NOBODY ASKS ME THESE QUESTIONS FREQUENTLY

A WORD FROM MESSIRS DE VIET AND TURNER!!:

Troy is Gay was created on the 8th day and was in fact, the only thing God looked at on his creation and said it was not good, but instead fantastically epic and perhaps debonaire. It was created by fusing the powers of the 8 great elements, the 4 types of love, and perhaps more than a little bit of teen embarassment because when I went into the shower at school I did not have leg hair and every other boy did. It is very simple because simple is good and also because we have no talent at all. Troy is Gay is fully inspired and endorsed by Robin Williams and his input was crucial in the making of many of our most successful strips. In closing, WHAT IS THIS OMINIOUS LIGHT THAT THREATENS TO ENGULF US?

Q. What is the name of this comic?
A. Initially, it was called "This is a Webcomic", as indicated by the first few comics. Eventually the name became, simply, "Troy is Gay" in honor of Troy's departure from the comic as a collaborative venture.

Q. How did Troy is Gay begin?
A. Troy approached me with the idea of starting a webcomic in the spring of 2004; our intent all along was to create the most stupid webcomic to ever grace the internet, and to this end I think we have succeeded on many levels. The original intent was for me to do 'storyboards', and he would turn the crude MSPaint drawings into more colorful images made in Photoshop. Three of the final comics are now in the Guestcomics section, under #064,#065, and #066. #066 features several pictures of the person the Geno character is based on.

I was able to churn out these crude storyboards much faster than Troy could produce final products, and my designs became increasingly complex, featuring, among other things, a giant squid monster (as seen in #005, one of my favorite comics), a baleen whale, and the ice queen of England. These issues compounded the minor creative differences we suffered, and thus Troy was completely removed from the actual creative process by around the 15th comic, though we still shared ideas.

At this point, though the comic images were hosted online in various places, the content was only shared via IRC and email, often in a large-ish ZIP file. This was due in equal parts to laziness, as setting up a website for a comic that was surely going nowhere seemed silly, and a concerted effort to avoid commercialization of the comic. After a 33-pack of comics was circulated for a few months, the comics were moved to the trumlaut.com domain.

Q. Why is this site so shitty?
A. The site is based on a directory listing PHP program written by Troy, meant for servers where directory listings are disabled. The program has been modified significantly since then, but the look has been preserved. I have turned down all offers to redesign the site. The current design provides what is needed and little else, and it keeps with the style of the comic, so there's little reason to change it. If I start actively working on the comic again, I may add thumbnails or something.

Q. What is this terrible music?
A. Troy is Gay has had a number of decidedly awful musical offerings over the (two) years, including a themesong (#053) which is a distorted version of Hello My Baby by Joe Howard, an extremely effete recitation of the fight scene from Romeo and Juliet (#100), and pretentiously-named screechy electronica (#172+). The themesong originates with the obsession Troy and I share with the Michigan Frog, and particularly this image of said frog. The Shakespeare likewise comes from an in-joke, as Troy and I often copied and pasted large swathes of Shakespeare quotations in our online discourse. The electronic music comes from some improvization I did on a few synthesizers. I will not defend its lack of quality.

Q. Is there a format to the comics?
A. Every comic is 612 pixels wide (with one or two exceptions). This number came about simply from the width of the first comic when it was made in MSPaint. The comics are generally non-continuous, but characters are often re-used some strips are self-referential. I detail the creative process in comic #052, which is fairly accurate, except that my comics don't usually have borders anymore. The PNG format is used for a variety of reasons, but bear in mind that if you're using Internet Explorer and the backgrounds of most of the comics are pink or grey, it is that color because Internet Explorer is stupid.

Q. Who are the characters?
A. The main character is Geno, the oval with black triangles for hair. All other characters are basically irrelevant. Geno is a (parody of a) real person, as are many of the other characters. I've created roughly one character for every three comics, though, so that should indicate their depth of personality. Geno's backstory is that he has no friends, and everyone basically hates him. Cyclops (starting in #043) and Troy (starting in #010, the guy with the red hat) make more appearances than most, but they're not terribly important regardless.

Q. What are your favorite comics?
A. If you're vaguely interested in my comic, these are the ones to look at:
The Baron, Fish Fire, Fun Owls, The Onelobsterverse, Euro, Fluorescences, Mole, Uhohuhohuhohuhoh, Doom, Who, High Budget, Actual Things I Saw in Japan, How to Hack, Pied Piper, He Got Tentacle Hair, Eatin' Bugs, Turns Out he was Made of Clay, Only the Blackest, Pennybags Hatches a Plan, Sublime, Absolutely Bill's Mood, Welcome, Behold, Get Your Scooping On, Tropical Issues, KKKK, Tenth Comic, Jerks

Also, download funner.bat and enter the funzone as few have before. It's not malicious if you're worried.

Q. What's with the political comics?
A. I've always considered Troy is Gay to be a parody of real webcomics, and wretched political humor is de rigueur for many. The same can be said about gay and racial 'jokes' in Troy is Gay. The political comics I create don't reflect my own views. Nonetheless, I think #029 is one of my best comics.

Q. What is the Guestcomics section?
A. Occasionally, people feel inclined to send me a comic they have done with, I assume, some inspiration from my own comic. I really really appreciate it when people say anything about my comic, let alone go to some effort to produce something related to it, so I put the comics up in this section.

Q. Is there any Troy is Gay merchandise?
A. One t-shirt was made with an iron-on transfer of #043, and it went to Troy. That's it.