Q: What the hell is this site???
A: It's a sketch comedy. Not too many of these exist anymore. Nowadays when people attempt internet comedy, it's usually in the form of a comic or Top 10 list. I've always felt the sketch format had a lot of untapped potential and my goal here was to perfect it.
Q: Who are all these characters???
A: The RAU Gallery cast is comprised of characters from a series of comic strips I wrote in the 80's and 90's. There were two different series that I wrote. One was a sketch comedy called "The RAU", and another was an episodic serial called "Image Arcane". Unfortunately, I cannot post these because they either don't exist anymore, or they were too terrible, but some remnants of them have been archived in the scrapbooks.
Q: But how am I supposed to understand what's going on without reading those comics?
A: It's not necessary. Everything you need to know about the characters has been worked into the sketches, and I have scrapbooks that explain more if really want to know more. Just understand that the basic idea is that characters from an 80's action/adventure cartoon have discovered the internet. If you've seen any 80's or 90's cartoons, it shouldn't be hard to imagine. It's as simple as that.
Q: Where is this taking place?
A: Generally speaking, the series takes place at the Grimmora Mage University, a college for magic, science, and history that exists in the mythical land of Phainein. Phainein has lots of different races including humans, elves, dragons, avians, mountaindevils, lizardmen, and onis (see the Species Primer for more information). However, due to the ambiguous nature of the series, there is controversy as to whether it's really a school, or a message board, or a stage, as indeed it seems different at different times.
Q: Why not make it a webcomic?
A: Don't get me started. No, really. It's nothing personal, but I have no interest in making a webcomic. Why bother when I'm so much better at this?
Q: But, FO, you're wrong! You'll make lots of money if you write a webcomic!
A: Again, don't get me started. I don't care about making money. If I make something off this series, fine. If I don't, fine. My first priority is to make people laugh. Very few webcomics turn a profit anyway. And as a friend of mine once pointed out, this series has more original artwork than certain (popular) webcomics do anyway.
Q: Why the Site Tracking Adventures? Isn't it better to ignore dumb people?
A: The goal of the Site Tracking Adventures isn't always to be mean to people who are mean to me. Some of them are just observations on weird things I've found in my site tracker. As for ignoring people, I'll just ask, why stop doing something I'm good at?
Q: I want to link your site, but I'm afraid I'll end up in the Site Tracking Adventures!
A: Look, just don't be stupid. I see outside links to my site in the tracker on a daily basis and there are far more that I don't mention than those that I do. The ones who end up in there are rare cases and it should be pretty darn obvious why they end up there.
Q: But don't you think fighting back might encourage people to purposefully attack your site?
A: Occasionally, I've seen some people try to get my attention on purpose, and usually I ignore those. The truth is, I used to see far more stupidity on a weekly basis before I started doing the STA's than after I started doing them.
Q: Why such huge differences in the drawing quality?
A: Some of the drawings I've used are quite old, going as far back as the 90's and 80's. I've been steadily trying to improve since I started drawing again for this series back in 2005. Remember, though, that I am a writer first and a cartoonist second. I always have felt my writing skills were better than my drawing skills, but I do what I can.
Q: Who's your favorite character?
A: C'mon, now! That's like choosing a favorite kid! But, seriously, I find Dr. Honen Calzoun the most fun to write for with Professor Nucleo McRaven a close second.
Q: Why don't you update more often?
A: I will add sketches to this site when I have inspiration for good ones. I am not the type of person who believes in updating every day, or even every week, if I do not have any good ideas. I care very deeply about my characters and the quality of my work and I do not want to churn out crap just for the sake of keeping a schedule and updating all the time. Besides, I also still write game reviews and other stuff for FlyingOmelette.com, so even if the RAU Gallery itself is not being updated constantly, I usually have other things to keep you busy.
Q: What advice do you have for anyone who wants to write their own internet sketch comedy?
A: Writing is not something that is easy to do, so it's important to be open to criticism and suggestions. The problem is getting criticism from the right sources as a lot of people out there don't know any more about good writing than the next and will give you bad advice. Here are some important rules I stick by:
1. Use some sort of visual cue. You don't have to be the world's greatest artist, but if you only use names and no pictures, I will get confused as to who is who. For example, in the RAU Gallery, as soon as I see the red car avatar, I know the next line of dialogue will be spoken by Bubu and I've already got his voice ready in my head. I don't have to stop and think for a moment who "Bubu" is, but I might if that picture wasn't there, which would hurt the reading pace.
2. 97% of comedy is in the timing. You might not think there's such a thing as timing on the internet, but believe me, there is. Hit with your jokes fast, hard, and often. Don't be excessively wordy with dialogue.
3. Learn how to write in separate character voices. This is tough, and it was something I wasn't very good at for years. But after years of being on message boards, I came to realize that I read everyone's posts in different "voices", and I applied that knowledge to my writing. You need to really get into the habit of understanding how other people think and act, not just yourself.
4. If you're writing something episodic, use a 3-act structure. Many 80's and 90's cartoons used a 3-act structure automatically because it helped work the episode around the commercial breaks. A basic 3-act structure is like this: (1) Set up what's going to happen, (2) have it happen, and (3) conclusion. Remember that the trials and tribulations that characters have to go through to achieve their goals are just as important as the end results. I once tried to read a webcomic (no, I won't mention its name) that received a lot of praise, but found that too many of its episodes had a big event happen with very little set-up or lead-in, so I found myself unable to care about what was going on.
5. Put your sketch through a rewrite before uploading it. Almost every one of my sketches has gone through several rewrites before they went public (with the exception of some of the Forum Archive Topics).
6. Villains are people, too. Don't write villains to be completely unsympathetic. Also, don't have a character who is good become completely bad, or bad become completely good, and then have them be absolutely nothing like what they were when they were on the opposite side. People don't change overnight, and definitely not just because they switched allegiances. I really hate it when that happens, because you've essentially taken a character and made it into something entirely else with no believable arc.
7. Don't attempt to put drama into comedy unless you know what you're doing. Even though "For the Love of an Oni" is more drama than comedy, it's one of my favorite sketches, but I feel it worked because by the time I wrote it I was very comfortable with writing the characters, and I had an idea of how far would be going too far in introducing more drama. Also, there are still jokes because I understood that some characters won't stop being who they are just because I might want a darker storyline than usual.
8. Finally, practice, practice, practice! Your first few attempts probably won't be golden. Mine weren't. (Temple of Lost Ezboard Posts is the oldest sketch, and it's the worst. There was an even older one that was so bad, I never put it up.)
