splatterlink - when i am king


	visit an online comic which doesn't have to resort to clumsy words to tell its charming, yet taboo-breaking tale. we interviewed the author demian5 about "when i was king". How would you describe "When I am King"? An online-comic in five chapters. It's about a king in a strange ancient land. He leaves his residence to pick flowers, but on his way a strange ancient animal eats his clothes, which gives him a totally new mission, which he tries to solve as quickly as possible. Did you already know the complete storyline when you started? I had a rough outline in my head how the story would develop when i started, but then the story wrote itself from episode to episode. What inspired you to make this comic? My life, my unconscience mind, my strange day dreams. With which character do you identify yourself the most? Probably with the king. But i actually identify myself with all of the characters a lot. How did you get the idea to use horizontal scrollbars? I stole the idea! Scott McCloud's vertical-scrolling online comic "Zot: Hearts and Minds" had "inspired" me a lot. What tools did you use use to draw and create your comic? My old PowerMac G3. And the programs Abode Illustrator, Photoshop, ImageReady and Cinema 4D. What problems surfaced during the development of your comic? I often brought the programs and the memory quite near to their limits. Illustrator-documents were often too big to save them in web-format. (An Illustrator .GIF can not be higher or wider than 6000 pixels).That's why i had to divide individual documents ("comic pages") and put them back together with HTML. The flower fields were rather complex for my old G3. A single flower already had countless paths. The entire flower fields naturally even more, and that is not counting additional glowing effects and other such snicksnacks. I often had to wait an eternity to simply render a small step. What feedback have you recieved? Countless e-mails, a nomination for the Ignatz Award 2001, a Cartoonist's Choice Award 2002, positive articles in 'Spin' and 'Wired' and even a line in 'Playboy'. Even a couple of newspaper reported about WIAK. What was the most important feedback you recieved in your eyes? I believe Scott McCloud's support helped me very much, and i feel very grateful towards him because of that. But the countless mails from the entire world motivated me to complete the project. What can we expect on the "When I am King" CD-ROM? Of course the entire WIAK-comic including a new graphical design on the CD. Additionally, the name of the "strange ancient animal" will be announced. A few pretty desktop background images, five PC screensavers, and a small "art gallery" with comic drawings and other pictures from my younger years will round it off. And a photo of me. And three quicktime movies totally devoid of meaning. And a small preview of my current newspaper comic series "Viereck Geschichten" (square stories). On what other projects are you working? I am working on a comic for the 'ZuerichExpress' newspaper. Its called 'Viereck Geschichten' and appears once a week. 'Viereck Geschichten' will also go online this year. I also have another online-comic in sight, but i do not want to waste any words about that one yet. It will appear in summer 2003 at the latest. Will we possibly experience new adventures of the king in the future? Its certainly possible, but i don't have any sequal for WIAK planned for the near future. And what are you plans for the future? I am planning to have a comfortable, entertaining life. ;)