A short look into the future
Sandra and Woo is celebrating its first birthday on Monday and we are very happy that our webcomic has been so successful (around 5,000 visitors on update days), especially considering that it updates only twice a week and that it’s not directed at any particular target audience.
Regular readers may have already noticed it: There are more strips with Sandra (73 at the moment) than strips with Woo (61 at the moment). Since Woo is the second main character it will always be my goal that he appears in at least half of all new strips. A significant higher number is rather unlikely, though, since I’m currently having trouble to come up with ideas for strips featuring Shadow and Sid, Woo’s personal buddies, compared to strips featuring Cloud and Larisa, Sandra’s personal buddies.
If you have a look at these two cut-outs out of the 2nd and the 103rd strip, you can see a significant size difference between Sandra then and Sandra now. One could probably say she has gotten one year older as well. In the beginning I was not yet sure about the exact age of Sandra and her friends, but in the meantime I have settled that they should be 11 years old, with Larisa being almost 12. I think that this age, in which children might act very childish at one moment and already very much like an adult at the next one, has a lot of potential for humor. I also think that this age is often neglected in other comics where you either have children younger than 10 or teenagers older than 13.
Oh, and I am not that happy that “cute” is so often the first adjective used by readers on other message boards or blogs to describe Sandra and Woo. So prepare yourself to see more controversial (not necessarily political) strips in the future; many of them featuring Larisa, maybe the only girl in the world of comics whose parents are jealous of Calvin’s parents to have such an easy-to-handle son. *g*
*coff*coff*
Wow look at the difference! *o*
*buries self*
When I look at those two frames the first thing I think is “Those aren’t drawn to the same scale.” From a number of subtle visual cues I see Sandra’s father as being slightly taller than that delivery guy. When adjusted for scale I think the size difference between early Sandra and modern Sandra isn’t all that great, but it’s still noticeable. She has grown in the past year, something you don’t often see in comics as it’s easier to keep characters at a constant age rather than keep updating them as they grow older.
There’s nothing wrong with your comic being described as “cute”. It is cute, but then it’s also more than that. “Cute” by itself is kind of an inadequate descriptor for this comic. It’s smart, funny, ofttimes thought-provoking, insightful, sometimes deeply touching, with that sense of wonder and discovery found as children are starting to evolve toward their teenage years. It’s too bad there doesn’t seem to be a word that properly encapsulates all that. I guess the best I can come up with is “delightful”. 🙂
(the lack of further comments emphasises, i think, that Luna has nailed it)
Can’t wait to see what you mean by that last comment :).
I was putting the age of the girl in the larger drawing at about 12. So it seems you’ve nailed that aspect pretty well. I hope the webcomic is performing nicely for you. It’s a very interesting idea.