Palace in the Sky Webcomic News

1. What is your comic about?

Alex: Here’s what we tell people: “Rocket Llama is the world’s longest-running comic book hero. Established in 1916, The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama helped shape the face of popular culture world-wide. We rediscovered these classics deep underground in an archaic vault — the scripts, designs, ashcan copies, and more. As both the series’ current production team and appreciators of such groundbreaking literature, we have taken it upon ourselves to restore these classic issues to a glory more befitting a modern, digital age.” Allegedly.

To put it succinctly, Rocket Llama is an adventure comic in the vein of the Walt Disney Comics and Stories comic books that Ducktales was based on, Johnny Quest cartoons, and old action adventure comic strips, but it’s also a broad parody of common storytelling elements that have been used in comics, movies, and all forms of media throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

2. How did you get started making webcomics?

Alex: Nick and I have always had an interest in telling stories, primarily through the venue of comics. And seeing as how the internet presents us with a nigh infinite audience at a nil production cost, webcomics were the venue of entertainment that we happily settled upon.

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

Nick: Five years from now, I hope Rocket Llama will be the best looking webcomic out there on the internet.

Alex: Five years from now, I would love to see The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama presented as a Pixar animated film. I think our comic will have expanded to have a large fan base, and I think we will have enough stories to draw from that drawing from the source material to create a film will be a paltry task.

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

Alex: Rocket Llama is an adventurer, explorer, gangbuster, and spy. In terms of his personal history, his globetrotting escapades are motivated by his desire to find his father, who disappeared right as he perfected the Rocket technology that RL uses today. In terms of his personality, RL has a strong sense of justice and a keen analytical mind, and uses his critical thinking skills to unravel the tangled web of injustice wherever he may find it.

5. Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

Nick: I don’t think my favorite character has actually shown up yet. The character is a villain. In fact, most of my favorite characters are villains. Evil is just more fun to draw.

Alex: Well, if I were to state a favorite secondary character, I’d have to say Bowser Von Uberdog, a villain introduced in the first comic we published, The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112. He’s a parody of old school villains like Dr. Doom and Blofeld, not to mention the fact that he’s a cute, fat li’l bulldog.

6. What is your favorite comic page?

Alex: My favorite page is from 112, showing the Super Robot Dog Walker destroying a volcano. Nick’s art on the destruction of that volcano is just fantastic, I mean, you really feel the force of that laser beam blowing up that noble land mass.

Nick: I’m glad you like it so much. For me, there’s an establishing shot from issue 136 that I’m still in love with even though I completed it months ago. It was the first time I really got to get fancy with the comic. Crafting it was a great learning experience.

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

Alex: Hee hee, welll, sometime in the future… Bowser Von Uberdog gets a girlfriend. I have to leave it at that, though. You’ll just have to see the rest as it unfolds.

Nick: Actually the story after our current one is what I’m really looking forward to. I’m writing it as well as doing the art. It’ll be an incredibly demanding exercise but I think it’ll be a good chance to explore new grounds with the comic.

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

Alex: Well, I write the script and scribble the storyboard, so I don’t have much interesting to say about my creative process. These days I type in Microsoft Word, and I draw using a pencil and computer paper. Nick’s the one with the technical know-how.

Nick: First I draw the page on a 17 x 11 Blueline Pro sheet. Then I scan it and trace over my work in Adobe Illustrator, making some tweaks to proportions and the background that I might have made mistakes on with the drawing. I color it a little in Illustrator, but I then load up the file into Photoshop and color it there. Once I get done there, I put it back into Illustrator, add the dialogue, and finally the pageviewer. That’s the most typical way I do a page, but it does vary from time to time.

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

Nick: Coloring. I really want to add more gradients and depth without making the page look too digital. I’m trying to retain that classic comic book look.

Alex: I am always looking for ways to make Rocket Llama funnier and more exciting. I want people to read Rocket Llama and be laughing or pumped the entire time, and I’m constantly trying to sharpen my writing so that people are as entertained as possible when reading.

10. How did you create Rocket Llama?

Alex: The story of the progenesis of Rocket Llama is one of much intrigue. Pull up a chair and a cup of mead to listen to the epic tale.

I created Rocket Llama as a random doodle I scribbled in my notebook during a particularly dreary lecture in college. I gave no thought to the llama for quite some time until Nick organized an event known as The Workday Comic, a spin-off of Scott McCloud’s 24-Hour comics which Nick can tell you about in much finer detail, wherein a collection of local artists and writers collaborated in teams to each individually create 8-page comics in 8 hours.

I decided to act as my own writer and artist for the event, and the subject I chose? None other than the fuzzy flier himself, Rocket Llama. “The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112, Trouble in Paradise” was the full title of the comic I wrote in that timespan, and on our website you can find both my graphite and paper version and Nick’s artistically enhanced version.

Rule number one when creating any of these characters is to have fun. And that is absolutely what we are doing.

11. Is there anyone you’d like to give a shout out to?

Nick: Mark, Josh, and Tommy from Reddie Steady. Check out their stuff at www.reddiesteady.com.