Let's Talk About Immortal Fool

A few days ago, I just finished drawing Chapter 5 of a webcomic called "My Immortal Fool."  Most of the time when I talk about my comics to people who are NOT fans of Nintendo characters, I usually just refer to Highly Experimental, but on the side, I've been working on this one, too.  It's a fan comic of the comedy-drama type that follows the exploits of a few villains from the Super Mario games taking place in the Bean Kingdom from Superstar Saga in particular.

The comic itself began in early 2010 based on an unfinished fanfic idea I had six years prior that fans of mine had wanted to see revived.  I chose to make it a comic because I was afraid of making comics.  No comic I've attempted in the past had lasted long and I felt like my art would never be good enough to make Highly Experimental a successful reality.  For the most part, Immortal Fool had a story that was almost fully planned-out, so all I had to do was draw pages and see what my capabilities were. The comic was posted on deviantArt and had a tiny handful of responsive fans that made this project fun and kept me going.  Not to mention, I was able to try different line and coloring styles, try different perspectives and layouts- basically do anything that I couldn't get away with in a serious ongoing webcomic. I mean, it's just a lame fancomic. If a critic were to tell me to be more serious with this comic, they would more likely say "draw an original comic instead" rather than "improve this fancomic."  Anyway. Later that year, I finally had the guts to work on Highly Experimental and started planning out the story and concepts for several months, and in Spring of 2011, I finally launched the comic on the web.

From then on, Immortal Fool was no longer my main comic, but while it was updated less and less, I couldn't let it die.  I get the feeling that fan comics are pretty frowned-upon in webcomics communities, and honestly, I would have had time to shell out two HiEx pages a week if I would have just axed Immortal Fool altogether, but it just didn't happen.

There are two big reasons for this.  Firstly, the fanbase. I've mirrored the project at ComicFury (IF currently runs alongside Mushroom Go on that site) and the reader base continued to grow both there and at deviantArt. It's not a big fan base, I don't get a lot of fanart of this project, and the last Formspring question I've received for it was in mid-2010, but I still get feedback when I post pages.  When I return after a long hiatus, I get really touching comments from some people on how glad they are that the comic is still running, and a couple of fans have even mentioned the comic when I've introduced myself.   I find it to be a rather arrogant idea to put down a successful fan project because I'm suddenly an original character artist or something  now. I love my fanbase.  The comic will eventually come to an end, but not without an actual ending.

And secondly, I vowed to finish this comic. I think I just said that.  There's only three more chapters left.

When it's time to make HiEx into a book, there will be a long hiatus for Immortal Fool, but rest assure, it will continue.

Happy third anniversary, awful cesspool of headcanon in comic form!