1. So what's this "Watch This Space" business all about, anyway? One week it's about video games, the next week it's about family stuff, and the week after that it's some kind of weird fourth-wall surreal nonsense. Is there a plot or what?

Well, Watch This Space is basically, when you get right down to it, about me. Since my life contains many different elements, so does the strip. As for the surreal fourth-wall weirdness...well, my wacky sense of "humor" is part of my life, so if it's not your cup of tea I think you can probably find Family Circus on the web somewhere for your entertainment pleasure...

2. How come it says "Updated Wednesdays" up at the top but I never see a new strip until Thursday?

Pook!s live in a strange time warp where Thursday is actually Wednesday. Don't tell her this, though, or the universe will implode on itself. Or, possibly it might also be because I procrastinate like heck. But at least I START work on the strip on a Wednesday, that's what's really important in my mind *nods*

3. Who's this Pook!? And what kind of name is Pook! anyway?

Pook! is me! And don't forget the Superfluous Exclamation Point on that :) My secret identity, though, is that of Sarah Calkins, stay-at-home wife and mother, living in the sunny funny Southwestern US.

4. When was Watch This Space started?

Let's see...well, I've always drawn comics. I had a regular strip about a girl and her pet mermaid when I was like 9 or 10 that had a big plot arc in it concerning travelling to a world with no color and a homicidal cockatoo. Watch This Space in its current form was born in about 1988 or '89, though. I touched up a few of the earlier strips before the "official" re-opening, if you scan back through all of them. Ph34r them.

5. Why is it called "Watch This Space"? What does that have to do with anything?

Why not? Besides, that's what you're supposed to do, Watch This Space (and by this space I mean http://fiercepook.tripod.com of course) every week for a new strip. Also, because it won out over Serendipity when I was polling family and friends for a title way back when by one vote.

6. What's that blobby yellow thing in the background image of the webpages?

Patience is a virtue, my friend...

7. No, seriously, what is it? It looks like it's laughing at me...

Look, I'll get to it in good time, okay? But before I bust out with that kind of weirdness, I'm going to have to introduce a little more unreality into the everyday life kind of feel the strip has so far.

8. Who are the characters in Watch This Space?

First and foremost you have Sarah, the focal character of the strip. Take a wild stab at who she's based on. Then there's her husband Chris, the rockstar-dreams breadwinner and patient putter-upper-with of all of Sarah's insanity. Definitely shortest but not least is Samantha, their adorable toddler. Also sometimes featured are Nicki, Sarah's best friend since High School and Bippy, Sarah's airheaded but beautiful arch-nemesis.

9. Are the characters in Watch This Space based on real-life people?

So far, everyone but Bippy has a real-life direct counterpart. Bippy herself is more of a conglomeration of different people I've known.

10. Why is the art in the strip so inconsistent? People and objects vary in appearance not only from strip to strip but from panel to panel.

Because I suck. Also, because shut up.

11. How is Watch This Space created?

'Round about 10pm on Wednesday night, once the baby goes to bed, I start with plain white printer paper on which I've printed a basic rectangular black outline, just to give me a general idea of how much space I have to work with. Then I divide the box into as many smaller boxes as I need (usually 3 or 4, I'll use two pages if it goes above that) and write the text that the characters will be saying above them. Then I draw as much of the strip as I need to by hand in pencil, usually just the main characters and maybe one basic background that can be re-used from panel to panel. Often the characters can just be slightly modified too, making it so that I don't have to fully redraw them. Usually for a four-panel strip I only end up drawing at the most two full panels. Then I scan the whole page and import it into Photoshop. I color-select and delete anything that isn't a pencil line, and then I adjust the brightness of the lines to make them dark black instead of gray. Then I go one panel at a time and re-draw, edit or add anything I need to mouse-draw or copy and paste in Photoshop, and then I make a few more layers. On one layer goes the backgrounds, on the top layer is the original pencil lines, and then the middle layer I use to color under the top lines cel-style, using the Magnetic Lasso tool. Then I retouch anything I need to do with the eraser and airbrush tools, and then I add in the text. The main font I use is called GoodDogPlain, since it's the one that looks the closest to my real handwriting. I use a font called Kids for anything Sam says, and variable other fonts for sound effects or computer text or what have you. If I need to, I make fountain-filled white circles under the text if it's illegible against the background, or lines from the text to the speaker to clarify who's saying what. Then I take the separate panel images and paste them into a large consolidated image with a black background, leaving spaces on the sides, top and bottom to be the dividing lines between each panel. And then finally, I re-size the image down from usually around a 4000x1000 pixel PSD file to a 900x200 pixels JPEG so it doesn't take four hours for people on 56k modems to look at it.

Really though, it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is ^^;

12. When am I gonna be in your strip??

Ummm...do I know you? My friends and family tend to turn up in it all in good time, but harassing me to put you in a strip may backfire into hi-larious consequences...

13. How can I support Watch This Space?

Glad you asked! Well, first of all, just come and visit us every Wednesday (or Thursday, as the case may be) and take a gander at the new strips when they appear. Secondly, tell your friends about Watch This Space! Remind them of the handy, easy-to-remember URL http://fiercepook.tripod.com

14. Okay, really now, all kidding aside, what's that blobby yellow thing??

It is the epitome of evil. It will become your new lord and master. TREMBLE BEFORE IT, FOOLISH MORTAL, FOR IT IS THE FACE OF YOUR DOOM! MWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!...

...errmm...sorry, just a bit of a preview there... ;)