Monthly Q&A, now with Q's and A's

Thanks for all your questions folks! Enjoy your answers and see ya next month! (Have we mentioned lately that you're great? Cause you're pretty great!) Q&A with Andrew Ivimey and Diana McCallum, creators of Texts From Superheroes Where do you get your ideas from? Pretty much from spending all of our free time overanalyzing superhero media. We watch superhero TV shows, cartoons and movies together and we read comics of course, then we have writing sessions together to try and figure out a funny new angle about a character or new observations that no one has really done before. It's mostly about looking at superheroes from a new angle and thinking about every aspect of their life. Holidays are the easiest to write about because it gives a situation for the characters and we just have to figure out who would be affected by that holiday in a funny way. For example, Easter is coming up so we would talk about how Easter is about chocolate, bunnies, Jesus resurrecting, we'd realize, hey, superheroes resurrect all the time, I bet they love Easter, and the joke builds from there. How long do you spend making one web comic? That can vary, obviously. Writing-wise we probably spend 30-60minutes on each one, discussing the premise, writing a first draft, editing, researching the facts, then finalizing. Photoshop wise it can take as little as twenty minutes to create the Text if the conversation is between two characters we've used before because we'll have a template ready to go. If it involves any new characters it can take an hour or more because Diana is very picky about the Profile Images used and will scour the internet forever to find the perfect picture of a character. How do you think the show The Flash compares to other superhero shows like Smallville? Diana: I didn't watch a whole lot of Smallville, not because I disliked it but just cause Superman is one of my least favorite heroes so I wasn't very drawn to it. I do watch all the current DC and Marvel shows though and think Flash is at the front of the pack. It's funny, entertaining and compelling and probably most impressive is that it was like that from the start. I think Arrow and Agents of SHIELD are just as good as the Flash, but both of those shows had rocky first seasons. The Flash is still in its first season and is impressive for coming out of the gate strong with really great characters and an interesting story, if only they could give poor Iris a storyline that worked. Andrew: I did watch Smallville and I think it’s amazing to compare The Flash to it. It’s amazing to see how much the quality of the superhero shows have improved, as a whole, and particularly at the CW. I did really enjoy Smallville but I also really feel like only the season opener and closer were the strong episodes, with a show like Smallville they had a rotating writing staff, the majority of who wrote and respected teen dramas as opposed to superhero genre. Which was visible. But with a show like The Flash they are definitely more excited to portray the comics and the comics world. I think they’re doing a great job. If you check my twitter you’ll see me make fun of it a lot but that’s just because I make fun of everything. I think The Flash is really good, it’s suffering a few growing pains which hopefully it’ll move away from. The majority of the growing pains is the inability to write any good or relatable love or romance story, so they either need to skip it or step up their game. Hopefully it’ll move past these growing pains, much as Arrow did in it’s late season one. Right now I think The Flash is the second best hero show on, surpassed only by SHIELD. What do you do to focus when you really don't feel like focussing on something? Diana: I can only speak for myself, but I'm not a big fan of forcing something in terms of creative ventures. I kind of think that if you don't feel like focusing on something, you're probably not in the right mindset to work on it anyway, at least not in any productive way where you'll create quality content. If I sit down to work on fiction or comedy and am just not feeling creative I will usually switch over and do something kind of mindless like responding to emails or photoshopping so I still feel productive even if I don't get anything creative done. If it's something I have to work on for a deadline I find stepping away briefly helps. I'll literally just stand outside to get some air or do a few jumping jacks, as cliché as that sounds. It gets the blood flowing and breaks up your thought process a bit. I also find getting a fresh coffee helps. When you sit down at your computer with a full cup of coffee it just feels like, okay, it's work time, let's do this! Andrew: I agree with Diana for the most part. I just try to have multiple creative ideas and ventures that I can focus on. If you listen to the March 16th, 2015 episode of The Nerdist podcast with Brian Michael Bendis he describes it in a way more concise and brilliant than I can while discussing the idea of writers block. Which to paraphrase and personalize, is just to have many different creative projects to work on so that you can always move on to something else and are never able to suffer a block. If there’s a day where I’m unable to write or come up with any Texts From Superheroes I’ll work on my script, the next day maybe I’ll do stand up so I’ll write more stand up and then go do a show. Then I’ll organize the next day to be a writing day with Diana, because once I’ve gotten those other creative juices moving I can be creative, but since I didn’t force myself into that one realm of Texts From Superheroes I can still be loose and comfortable without stress or block. How do you make friends without being creepy or clingy? Always have a puppy. Everyone loves a person with a puppy. If they don't, you don't need 'em.