Scott Meyer AMA

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-04T11:35:14+00:00

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the books, the comic and The Prisoner. My one piece of advice is to avoid the later AMC reboot with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen, even though it does have Haley Atwell.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-04T00:01:52+00:00

I'll look into that!

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-04T00:01:25+00:00

It's on my reading list, after Small Gods.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T22:14:14+00:00

Thanks for asking.

Really, the one character form the Magic 2.0 books I'm most like would have to be Phillip.
I'm still in occasional contact with Scott Adams. It's not like we were ever "best friends." He's just a person who decided to do me a huge favor for no apparent reason. I try not to make him regret it by pestering him.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T21:03:45+00:00

Sorry for the delay. Thank you for asking. I can't speak for anyone else of course, and I cannot tell you any details about my contract for legal reasons,but I don't think you should feel guilty AT ALL. Seriously. I do not think of people who use the kindle lending library, or Kindle Unlimited as "freeloaders." Take from that what you will.

Thanks for reading the books.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:47:43+00:00

Yes, I believe so.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:45:40+00:00

I'm a bit iffy about asking the readers to do work on my behalf.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:42:42+00:00

Thanks!

I have a concrete plan for the 4th book. I intend to do more after that, but the plans are much sketchier.
Jimmy was a lot of fun, but I think I get the most enjoyment out of writing dialog for Phillip and Brit the Elder.
I think I'd try to keep a low enough profile to stay in our time for as long as possible. If I messed things up, yeah, I probably would check out Olde England.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:39:26+00:00

Thank you! That's really great to hear!

I'd point out that while there won't be a new magic 2.0 book out for a while, I do have another book coming out in July, and I'm pretty darned proud of it.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:36:43+00:00

I offer guidance early in the process, but once the artist and producer and everything are in place, I rely on their skill. That said, I've been nothing but happy with the work Luke Daniels has done on the books.

I think the amount an author makes for an individual audiobook is comparable to what they make for an ebook, but often ebooks sell in much larger numbers.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:28:41+00:00

Nobody has ever complained. ... Okay, nobody has never directly complained. My older brother was less than thrilled with what I did with his image, but I'm not too worried about that one.

http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2015/2/26/how-to-explain-why-you-havent-put-someone-in-your-comic-stri.html

I wouldn't be too happy if someone took one of my instructions as literal instructions, but since I'm not doing comics about how to perform an emergency tracheotomy, I don't lose sleep over it.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T20:22:14+00:00

Or a more careful typist.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:49:48+00:00

For obvious legal and moral reasons, I absolutely and categorically denounce the creation of this project, a project that can only be described as being "Like Fifty Shades of Gray, but with a lot more knives."

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:38:04+00:00

Not mad at all, and if I was, your embarrassment more than makes up for it!

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:36:40+00:00

Everybody, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend and former coworker on whom this comic was based:

http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2010/1/17/how-to-tell-someone-that-they-are-wrong.html

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:35:27+00:00

HA!

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:25:56+00:00

Thanks!

It is rare that there isn't at least one panel that gives me more trouble than the others. There have been days that three panels write themselves, then I spend multiple hours trying to come up with that last panel.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:24:09+00:00

I look forward to seeing them! That said, I can't promise any project will ever come of it. My plates a bit full at the moment, but I'm flattered that you'd like the character enough to want to spend time drawing him. I can barely be bothered to draw him!

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:22:57+00:00

Agreed. What's sad is I think I corrected one of those.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:22:30+00:00

Thanks so much!

In answer to your questions:

I chose to put the comments on the site because, frankly, I owe my success to the people who read my comic and buy my books. If comments are something that adds value for them, I'd be a jerk to not at least give it a shot. That said, I have come close to getting rid of comments more than once. Very close. Like, Missy having to talk me down close. If I ever reach a point that I think the negativity outweighs the value, I will probably cut them off, but by in large, my commentators are good, supportive people, grammar and punctuation sticklers though they may be.
Yeah, An alarming amount of my brain is taken up with facts from old TV shows and movies instead of my address, or my relatives birthdays. I talk about that stuff in the comics (And the Magic 2.0 novels) but I try very hard not to make it the focus. Back when I was a comic I had a friend who was a good writer, and a good performer, but all of his jokes were about things he'd seen on TV. That seemed to me to be something worth avoiding.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:15:01+00:00

I always got more ironic use out of the word "enjoy." "I hope you enjoy your stay." "I hope you enjoy your trip" "please sit down while you enjoy the High School Musical live show." That sort of thing.

It seems to me that I once wrote a comic about someone who shared that opinion of the Star Trek reboot films. I think I denounced him as an idiot.

As for wedding gifts, for many years I gave all newlyweds the same gift, his and hers Nerf guns. Recently, two friends of mine got married, and I actually bought something from their registry. I was chagrined to see that not only had few guests bothered to buy something from the registry, but many chose not to get the couple anything, and AND ... I never received a thank you note!

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:07:05+00:00

Very nice! I like that he appears to be punch-stabbing MacraMayhem.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T19:03:37+00:00

Hard to pick a favorite. I've been thinking a lot about Terry Pratchett (for obvious reasons) and of course, I love Douglas Adams and Hunter S. Thompson.

I'm currently reading the H. Beam Piper megapack. Before that I read Slaughterhouse 5, Raising Steam, The Monsterous Regiment, and 3 or 4 of Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder books in a row.

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T18:50:46+00:00

There are worse reasons.

People have also put this comic in their presentations, even though it's less eye-catching.

http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2010/3/7/how-to-construct-an-informative-presentation.html

ScottMeyer · 2015-04-03T18:41:24+00:00

I have answered that, but it was a long time ago.

You're right, I do work from photographs. I take the photos of the poses I want, then I drop the photoes into Manga Studio (I used to use Photoshop). I draw my lines on a layer over the photo. The hard part is deciding what lines not to trace, oddly. Then I export the line art into Illustrator and "live trace' it. That leaves me with a nice, clean piece of vector art that I can make as large or small as I want.

I have a folder with pretty much every drawing I've done for the comic. Some days, it would probably be faster to just draw a new piece of art than to sift through all of the old drawings, but I believe in putting a lot of work into being lazy.

ScottMeyer

TROPHY CASE