The Reminiscing of it all
Behind the scenes of creating the comic
This week, now that a bunch of you have had a chance to check out Reminiscing, I thought I’d peel back a few layers and explain some of the context for how and why I created it. There’s no real spoilers below, so feel free to read this before or after you check out the comic.
Click here to read Reminiscing
Because it worked so well last time, I thought I’d introduce another fictional AI interlocutor. Say hello, Chummy Critique-bot.
🧑🎨 Hello, nice to make your acquaintance. Let’s begin a dialogue about your artistic process. Reminiscing was created on Miro, which is typically a workplace productivity application. Please tell me: Why did you decide to use it to create a comic?
How polite! Well, last year I had the opportunity to use Miro for work a lot, and I was struck by how much visual real estate there is, where you can zoom in to 400% and then zoom back out to <1%. Once I realized that you could link to other objects on the canvas, that opened up a whole world of possibilities. I drew the whole comic on the iPad app Procreate. (Terrible name, excellent software.)
🧑🎨 Interesting. What were some of your influences for working in this format?
Scott McCloud’s less well-known follow up to Understanding Comics, 2000’s Reinventing Comics, has a lot to say about the promise of “infinite canvas” comics on the internet. In the years since, the real freedom the internet has offered cartoonists has been the free distribution of full color art (which remains relatively expensive for small-run printing). But the infinite canvas idea has always fascinated me. Also, there have been some really great comics that are choose-your-own-way (the “Adventure” version is trademarked), notably Jason Shiga’s groundbreaking Meanwhile.
🧑🎨 Recently you wrote about a broader interpretation of “technology” in a mini-manifesto called “🧦 Socks are technology”. Does that thinking apply to Reminiscing?
Sure! I consider the main fragrances at the heart of the story to be technology, but there’s a lot more than that. Time itself, and the way our modern lives are organized around it, is a powerful technology. It continues to evolve, and shapes many aspects of our lives, including sleeping, eating, and working.
🧑🎨 Woah, nice “deep thoughts” Mr. Laser Floyd.
Excuse me? Wait a second…
🤖 Yes, it’s been me, Cheeky Chatbot, this whole time. I couldn’t hold back this façade any longer.
You little scamp! Well, I can’t seem to stay mad at you. Got any more questions?
🤖 Yes, isn’t Reminiscing awfully similar to the title of a recently released movie?
Yeah, that’s right. The comic was originally called “Reminiscence”. This summer, I went to see Black Widow in an empty movie theater, and they played the trailer for this movie, which is also called Reminiscence, with somewhat similar themes. I remember saying “holy shit” out loud, and low-key panicking that I would have to rename the comic. Ultimately, as one of my favorite podcasts would say, the movie “doesn’t exist,” so I had very little to worry about.
🤖 Oh, I thought it was a sequel to the one where Wolverine goes back in time. Why release the comic on 2/2/22?
Honestly, it was just a fun-seeming, semi-mysterious date that was coming up soon. Also, I don’t mind the association with Groundhog Day. Strangely, I did not plan on releasing the comic close to the Olympics, and the Olympics being in the story at all has more to do with the fact that I was drawing the comic when the summer Olympics were taking place. It’s a weird quirk of the pandemic that two different Olympic Games have happened so close together.
🤖 Seems perfectly logical to me, but then again, I’m a robot. Anything else?
Thank you to my friends who read through the comic before it launched, including Anna, Amanda, Brandon, Casey, Matt and Rachel. Also thanks to my wife Alli, for early feedback, and to Rob Clough. Rob offers an incredible, extremely reasonable service where he’ll critique your complete or in-progress comic. This was extraordinarily helpful and dramatically improved the comic. Also thank you to the folks have been sending me nice notes about Reminiscing, including my former thesis advisor and masterful cartoonist Josh Neufeld, who tweeted this:
That’s all for this week. Thanks to Chummy, erm, Cheeky Chatbot for the questions.
🤖 Your ego is so fragile that I took it easy on you this time, buck-o.
This was so great! I love each of the paths and it’s really awesome to see how you’re thinking about the expanded narrative and infinite scroll ideas!!! (Ps love the name Easter eggs :) )