Grace and Caffeine

Frequently Asked Questions about Grace and Caffeine

|| Q: why did you start writing Grace and Caffeine? A: because I felt like it. Honestly, there isn't any deep metaphysical or soul-searching reason, I just had an idea on the spur of the moment, and decided it was a good one.

|| Q: how do you decide which episodes to do colour versions of? A: once again: impulse.

|| Q: what's with the 'rough draft versions' which some episodes have links to? A: ah, now that's a much more interesting question! In some cases, the rough-draft artwork is an initial concept sketch, which I produced in order to record an idea for use later (eg. if I had several ideas at once, and knew I wouldn't be able to use them all up for several weeks, or if an episode would only really make sense if published at a certain date, and that date hadn't arrived yet); in other cases, I already knew what I wanted to do with the episode, but I wasn't completely sure how to draw it, so I did a rough version to check that my visual ideas would work, before I committed pen to paper to produce the polished version.

|| Q: some of the rough drafts are very different to the finished comics - why? A: depends what the draft was for. If it was an initial 'note-to-self' sketch, then the ideas sometimes developed quite a bit before I got round to using them. As for the 'practice' sketches, they sometimes didn't really work, so I had to take a different approach with the finished version. In those cases, the rough-draft artwork in the archive site offers you the opportunity to see what the episode might have ended up looking like, but didn't.

|| Q: are there any episodes which never made it past the rough-draft stage? A: yes, there were about 3 or 4 strips which I drew a rough draft for, but never completed for various reasons. Two or three were submitted to YBC's pastor Adrian for inspection, and got vetoed for publication. One or two others I just decided I didn't like. I might upload one or two of the vetoed ones in some obscure corner of the archive site someday, but I haven't managed to convince myself that it's a good idea yet.

|| Q: are any of the characters meant as parallels to, or representations of, real-life people? A: no.

|| Q: where do you get your ideas from? A: ummm... *shrug*.

|| Q: what sort of answer is that meant to be? A: I guess that won't do, will it? Well, some of my cartoon ideas are inspired by events in real life, especially events happening at Yateley Baptist (several strips featuring things like baptisms, members' meetings, etc were timed to coincide with real-life versions of those events at YBC), and some of the other ideas just turn up in my head without a word of explanation. They just happen.

|| Q: how long does it take to create each strip? A: it varies wildly - in a few exceptional cases, an episode can go from the initial spark of inspiration, right through to the finished product, within one or two hours; whereas others have been known to fester for weeks or even months before finally coming to fruition. Some strips I don't even think up until the day I draw them, while others wait for quite a while before I finish them, for various reasons. The actual drawing process can take anywhere from 10 minutes for a very simple strip, to maybe as much as an hour for some of the more complex ones.

|| Q: is Grace and Caffeine drawn on paper or on a computer? A: mostly paper. I print off the title, caption and panel borders from my PC (I used a Windows 98 machine for the first 90 strips, and a Windows XP one with a better printer from Episode 091 onwards), then draw the characters and write the dialogue in by hand. Occasionally I add a couple of other details on the computer before printing, eg. the outline of the pie chart in Episode 061 and the narration in Episode 077).

|| Q: is there any chance that Grace and Caffeine will ever outgrow its paper-based roots and become a webcomic? A: I really don't know. Not in the foreseeable future, I don't think. The current system works, so I don't see any need to change it - although if there is a big enough public demand, I might start updating the web archive a bit more frequently. If you ask nicely, that is!

|| Q: is there any chance that Grace and Caffeine will ever be produced more than once a week? A: only if I have a massive flood of inspiration, and somebody pays me for writing the thing. Otherwise, not a chance.

|| Q: how long do you plan to keep doing this? A: my current plan/hope is to keep the comic going in its present form until I finish my degree in summer 2010, but after that I'll probably have to drop it, or at least consider radically changing the format or something. I estimate that the last episode produced before taking my yearly writing-and-publishing break in August 2010 should be #178, or thereabouts. If the comic does survive beyond that, then I definitely intend to stop if/when I reach the thousandth strip. 1000 would be enough, I think.

|| Q: is there any Grace and Caffeine merchandise out there? A: is there what?

|| Q: you know, books, calendars, t-shirts, teatowels, mugs, things like that - like a lot of popular and famous comic strips have? A: Grace and Caffeine isn't popular and famous. Or at least, not that popular and famous. Although, I did produce a 2009 Calendar, which is (I think) still floating around here somewhere...

Grace and Caffeine by Matthew Colclough: the online archive

Frequently Asked Questions about Grace and Caffeine