SquirrelWorks: The next great web comic!
By: Kaylanii Xie
In 2000, Chris
Moujaes and Aaron Romo launched their joint website, Squirrelworks.com.
Each had created a webcomic they wished to present to the
public. Before they went
out on their own Aaron and Chris worked for bigger names, such as
Disney; Warner Brothers; Fox Feature Animation, and Nickelodeon.
They now work on their website full time as well as doing
contract services for other studios.
Squirrelworks
is made up of two original comics, forums, a store, links, and an
email room where you can contact any your favorite SW characters
directly. Chris and Aaron
make the attempt to post a daily strip, and a page each every other
day. This does not mean
that they are always able
to. They never promised
that this would happen, and therefore are able to over deliver when
they do magically crank out the pages.
Aaron Romo's brainchild is
“Fairview High”. Simple
enough name, right? Well,
this is not your average high school.
The main group of characters is the motley crew of Ellie, the
half-vampire, Kain, the werewolf, Brandi the mad-genius type that
every good paranormal story must have, Yukiko, the apparently
"normal" one, and Kayla, the resident witch-in-training.
Oh, and I can't forget Peppermint, Kayla's pink familiar.
With this bunch, what could not go wrong?
This is a very light-hearted strip geared toward adolescents
and teens, but it does touch on some deeper emotions, such as the loss
of a parent. Deep, right?
Mix that with humorous magical mishaps, bright colors, crazy
females and one very strange wolf-man to come up with one of the
rising new stars in the webcomic world.
“Coz/Effect”
is written by Chris Moujaes with help from his wife Leila.
Although it sounds like an exercise from every English class I
have ever been in, this is a unique spin on the "undiscovered
musician" story. Coz
McSkwirl wants nothing more than to be a pop star.
With the help of Skyler, his hilarious best friend, Zee, their
sarcastic manager, and Blitz, the stubbornly jaded new guy; Coz is
about to meet his dream head-on. What
good hardship story doesn't have a strange villain?
J-Zel fits the bill perfectly.
As his name indicates, he is a gazelle, but he definitely
doesn't look like one. In
fact, he is pretty beefy. In
case you haven't quite picked up on it yet, Chris has a thing for
drawing animals. In other
stories that can completely destroy the line of the story and it
becomes all about the art. Not so with COz/Effect.
Chris balances color, emotion, and wit extremely well.
Most of the time you won't even know you are connecting with
four-and-a-half feet-tall squirrels.
Aaron and Chris spoke at
quite a few panels at Animefest 2004.
I was lucky enough to get to listen in on most ( at least I
think it was most) of them. I
noticed that they stressed two points more than any others: Research
and patience. That's
right, these guys actually studied before they ever put
anything on the website. Not
everyone is going to put years into developing one set of characters
for what most would consider a hobby, but these guys did. At the
Webcomics panel Aaron stated that he came up with the idea behind
Fairview High six years before Squirrelworks was ever launched.
Chris put just about the same amount of time into development
before publishing anything.
Another thing that the two
mentioned is the amount of character development that goes on, even as
they are writing the strips. The
two say that they are amazed at how much their characters have grown
over the past few years, and that they are watching everyone mature as
much as we are. When asked
if they try to control the development of their characters answered
"It is almost impossible to do, but we like to try."
They also don't feel that a character's back-story has to be
revealed immediately in a series.
Giving bits and pieces over time lessens the risk of overloaded
fans according to the writers. Another
thing Aaron and Chris suggest is putting characters in a new
situation, any situation, and seeing how it works out.
Co-founder
Aaron Romo is working on a new fall release, Soul Stone, about the
descendents of Mayans. He
has worked out his own story as to why the Mayans disappeared off the
face of the earth so long ago, and uses that to bring about a
"gundam-type" mobile suit story using females as the main
group of characters and using stone instead of metal for the suits.
The villains in this story are called the Loa and want to take
control of the soul stones in order to harness the power of the suits
and other stones in the area. The
descendents of ancient warriors are on a fieldtrip when they discover
that they must save the world from the Loa.
So far, that is all I know, but it sounds like another hit to
me.
Squirrelworks doesn't have
a typical name for, well, any type of company, but they have a passion
for what they do. Because
of this, or maybe it is just their awesome senses of humor, they bring
their stories to life with amazing attention to detail and fluid
lines. Even if you don't think you will like their work, check it out.
They may just surprise you.
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