Q&A with Midnight (Patreon)

I’ve been wanting to do a Q&A for a while now, especially since I’ve been receiving a bunch of questions via email, direct messages, etc. Here are a few questions I’ve received over the last number of months. If people are into the Q&A thing, I’m definitely down for doing more. 

—What’s the hardest part of writing Danger Zone One?

On a production level, the most difficult part is always trying to make sure all of the artwork gets in on time. Working with various artists sometimes makes this a challenge but, fortunately, we’ve still never missed an update on the DZO site or fallen behind on Patreon content.

In the writing department, the most challenging area is coming up with ideas for the ‘supplemental entries' at the bottom of each page. Some can be tricky to write — especially for pages without new characters, interesting tech, locations, weapons, etc. I’ve considered discontinuing the written entries a few times, but a number of readers really seem to enjoy them. I’ve also grown fond of using it as a method to expand the “world” of DZO. It’s a unique tool that can only be used in webcomics (as opposed to traditional print comics, which don’t allow for page-after-page of lore-related entries).

—Were there deleted scenes left out of any chapters?

Not really, aside from a few minor ideas here and there. Originally, in the Nightmare Island arc, there was going to be a longer sequence where Subject 37 tracked down Reena and Madison, but that was changed early in the writing process. Also, back in Chapter 1, I wanted Reena’s arrival in Pallad City to be longer — sort of showing how she’s in awe of the city and maybe getting a first glimpse of just how dangerous it is. I tried to make the first chapter as tightly paced as possible, so anything non-essential was omitted.

In some instances, however, scenes were extended — like the Madison/Yakov fight in Building Blitz and the Madison/Satori flashback in Integral Interval.

—What’s the most frustrating thing about doing a webcomic?

That it only updates twice a week. I’d love if an entire chapter could be done each month, just so the various plots can progress faster. There are many future DZO storylines planned and I’m eager to get to them.

—Will we ever see the megacorp villain from the end of Nightmare Island again? I like the idea of Reena and Madison going up against a megacorp.

Daedin Alacore hasn’t been forgotten, he’s still around and scheming. Something tells me Madison’s not one to let previous cases go unsolved, and that includes what happened on Volkan Island…

—Are you planning to create more non-DZO comics in the future? Any plans to continue some of your previous comics, like Mechanica or Welcome to the Machine. I was reading that one on Webtoons.

I would love to return to Mechanica and Welcome to the Machine down the road — the plot lines for both have been thoroughly mapped out. Until then, I do have plans to work on a few non-DZO comics, some of which take place in the same “world” as DZO, but feature different characters. Without revealing too much quite yet, Kijo is a character I’d very much like to explore more, and there’s another character who made a non-canon appearance in DZO, who will be getting their own one-shot comic soon (more to be revealed this summer!).

—You don't update on Tapas anymore. Will you post on there again? Or on Webtoons?

I’m not a huge fan of the Tapas/Webtoons vertical formatting structure, which is designed for the reader to constantly scroll down. I have to basically “cut” up the panels of Danger Zone One to adhere to their format, so that’s a downside. DZO also hasn’t found an audience on Tapas, despite numerous uploads. We were gaining a decent readership on Webtoons, but then they banned us because of an image where Reena was in her bra — which was, apparently, too “gratuitous” for them (this was long before DZO had started featuring any nudity). Webtoons allowed DZO to return, but the readership numbers were a shadow of what they had been initially. Unsurprisingly, they just removed another “episode” a few weeks back, claiming it contained nudity. I'm not sure what was the offending image, since the "inappropriate content" came from Mad Machine (which has the least amount of fanservice out of any DZO chapter thus far). Anyway, that was the last straw for me with Webtoons. Maybe if I ever do a tamer comic, unrelated to DZO, I’ll try uploading it there.

—What Danger Zone One villain is your favorite? Any other characters that you have preferences for, or dislike to write?

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a DZO character that I particularly dislike writing. So many of the characters have such wildly different personalities, it makes them fun to write. Picking a favorite villain is tough, but I really like Miss Bliss (I wouldn’t mind doing a side-chapter dedicated just to her backstory). Even though Psycho Circuit only appeared for three pages, I enjoyed writing his dialogue, particularly because it was so unique.