Needle: Welcome to our FAQ.
Thread: Now get the hell out.
Needle: Ha ha, please do excuse my impulsive
friend here..
Thread: And then get out.
Needle: Are you going to help or not?
Thread: Probably not. Continue.
Needle: This is our FAQ, where we answer the frequently
asked questions about us, the online
non-phenomenom that is Needle & Thread.
Thread: Nonphemonemon.
Needle: Non-phenomenon.
Thread: Nonphemonenenon.
Needle: Non..phen..on..em..on.
Thread: Nonpnehnonmomonom.
Needle: The first question, please.
"What's a F.A.Q?"
Needle: A F.A.Q is a frequently asked question.
"You guys look a little uh.. plain"
Thread: That's not a question.
"Why do you guys look so plain?"
Needle: I'm a Needle, and he's some Thread. We're
not exactly 3D dinosaurs, you know.
Thread: We're also hyper-minimalist avante-garde
reality-questioning amateur-philosophising oldschool-loving poorly drawn
scrawls with absolutely no artistic credit whatsoever.
Needle: Oh come on, anything that looks this
bad has to be Art, surely?
Thread: Hmm. Conceeded. Next question.
"You guys talk alot. Why?"
Needle: The use of narrative to express emotion
is a very tricky area of the story telling process.
People use words to express their very hearts
and feelings, and alot of the time more is being said
in the WAY they talk to each other, rather than
in what they talk about. Take example of sarcasm, which uses inflection
in the tone of voice to give sentences opposite meanings, usually as a
verbal barb or taunt. If you just write the words down, can you really
express that tone? We take the entire notion one step further, because
we don't even give you facial expressions to play off. Anything that happens
is entirely due to you, and how you feel things occur. It's the most individualist
style of expression you can make without joining a garage band.
Thread: As if. We narrate everything we do because
there's little to no incidental artwork or backgrounds, rockhead. The walls
aren't MEANT to be white.
Needle: I disagree, I maintain that the usage
of a plain white backdrop is indicative of our need to
use words to illustrate the tableau, as though
we were on a small stage of improvisational drama.
Thread: Oh God, not the 'improvisational drama'
again..
Needle: The Indians have a term for the emotion
conveyed through the mere PRESENCE in an act, the 'Brahma'. This is sadly
lacking in the experience, and so we appear to be somewhat 'flat' at first
look.
Thread: We ARE flat. We're a bunch of lines.
Needle: I meant that we lack the charisma of
just 'being'. It's like why talking to someone online with
a webcamera is the single most depressingly dull
act of faux voyeurism imagined.
Thread: At least we agree on something.
"Why a 3 strip comic?"
Thread: WE PLAN TO SMASH THE STATE, MAN. YOU CAN'T
SCREW WITH THE WIRING UNLESS YOU'RE INSIDE THE MACHINE, JIMMY K.
Needle: We're a 3 strip comic because we're a
tongue in cheek look at the whole 'comic' experience, and we want to work
in the dynamics that every Good Story
has a beginning, middle and end. Each comic should
stand alone as a little 'experience'..
Thread: God help you if you stick one of these
on your cubicle wall, though.
Needle: But we want to tie the whole schema of
our comic existence together as, basically, one long thread.
Thread: Is that a pun?
Needle: Not really.
"Your strip is simply far too insightful and brilliant for words. How do you manage to stand at the forefront of webcomic quality so consistently?"
Needle: Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
Thread: Strange, but true. We ingest so much coffee that it's impossible for us to churn out fewer than 100 strips a week. Those strips are then given to a heron which eats them and then we panic because we've got an update due and no strips to submit (because the heron's eaten them, of course). We then end up stealing dialogue from Garfield strips for our first panel, the online weather forecast for the 2nd panel and the 3rd panel was originally the Unabomber Manifesto until we ran out of material to quote, so now it's just the content of whatever spam we get sent during the day. It's not so easy to spot at first, but a pattern emerges over time.
"What's with the storylines? They're so convoluted"
Needle: Our everything/nothing policy. We go from
a pointless discussion about something on our
minds to giant battle mech fights, because we
wanna show you the versatility of the medium, and because we're not afraid
of doing Our Own Thing. This week we're a college comic, next week we're
anime. We're so minimalist, what we say depends on whether we're being
serious, satirical, cynical or just a bunch of jerks.
Thread: Yeah, and we like explosions.
"Why is it so amateurish?"
Needle: That's intentional. There's so many comics
out there, and so many good ones, but let's face it. We haven't all got
the panache for artwork, dialogue and plot. Some have all 3 sure, but some
have only 2, or one.
Thread: Or none. That's us.
Needle: But that's intentional too. We're only
JUST a comic. Anything less is just nothing. Anything
more is, well, a comic. This is the industry
minimum, kiddies. This is what you look at and say "Man, I could do better",
and then you do, or if not, then this is just a comic you'd do too if you
could be
bothered. This is everyone's comic, but no one'd
be willing to actually own up to owning it.
Thread: Yeah, and don't take a snake and wrap
it around your head.
Needle: What? What's that got to do with anything?
Thread: I'm just saying, that's all.
THANKS FOR READING THE F.A.Q!
Needle: They gone?
Thread: Yeah.
Needle: Man, I can't believe I told all those
lies.
Thread: I was going to burst out laughing when
you said "comic experience"..man.
Needle: Okay, just remember: if they say it's
bad, then we say it's..
Thread: "Intentionally bad, in a selfsatirical
way"
Needle: But if they say it's good, then..
Thread: "It's a discreet quality of our subversive
work".
Needle: Great. If they'll believe that, they'll
probably buy a shirt too.
Thread: Fools.