re: Templar, Arizona.

This is a story about a town that doesn't exist, and the people who live there.

This is also the story of a guy trying to find himself, and run away from himself at the same time.

Templar isn't a Gotham or a Metropolis. It's not a stand-in for a real town, and I'm pretty sure the spot on the map where I tend to place it is really a national park.

It's in Arizona, but not the Arizona you're probably thinking of. This is a different Arizona. This is a slightly irregular Arizona that fell off the back of a truck somewhere, and now all the power outlets are a weird shape and a couple of wars never happened.

This comic's been around for a long time, in one form or another. When I was a little kid with crayons and a fistful of printer paper, the town wasn't called Templar, but the main cast was pretty much already set. Most of my time in middle school was spent struggling to draw that cast in poses that weren't three-quarter profile views from the waist-up. And in high school, the comic went through a ridiculous and utterly mandatory phase of angst-ridden pastiche that's probably best left without elaboration.

The people of Templar are the heart of the strip, but their home is just as important a character. So while you're reading about Ben, Reagan, Eugene and Scipio, if anything strikes you as odd, try to remember: you're just a tourist. If you didn't feel at least a little out-of-place, you'd probably be disappointed.

Thanks.

-- spike

In an attempt to prevent this section from turning into "Questions I Frequently Wish Someone Would Ask Me," I'll only be including answers to stuff I've actually, genuinely been asked about before.

Revolutionary, I know.

Got a question? Send 'er in. spike at ironcircus dot com.

- When does Templar update?

You can typically rely on thrice-weekly updates, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I do my best to stick to that; my best streak has been a little over three months.

I always mention when new pages are up in my blog. If you have a Livejournal, you can subscribe to an RSS feed of it.

Other sites that let you track Templar updates: OnlineComics.net, Piperka, and The Webcomic List.

- Will there ever be any supplemental text about the world the comic's set in?

I once planned on putting up a Templar-centric wiki, but the bulk of the supplemental stuff will probably be saved for the print editions.

- Is Templar supposed to be a weird version of Tempe, Arizona?

Nope. It's nowhere. It's not based on anyplace real.

And because people have been asking: I'm not fron Arizona, and i've never been there. It might as well be Oz, to me.

- Is (x) real?

Nope. As far as I know, I'm making most of the weirder stuff up.

There aren't any real clay bars, restaurants like Xenophage, Pastimes, Reclamation, copy books, or giant statues of Olympian Jimmy Carters anywhere in the real world. They could be real and I could just not know about 'em, though.

- Can I commission you to draw me something?

Sorry, no. I'm just too busy.

- Is the original art for sale?

Nope. I need 'em. And you don't want 'em anyway. Seriously, they're a mess.

- How do you make the comic?

I'm not picky about the paper or ink used in Templar. Any brand of smooth bristol will do, and the initial pencils are done with plain mechanical pencils, the kind you buy in packs of ten in drug stores. I ink the comic with water-thinned black acrylic paint, using student-grade synthetic brushes, sizes 0 through 2.

I letter by hand with Micron Pigma pens, sizes 05 or 08, with the assitance of an Ames Lettering Guide. I have four oval and circle templates I use for the word balloons.

The art is scanned, cleaned, and toned in Photoshop CS2.

I can't really give anyone any advice on plotting or writing comics, because Templar isn't actually scripted or plotted anywhere except my head. I've been thinking about this comic for years, so I basically just know how it goes by heart and what needs to happen without having to reference anything. All I ever write down are really clever bits of dialogue I'm afraid I'll forget. I've got a .txt file filled with disjointed, totally unrelated stretches of conversation lying around here somewhere.

Don't do this, by the way. Refuse to script you comic, I mean. I'm sure I'm making a terrible mistake and I'll draw myself into a corner, one day. This is dumb of me.