Palace in the Sky Webcomic News

Hey readers! Once weekly Palace in the Sky will be posting interview questions answered by all our members here on the blog. Feel free to ask questions or comment here on our community blog! Next up in the round of interviews is Tom of Marooned.

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Comic title: Marooned
Comic URL: http://www.maroonedcomic.com
Creator(s): Tom Dell’Aringa
Genre: Sci-Fi Humor

1) What is your comic about?

Marooned concerns the ill-fated first manned mission to Mars sometime in the future. Pilot Captain John and his companion, a Robot AI named Asimov, safely land. However it seems there is not enough fuel to take off again (which quickly gets blamed on John’s piloting abilities). It isn’t long before a curious local named Ugo finds them and offers some help.

Captain John is, well let’s say “overconfident.” His ego takes a bruise when he learns the truth about his status of the mission from Asimov, who appears to know a lot more about what is going on. John doesn’t like Robots. Asimov doesn’t like John. Ugo likes everyone!

Lucky for John, Ugo has a dome – and furthermore an underground home where John can survive while trying to figure out how to get home. During the journey to the underground home we meet some other interesting characters, such as the dark and mysterious Geborga, a large and enthusiastic Martian named Ix and a little orphan Martian girl named Ril.

John quickly realizes that there are a lot of people keeping a lot of secrets. Marooned is really the story of John, Asimov and Ugo as they explore these secrets together on a hostile planet, where nothing is what it seems to be on the surface. Johns fragile ego, Asimov’s biting tongue and Ugo’s don’t worry be happy attitude make for an interesting ride.

2) How did you get started making webcomics?

I’ve loved comics since I was a kid. I’m a huge Peanuts fan and collect the strip collections, reading them over and over all the time. I always read the comics in the paper, as well as bought superhero comic books, especially Spider Man and Iron Man. Of course I fell in love with Calvin and Hobbes when it was around.

I took a comic strip class in college actually, but it didn’t amount to much and don’t remember much about it. I got interested in doing one because I needed a creative outlet. I had tried animating but it took too much time. I had this idea for these characters and I fiddled around with it for a year or so before settling into what I have now.

3) Five years from now, what do you see your comic becoming? Will it be over? Will it have grown larger?

I hope that it will still be around and have grown larger. Ideally it will continue to develop interesting story lines in which I can put the main characters in fun and interesting situations. I hope by then to have printed some books and have a thriving webcomic. But who knows, that will take a lot of work and some luck/breaks.

4) Tell us about your main character. What are his/her motivations? How did he/she join up with your other characters and why?

Captain John is motivated by… himself. He’s a narcissist. The odd thing is he has a dual vision of himself – superhero and failure. On the one hand he thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but on the other hand… he’s just perceptive enough to pick up the hints (when he’s not ignoring them) that he’s made (or is making) some mistakes. So his ego is a cloak for his insecurity.

The truth is down deep he’s a good guy. Because he had a rough go to get where he is, he wears a hard outer shell that is all spikey and irritates people.

It was not his choice to join up with Asimov or Ugo for that matter. He sees the presence of Asimov as an annoyance – a machine that may break down and worse – speaks to him as if it were smarter. He would have preferred to go alone or with another astronaut. The fact that he has not been able to control any aspect of his mission is a big bummer for him. As for Ugo, he doesn’t know what to make of him other than he smells funny.

5) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

It’s early yet, and there’s one I can’t speak of that might be the topper. But right now I really like Ril and the circumstances surrounding her. She’s the only female in the cast right now, and she should have some interesting interaction with John.

6) What is your favorite comic page?

I think at the moment it’s one I just redid – Asimov’s origin. I played around with the panel borders to get a “flashback” thing going.

7) Is there a storyline you’re really looking forward to? What is it about? Give us a spoiler warning if necessary!

There is one, but it would give too much away to mention. It’s a character I’m still developing in my head that should end up being one of the main drivers of the strip. It does involve a tie in back to Earth…

8 ) Can you give us a short explanation on how you make your pages? If you have a tutorial or anything, please link it.

I’m actually in the process of making a tutorial. But I have a very streamlined process that has taken me 6 months to figure out. I needed to get it down to something manageable so I could do this and still have a life. In short it’s this:

• Script a strip on a blank page, up top
• Thumbnail the strip below it to get a sense of what I will draw
• Do pencils on Bristol board based on thumbnails
• Ink strip with Faber Castell/Copic markers
• Scan strip into photoshop and color
• Save and post to site

Roughly a 2 hour process – sometimes less, sometimes a bit more. Obviously a lot of details inside there, but that’s it in a nutshell.

9) Be your own critic! When it comes to your comic, what are you looking to improve upon?

Always the artwork is my biggest challenge. I’m in the process of a “refresh” where I am literally redrawing an recoloring every single strip in my archive up to the most recent ones. I’m nearly half done. It has been good for me though because doing all the drawing has helped solidify my characters and improved my work. My color sense always needs help, and of course writing can always be improved. I don’t have enough planned ahead yet and that is always a problem.

10) What is most rewarding about doing a webcomic?

I’ll tell you, my two daughters love it and get a big kick out of it, so that is really fun. The whole process of producing a strip is just extremely enjoyable for me. I love writing it, and even though I struggle with the penciling, I enjoy that too. There are like 3 moments when I sit back and look at it and kind of sigh in happiness (for the most part) – when the pencil is done, after the inking, and after the coloring when it’s all finished. It’s a great sense of accomplishment to keep plugging along – it ends up driving itself. And I get a kick out of placing each new piece of artwork into my storage bin which is starting to stack up.

The other day I went through it and looked at all of it – all the way back to the development stuff. It was real fun to see where it came from, where it was, and where it’s likely to go.

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Thanks, Tom! If anyone has any questions, please feel free to leave a comment! Don’t forget, another interview will be up next week!