Sandra’s relationship?
What is the airspeed velocity of the African swallow?
Thanks for answering any of these.
@ Novil:
Oh.
…
I’m not sure how to abridge so that I can still get across everything I want to.
What is your TL;DR threshold?
What do you do for a living besides S&W and Gaia?
What is your opinion about shipping?
Have the story ever changed because of this frustrating phenomenon?
What’s one thing some fans do that really upsets you?
Will there be plans for the characters to grow up? Will we ever see Sandra, Cloud, Larisa and company as young adults?
Do you plan on ever revealing Larisa’s secret in any way, shape or form? Also, if you were to discover that one of your fans who was anticipating the secret died before you revealed it, how would you feel?
Will larisa ever have a attack due to her illnesse?