Targeted Marketing

Mandy\'s avatar

 He’s not wrong…

Three other artists in this strip! Mike Hall of Dark Star Studios (requested “big cat,” I tried out a clouded leopard),  Jennie Breeden of The Devil’s Panties, and Paul Taylor of Wapsi Square (both of whom separately and coincidentally requested they be drawn as a badger, which amuses me). All three of them were awesome and incredibly helpful to us at Katsucon – we learned a lot from them – thank you again guys! 😀

62 comments on “Targeted Marketing

  1. I’m actually surprised that you didn’t have Fox either Mike Hall’s suggestion or, at the very least, snickering. Of course, your reaction was great.

          1. Well Jennie is pointing at Mike as if to say “yup”, which given her stuff is an accurate assumption.

      1. Yeah, now that you mention it, in the third panel, he could actually be thinking about it. LOL.

  2. A friend of mine and I tried a type of ‘situational’ experiment in her Deviant gallery. She designed several anthro characters, about the same degree of anthro as the characters here. If only the female characters in a group were nude – in spite of a very discreet coat of fur – she got a fair amount of comments about how sexy they were. If none of the characters wore clothes – even though they were the same characters – no one seemed to notice. Don’t really prove nothing, but the conclusion being that the ‘sexy’ factor of very anthro characters depends a lot upon the situation. This was related to a game proposal I was developing at the time that had alien ‘cat girls’ that were much more cat than girl, and whether or not they needed clothes.

      1. There were actually both male and female, and this was early in the development stage. The males were warriors and the females were strong magic-users, and I didn’t like the idea of locking in character roles by gender even when I was designing them. They continued to evolve.

    1. Well it does say “Webcomic ARTIST Roundtable” (though that table looks pretty rectangular to me) and Mandy’s the actual artist, so maybe Fox didn’t get a seat on technical grounds and had no choice but to stand there awkwardly to subtly highlight how ridiculous the situation was.

      1. Didn’t look awkward to me, and while he had a seat, he chose to stand most of the time.

      2. I was thinking, it was probably very considerate for the squirrel woman from the Casino Panel to sit at the back, given her tail.

    2. It’s not particularly easy to sit wearing full plate armor. Nor terribly comfortable.
      I actually just stood behind Mandy during the panel. The issue was there were only so many microphones and they had limited cord lengths, so I asked a few panelists to move to the center closer to them.

      I don’t need a microphone for people to hear me.

      1. Lol… Awesome man… got that nice manly booming voice? 😛

        And yeah, it is challenging wearing armor and sitting… I did 10 years as a Cavalry Scout in the Army and 100+ lbs. of gear… is NOT fun to try and sit in… even the cloth Kevlar stuff with 4 solid ceramic plates in it… It is way easier than solid steel plate armor, but still a pain to sit in… If you have trouble sitting in plate armor though, try building in some gussets into the sides and cover the gap between plates with soft armor or layered plates that overlap the gap even when the gusset is fully expanded.

      2. “I don’t need a microphone for people to hear me.”

        Sounds like you might have had some theatrical training. I know I used to have a rather quiet voice until I started stage acting. Now, people can hear me 50 yards away without me raising my voice. (All right 30 yards. LOL.)

        1. Mine was a bit of the other way around. Mandy calls me ‘barrel chested’. I’d never heard that before but upon looking it up it would explain my ability to project. I’ve always called it ‘Pittsburgh Voice’, as most of my family is from there, and a lot of people there are a loud and rowdy bunch.
          I don’t know what I sound like when I’m legitimately angry (doesn’t happen often) but Mandy also claims I’ve a very good ‘Dad Voice’ when I am.

          I had theater and music teachers try to get me to join their classes; said they could tell I’d do well.
          Turns out they knew what they were talking about, but I took shop and CompSci instead.
          No regrets.

          Maybe Mandy should take some stage acting classes to work on her Hooah.

          1. I can relate. I was a “loud mouth” when I was younger. My mother used to complain all the time about how loud I was so I toned it down. When I started acting, my directors complained because my voice was so soft. So, I learned to, once again, speak loudly. Now, I’ve learned to be loud when necessary and soft when necessary. I’ve been in a noisy, crowded room and gotten the attention of someone on the other side of the room simply by calling their name. But, as I said, stage acting is a great way to help someone learn to project their voice.

            BTW, I wanted to let you know that, because of you and your wedding suit, I added a short exchange in a story I’m writing that refers to it. I have a character who is invited to an engagement party. It’s held in a mansion that is little less than a castle. The male protagonist mentions that the house looks like a castle and adds that all it would take would be foxes in armor standing around waiting to protect it from attack. (Yes, the story is a semi-anthro story.)

          2. Can we get a sound bite of you two Hooahing? I did 10 years in the Cavalry Scouts myself, so I do appreciate a good Hooah now and again. BTW, were one of ya’ll Military? Which branch and MOS?

  3. It is an interesting coincidence that both of them picked the same animal.
    Also I take it that the “really happened” meant that it was the actual advice provided? 😛

    1. It would hardly have been noticeable if only one of them picked the same animal.

  4. I bet the catgirls in the audience are now thinking everyone else is looking at them, and picturing them half naked.

    1. I’m just waiting for more half-naked cat girls to make an appearance here.

    2. Probably the same kind of feeling blondes in our world get when the “tall blonde” stereotype gets thrown around.

  5. To those wondering about Fox, note that there appears to be someone standing behind Mr. Taylor (or whoever’s sitting next to him) in panel one. I agree that both he/she and Fox are probably writers or support, co-authors mayhaps.
    Plus, having a knight standing behind you makes you 34.5% more believable. And 20% cooler.

    1. I also don’t like sitting.
      It’s a situational awareness and reaction time thing. If I have to, I sit facing the door when I can. If I can be standing, I will. You can move faster that way. Wasn’t really a concern here, but there were plenty of other reasons it made sense for me to give my chair and mic to other panelists.

      I realize it can make others uncomfortable, but sitting makes me feel more vulnerable. Most of the time I was leaning forward on the back of Mandy’s chair so I wasn’t quite so imposing. I stood to speak, as you project better standing.

  6. Hey Mandy, I totally forgot about the comic I was drawing to show you guys. I’ve been busy doing my high school art classes, but I have made a new idea for my comics, I could show you one of those if you wanted.

    1. No worries – I hope your art classes are going great!
      Feel free to drop us a link if you share any of your comics online, we always love checking out others work. Most of all, hope you’re having fun working on them! 😀

      1. Speaking of other people’s work. I saw you and Fox in a Precocious strip recently. (I started reading it a few weeks ago.) The instant I saw the two of you, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Christopher Paulsen did a great job on the two of you.

  7. I like the expression on Jennie’s face in the last panel…

  8. on my first reading, i thought you were clawing the table in a “we are so getting kicked off the panel for this” sort of way. Then i realized you’re just shrugging

  9. Love the shield just sitting in front of the panel. You should see if there’s a way to adapt it to be able to be carried on your back. Just think of it as more strength training 🙂

    1. It’s on a strap, so it /can/ be slung over my back, but only if I’m not wearing a cape (which I normally am) or the strap would have to go over said cape. (Which looks terrible)
      Even then it sits at a cant that makes it hard to avoid hitting stuff with it. (It’s 2’x4′)

      It just made the most sense to toss it against the front stage since it was the ’round table’ and all.

      1. That makes sense, … though if you wanted it to hang straight you could add small hooks about a foot apart and then also small hooks on the top of your chestplate and have straps attaching them to hold it straight, then when not in use … umm … hmm, maybe not.

  10. hey guys, it was wonderful meeting you in the green room and working with you! (Assistant to the guest director aka Can i get you anything? girl lol)

  11. Came over here from Paul’s Facebook post and did an archive crawl. LOVE the comic and it’s now in my webcomic folder. Keep up the funny stuff!

  12. I can confirm that it is a legit strategy. Furry or not, everyone loves cat girls! 🙂

  13. I’m less sure this is “targeted marketing” so much as “shotgun marketing”.
    Still not wrong. 😛

  14. Yes, there’s always another crop of horny young web surfers with money in their pockets.

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