- What's "The God Machine" about?
- There's no peace for Guy Salvatore ever since his girlfriend died. Day after day, Guy sees monsters popping out of nowhere, disturbing his "woe is me, my girlfriend is dead," kind of life. Does Guy think that he actually sees these monsters? Of course not! He thinks it's just part of the depression that's causing him to hallucinate. But then one day, a man named Satan makes an appearance to Guy, offering him guidance on finding his love, who he says is not dead, but is in fact alive and lost in dream worlds. Satan blames the two slacker Gods for her death, and directs Guy to go search for her in the "Dream Worlds" to set everything right. Gods? Satan? Sith alive in Dream Worlds? Can any of this be real?
An epic story, chronicling Guy's search for his girlfriend within the "Dream Worlds," while he discovers clues as to who Satan and the Gods are, where Sith is, his increasing powers, and the conspiracy that threatens the balance of all existence. (Ouu ominous!)
- How did you come up with the idea?
- Back in 1999 I was trying desperately to come up with a new series/comic to do. So I was sketching out a lot of misc. characters with no success. I had been in a period of my life where I wasn't working on my old manga series, and had generally got tired of my shoujo story (yes I said shoujo.. yes.. like sailor moon kind of thing.. >_>; Plus I was getting out of Anime at the time as well.) I had read the fabulous comic "I feel sick; a story about a girl" and got uberly excited over the new kind of style I was looking at. So I designed so many different characters (mainly girls), but none of them sparked anything with me. Towards the end of this sketchbook I was drawing this Male anime-ish character, with an anime convention of a line through black spotted eyes to show surprise (why I had done the dot like short eyebrows is anyone's guess.) I looked at it afterwards and had an internal dialog with myself about how it looks like he has sunglasses. I then got really excited about his design, and felt so good about this mistake that I started redrawing him over and over. Then I started drawing his friends that would be in his world and created everything based on this character. Course his name was no mistake, nor a stupid joke. I had generally liked it when I had heard the French named their children "Guy." I was also impressed that "Guy" from Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha/Zero series had this name. I found it to be quaint and fitting for this character. I usually base my names off how the character talks to me through its look (this is like Typography, you have to know what will look good to brand a product, and what it's identity is.) The original story was all about Guy and his friend's facing school issues, with the supernatural. Pretty much Sith was alive at that point of the story creation. Later on I had talks with my good friend JT about "dream worlds" and such. He helped me figure out a structure for the story for my characters that could fit into almost anything. But it's a mystery to me how I came about "killing" Sith. I suppose it was a natural choice being that you need a conflict in your story. So over the last 8 years I have been further developing my characters, and weaving a stronger story.
- Where and when does it take place?
- In a sleepy fictional town called Salem, somewhere in the United States. The time is anywhere between the mid 90's to late 2010's.
- How long has it been in production?
- Since 1999, I was 17 when I started it.
- How long do you plan the series to pan out?
- The projected time is well over 7 years, and about 50+ issues, ranging about 23-32 pages per issue. (Black and white format, which special color issues here and there.)
- What was the deal with Press Start?
- Press Start was my short-lived web comic that I did back in 2000 to 2001. It was meant to generate interest in my comic book "The God Machine," using some of the characters and putting them in silly situations unrelated to the main storyline.
- Why was the comic called "Divine Comedy/ Press Start" at one point?
- Originally the comic was called "The Comic." (I refused to name it for the longest time till the right name came around.) It took awhile I had a conversation with JT about titles, and he picked out "Divine Comedy." It fit extremely well; the drawback though was that it was associated with Dante's tale of the same name. Due to people thinking it was an adaptation of "Divine Comedy" I decided to drop the name, and go for a more suited and original name, "The God Machine."
Now the deal with "Press Start" is the fact the web comic needed a separate name to indicate that it was a "side story" ordeal. At the time I named the web comic I was watching allot of Lain. So the idea of web comic, technology, video games, and such were running around in my head. I also set up the first 2 comics as a video game theater, which was shortly dropped to become the Gods' mini series.
- What people would you say this comic is aimed at?
- Mature audiences.
- What do you hope will become of the comic?
- That it will reach a lot of people, and that it will have a sequel I'm planning for it. Plus it would be nifty keen if I could have a cartoon series based on it.
- Is there any merchandise from the comic; such as dolls / posters/ t-shirts? O_O!
- Not currently, but hopefully soon.
- Why is Guy bald in some of your images?
- We get to see Guy grow from the age of 17 to age 23 during the course of the story. He changes in this time period, which includes him losing his hair and glasses among other things.
- Are any of your characters inspired by people in real life?
- Indeed. There are about roughly 7 out of the 65+ characters that are based on people in my life. In the early stages of the story, there were no reality-based characters. 2 of the first to set the small trend in my story came from a joke about artist being Gods of their self-created worlds. Due to natural growth of characters, and story, the characters have grown far from their real life counter parts and share very few characteristics with them.
- Are there any other people/company etc. working on The God Machine with you?
- No. I'm working alone currently. I am looking into publishers to submit to.
- Is your comic out in book form currently?
- No, It has not been picked up by a publisher at this point.
- Will I be able to find your comic online?
- Yes. I'm featuring a preview of my comic in a raw pencil form. Plans of selling the finished version online are in the works.
- Is "The God Machine" a religious comic?
- No, not in the slightest.
- How did Sith die?
- This shall be answered in due time sweet reader. There is an answer, trust me on this.
- How do you pronounce Guy?
- Guy as in, "Hey guys!" Not the French version, "Ghi~"
- What is Sullengrey?
- "Remember what it was like to be a child? To be afraid of the shadows on the wall, monsters under the bed, and the boogeyman? Welcome to Autumn's Grove, where all that paralyzing paranoia comes to life. Only one person can control it...if his brains don't get eaten first."
[Source: Ape Entertainment]
- Who is working on Sullengrey?
- Drew Rausch - Pencils, Jocelyn Gajeway - Writes, and I'm the colorist.
- When is it coming out?
- Issue 5 (with me as the colorist) is slated for October 2007.
- Who publishes Sullengrey?
- Ape Entertainment.
- Do you use references, and if so, what are they?
- No. I tend to stay away from references other than real life culture, and parodies. I tend to try to stick with what I know when it comes to writing, and also do my best at producing something completely original in art.
- Who are your favorite artists?
- Egon Schiele, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Franz Von Stuck, CLAMP, Jhonen Vasquez, Doc-Hammer, Yoshitoshi ABe, Ai Yazawa, FSc, Dali, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, John William Waterhouse, Vincent van Gough, Caravaggio.
- Can I commission you to do art work for me?
- Yes. See my commission info for details, or email me.
- How do you pronounce Chandra?
- Chan (as in Jackie Chan), -dra. It's not Shandra, Shundra, Chundra, Tandra, Shaundra, Sandra, or any other bastardizations you want to give it. (Sorry, this has plagued me my whole life. You wouldn't believe how many people fuck up my name right after I tell them how to say it.) (FYI- Chandra (from Sanskrit) means Moon-like, or the Hindu god of the moon that brings fertility to those who pray to him/her. It's typically a male name in India, but it is a unisex name.)
- Why "Spooky Chan?"
- My nickname is Chan, and I'm a little spooky and strange sometimes. : It makes for a good web-name too! It's not based on the Japanese honorifics. Yes, I know all about what "-chan" means in Japanese, I took 2 semesters of the language in college. Plus I used to be an anime fan back in the day.
- Who is this Andy/AHayes guy on your web site, and can I get his phone number?
- Andy is one of my best friends who designed/made/hand coded/maintains/admins/plagues my web site. If you ask him nicely (and not all creepy uncle like) he might honor you with his digits.
[Note from Andy:] Potential daters/groupies can also send a photo with two forms of ID to my e-mail.
- What's Photoshop?
- You'd be surprised how many times I've gotten this question. Photoshop is a graphics program used to edit things called "photos" or even things called "illustrations." See Adobe's site for details. (and yes, I use Photoshop.)
