Palace in the Sky Webcomic News

Comic title: Juathuur and Juathuur: Gatecrash
Comic URL: gatecrash.juathuur.com and juathuur.spiderforest.com
Creator: Katie Sweet
Genre: fantasy

1) What is your comic about?

Juathuur is about a conflict of ideals. In the original comic, this conflict is between the main group of Juathuur led by Meidar, whose stronghold is the Raft, and a smaller group of “deserter” Juathuur who have gathered in the desert city of Erab Adur under Weijuaru. The wild card in all of this is Faevv, a girl with the power to manipulate space, who gets to see the conflict from both sides. But she is most heavily influenced by Merlu, an imprisoned God banned from interacting with mortals but who has never been one for playing by the rules. In Gatecrash, Faevv is given access to new worlds filled with all sorts of new and clashing ideals but the story underneath is the story of the gods themselves who have been arguing for eons about who they are and what they were meant to be.

2) How did you get started making webcomics?

The first time I read a story-based webcomic all the way through (it was Sluggy Freelance I believe) I was totally hooked and wanted to make my own. Before that I’d dabbled a bit in comics, but I was never really into the American genres. My thing was epic fantasy and at the time I was dilligently working on a huge novel. Faevv and the Juathuur were concieved as part of my background work for that book and at one point I actually made a couple comic pages that amounted to an older version of the Juathuur prologue. But the idea sat around until a couple years later when I was taking an animation course and absorbing all sorts of new influences. Spring break hit, and I was on such a high from the intense workload that I drew most of the first chapter during the break. I started posting pages on DA to get a feel for if it would work and got enough good feedback to spur me to make a site for it and less than a month later I was rolling at that original breakneck page-a-day pace.

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

Hopefully Gatecrash will be drawing to a close, though exactly when it will end is hard to guess because although I know how it will conclude, I’m constantly shifting around the steps that take to get there. Either way, there’s a good chance it will be followed by another sequel unless I’ve managed to totally wear myself out, heh.

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

Faevv is a shadow-user from a rather notorious family, but she was raised by her non-Juathuur mother as an outsider. She grew up without much in the way of friends so is more of a loner and is quite cautious in opening up to people. In the first comic she gets partnered up with Dej and Ratheel because of her uncle. At heart she is very much a real wanderer Juathuur – happiest when she stays moving and exploring. That’s what she and Juar have in common, and what attracted them both to Merlu. In Gatecrash she is older and more confident but dealing with arrogant gods has also made her a bit jaded and sarcastic. She has the freedom she desired, but most of the gods treat her like a joke, so she’s still trying to find her place.

5) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

Ooo, tough one. I love my legions of secondary characters, hence why there’s so many of them Out of the ones who didn’t make it to Gatecrash, I think the one I miss the most is Rowasu. Despite the whole psycho killer thing, he was really fun to draw and the only one I could really push to all extremes. Plus, I gave in and let him have a sword, because he was the only one bad-ass enough to use it properly

My favourite secondary character in Gatecrash hasn’t yet made an appearance, but I really can’t ignore Merlu as possibly my all-time fav secondary character, since he’s been with me long before Juathuur and always finds ways to worm himself into my stories. Originally he wasn’t supposed to have a big speaking role in Juathuur at all, but as usual he couldn’t let plot go by without trying to manipulate it. All writers like to play god a little and Merlu is my alter-ego/mad scientist in that regard.

6) What is your favorite comic page?

Another toughie. So far for Gatecrash I’d say this one: http://www.sweetquark.com/juathuur/2008/07/01/gatecrash-02-16/ simply because it put me through a lot of painful, painful detail, and you’ve got to be proud of the ones that make your fingers ache. As for the original comic – ack so much to choose from. I bet you can guess what my favourite splash page is (#400) but out of the regular pages I’m quite fond of this one: http://juathuur.spiderforest.com/?comic_id=433 because it’s my best monster page ever and features the creepy Solluu twins, also super fun to draw. Or this one: http://juathuur.spiderforest.com/?comic_id=297(bloodbath warning) – I’m quite fond of most of the Rowasu fight/kill pages, but this one and the sequence it belongs to is probably my fav because of the dramatic lighting.

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

There’s two in Gatecrash that I’m really looking forward to. One is a certain part of Merlu’s backstory, that will likely be told through a flashback. The other is coming up fairly soon actually and involves Faevv embarking on some adventures with the Oracle who has just recently made an appearance. I think I redesigned that character like 20-30 times, which I never do, she’s kinda quirky, so I’m looking forward to their interaction.

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

My process for the Gatecrash pages is explained pretty thoroughly here: http://www.sweetquark.com/juathuur/forum/index.php?topic=3.0


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

One of the major reasons I started Juathuur in the first place was to give myself an excuse to draw everyday and improve my art, force myself to get better at anatomy and expressiveness and so forth. One of the great things about webcomics is how it records your artistic progress. By the end of Gatecrash I want my art to have grown enough that I can look back on the early pages and laugh at all the faults. I still need tons more anatomy practice before I can pull off crazy poses/angles and I want to try to pay more attention to background and lighting – always a big weakness for me.

10) What’s with all the crazy names in your comic?

That’s just my fantasy geekitude showing. I enjoy conlanging (making up languages) and always name things based on the language I’m working with. In the case of Juathuur (pronounced Hwah-thwoor), this has led to some pretty wacky combinations. I’m not just stringing syllables together though; there is a meaning or a least a root behind most of the names. For example, Juathuur means ‘true wanderer’, Faevv means ‘island’, and Weijuaru means ‘true to self’.