Interview with our reader Garrett Williams
Here is a new interview about Sandra and Woo with one of the Sandra and Woo fans that received a poster package, our reader
Garrett Williams
Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?
> Greetings and salutations, I am Garrett Williams, a cartoonist/webmaster/3d artist/programmer (only one of those is a paying gig). You might remember my Ruthless movie poster from the last fanart contest, which showed Sid and Ruth in 3D, like you would expect from an animated movie today. They were the first characters I’ve modeled in Blender, and there was a lot of fixing to do in Photoshop as a result.
When you read Sandra and Woo for the first time, what grabbed your attention the most?
> It’s been so long ago, but I’ll try to remember. I discovered Sandra and Woo via a banner ad, and though I don’t remember which one, I remember that the art was good and it featured a raccoon. There aren’t many raccoon comics, compared to cat & dog comics, so it stood out. When a comic has good art AND story, it tends to get on my reading list. I also tend to favor cute, fluffy characters.
Is the thing you mentioned above still your favorite part of the comic, or do you like something else the most now?
> The art and story have remained top-notch the entire time. I’m happy that you haven’t run out of ideas.
Who is your favorite character and why?
> Woo! I tried to think of a less-obvious answer, but I feel like I would enjoy hanging out with Woo.
Do you have a favorite story arc and/or a favorite single strip?
> Of course the one at the front of my mind is the most recent one with Butterfly. I couldn’t wait for each new comic of that story arc, I wanted to know what would happen next and how Butterfly would overcome the, uh… butterflies in her stomach, or if she was even the rock climber she claimed to be. I kept trying to guess how the story was going to go, and the extreme hype made me wonder if raccoons were over-hyping Butterfly, making her sort of a Chuck Norris character, or if she was a fake like Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter books. It could have gone many different directions.
You have read Sandra and Woo for many years now. Do you think the comic has changed in any way since the beginning?
> The art is the most noticeable. I like the early art as much as the current art, but it’s definitely different. The story has matured and built on the earlier strips rather well.
Sandra and Woo is sometimes criticized for lacking focus. Is there an aspect of the comic that you’d rather get rid of?
> The focus! Who needs focus? (random phrase)! *ahem* Ironically, the most recent storyline with Butterfly had too MUCH focus, lasting over 4 months. Generally, a month is the longest a story arc should be. I enjoyed that arc, but one of the reasons I couldn’t wait for new updates was that each comic didn’t move the story along quickly enough. In addition, when the comics switch between an all-human cast and an all-forest-creatures cast, long arcs change the dynamics of the comic enough that it’s essentially 2 comics that take turns with the update schedule.
Is there a topic you’d like to see getting addressed in a longer story arc?
> In a… longer-but-not-longer-than-the-most-recent story arc… I’m very interested in finding out Larisa’s secret, Butterfly & Flint’s future (no rush), Woo & Lily’s future kits (it seems inevitable), how Woo is able to speak English (I think several of us have a good guess, but it hasn’t been addressed)…
What are your wishes for the future of Sandra and Woo?
> More success, riches for the creators, and maybe 5 days a week as a result of that?
Is there any other webcomic which you’d like to recommend to our readers?
> May I plug my own? I do a comic by the name of Ferret Williams in which I’m played by a ferret. Also in the archive is Kenny Chronicles and Ferrets Versus Lemmings, two comics that feature anthropomorphic foxes, ferrets, lemmings, etc. living over 100 years in the future. I enjoyed doing full-3D backgrounds on those comics, but my sleep schedule begged for a simpler art style, so Ferret Williams was born. Lately I’ve had even less time to draw, so the current comic has slowed down on the updates.
Do you have anything else do say? Here’s room for it:
> One Sunday, we had to use my laptop for the lyrics at church because a fire destroyed the regular computer that morning. During one song, the program crashed & suddenly… the “Food Chain” wallpaper with Sid eating an acorn and Shadow putting ketchup on Sid’s tail showed on the screen. This got a good laugh from the congregation. The next Sunday, I had set my wallpaper to complete blackness just in case that happened again, lol. I suppose when using somebody’s personal computer, it could have been worse :-p
The only webcomic that makes an interviews with its readers. Awesome!
@ Darth Biomech:
I know right? 🙂
Using my personal PC for public use is a nightmare I don’t want to see happened IRL. Everything can go wrong. From them opening my “secret files” to the wallpaper cycling to something that can be offensive to someone X(
“Do you have anything else do say? Here’s room for it:
> One Sunday, we had to use my laptop for the lyrics at church because a fire destroyed the regular computer that morning. During one song, the program crashed & suddenly… the “Food Chain” wallpaper with Sid eating an acorn and Shadow putting ketchup on Sid’s tail showed on the screen. This got a good laugh from the congregation. The next Sunday, I had set my wallpaper to complete blackness just in case that happened again, lol. I suppose when using somebody’s personal computer, it could have been worse :-p”
if you’d like to see the image referenced above, Head over to > Artwork > Food Chain
apparently links don’t work in the comments.
hay that totally happened to me to, sort of.
I decided to do slides off of my computer for youth one night to give the youth pastor a break.
i think he was running late or something and I already did sound so what was 4 songs that I mostly already had from building a custom/only archive.
well I had my New used trusty iBook G3 900mhz ( With Display Dr. extended desktop Hack ) running PowerPoint, live for the 1st time.
and guess what….. it does not behave the same way as the Windows version does!
i can’t exactly remember but I either clicked off of PowerPoint or had it crash/freeze, and all of a sudden the presentation window “you know the one that’s on the projector” disappeared showing my desktop background. luckily at that time I was still using the abstract backgrounds on a rotation so it kind of fit in very well. ever since then I’ve made a custom black JPEG/PNG and stuck it in the solid colors where it should be. then they came out with 10.7 and now you can choose any color you want but black is not a predefined choice for some reason.
then whenever I plug in a projector, step 1 is correcting the resolution if need be, step 2 would be selecting a black background ( one of the neat features on mac is by default you can have different backgrounds on different monitors and they are remembered ). that way if for some reason you decide not to be in PowerPoint it just looks like a blank screen.
if that wasn’t enough I went to a national conference for my church, and somebody got an unpleasant surprise during a break or pre-show check. but I think it was just the default background since it was a borrowed ChurchMac. i offered my thumb drive with black image but i was turned down because somebody was quick with Photoshop and just created a large black image, where as I modified an original.