Uptop, Downlow, and Pixel are in someone’s home. Uptop and Downlow are sitting on a couch while Pixel is on a chair. There’s a table in front of them with two microphones on suspension booms. It basically looks like a podcast set up.
Pixel says, “Thank you for joining me today on this Q&A podcast.”
Uptop replies, “Wait wait wait you didn’t say what this was for.”
Pixel says, “What? I told you it was for my podcast.”
Downlow answers, “Yeah but Q&A means we’re gonna talk about us.”
Pixel reassures, “Okay, they may know a bit about ya’ll.”
Downlow asks, “Pixel, what do you talk about on your podcast?”
Pixel ignores and says, “We’ve already been recording minutes ago, so let’s get onto the questions!”
The first question comes from PowerPlant: What are your favorite video games?
Uptop answers, “I dunno I don’t really play a lot of video games…not because…you know…because I can but like…”
Downlow cuts him off and says, “I make him play with me.”
Pixel answers, “Well, I am on the opposite end of the spectrum: I play so many games I can’t even pick one, though I’ve been getting an interest in fighting games now. But I can’t pick one.”
Our next question comes from NinjaNix: Who’s the most popular?
Uptop answers, “Oh you see the thing about this town is that everyone hates each other, so really no one is popular. Except for Downlow. She’s okay.”
Downlow shrugs.
Uptop, this next one’s for you. Mai-The-Bee asks: Why was Uptop chosen to be a hero? Was he willing?
Uptop interrupts, “No! Pixel, how much of our personal lives are you telling these people?!”
Pixel replies, “Look, they just got some really good questions.”
Downlow says, “He’s just really embarrassed about it these days.”
Uptop shouts, “I’m not!”
Then he continues to explain: Alright, listen Mai. The first time Princess got kidnapped, I was just trying to be nice. And also Downlow made me do it. It was also like maybe the first couple weeks of my life? So like, I dunno. Then when it kept happening all the time, I was almost about to quit it. But then no one else would go do it.”
Uptop stares at Pixel. Pixel then says without a care, “Hah, I guess it’s like when you get a group assignment and you gotta carry the team because no one else is doing their work.”
Uptop just looks annoyed.
Pixel gets out his laptop and says, “Anyways we got some poppin questions from Handspike. I wanted to get our ‘resident poppin expert’ here but she’s gone M.I.A. and won’t reply to my texts.”
Downlow says, “Yeah, Princess kinda had it rough lately, so I can see why she needs a break. It must be just being near death twice, right Uptop?”
Downlow smiles, but Uptop looks nervous.
Handspike asks: Do poppins…like…breed???”
Uptop and Downlow look shocked. Uptop whispers, “what the hell, Pixel…”
Pixel doesn’t mind and answers, “Well, dear Hanspike, rest assured that poppins are just like any other typical mob, including when it comes to eggs.”
Author note: every animal comes from eggs in this world.
They also ask: If my mom found the Poppin I have in my closet, would she kill it or would she be understanding for once I’m getting so tired of hiding him please can I just tell her.
Uptop and Downlow just listen while Pixel answers, “When it comes to adopting any pet, it’s important to make sure everyone in your house is okay with it. It’s noble that you want to take care of another creature, but you should’ve asked before taking it in. I also think your poppin is not very happy just stuck in a dark closet all day. My suggestion: if your mom is nice you should tell her the truth. But if she’s not then maybe it’s time to sneak your pet to the local shelter.”
Next we got some questions from none: Can Doc see without her glasses?
Pixel giggles, “Probably not. I even tried to take them once, but she got mad.”
Downlow frowns and says, “I don’t think you should be touching people’s glasses.”
Next, they ask: Who is the physically strongest character?
Uptop says, “I…honest don’t know. We don’t really do power scaling over here.”
Pixel says, “Shadow.”
A moment of silence, then Uptop says, “I mean…I guess.”
Pixel explains, “We all know in a real fight he’d clear you.”
Downlow agrees, “Pixel has a point.”
Uptop says, “Why is this about me now?”
Pixel continues, “I’d vote for myself but I’m humble.”
Anyway, their last question is: Does Kimi like milk and catnip?
Pixel goes to his phone and says, “Kimi’s not here, so I’ll just text her that and we’ll get back to her later.”
Our next questions are from ShiftyMcFlea: What are all of the bodoblock’s powers that we haven’t seen yet?
Uptop asks sarcastically, “Yeah, Pixel. What haven’t they seen yet.”
Pixel cheerfully answers, “Actually, I forgot what I’ve already said so I’m just gonna say them all. Uptop can jump really high, Princess can make stuff, Punchy is like super strong or whatever, Widget builds machines, Gladius has a sword, Kimi can just copy powers, oh I can like control tech and stuff (that’s called technopathy by the way, very cool), Sparky has electric powers, Tuslow runs really fast, Doc can heal people, and uhhhh ahh I am almost forgetting everyone else wait. Fern has plant powers, Bucky has a lasso, Mara has water, Haley has ice (and hates it), Rigel has fire, Shadow has light powers, Kaizo has buzzsaws!! Buzzy is very good at flying, Tama can do status effects with food, Roxy can do that with sound, am I missing anyone? Oh Downlow is a totally different creature. But nobody knows what she is. Also she has no powers on her own.”
Downlow gets annoyed and says, “I think I know why your followers know everything about us.”
This person also wants to know: Pronouns for all the characters?
Uptop answers, “I forgot if anyone I know has anything notable about their pronouns, I’ll be real. I just know that contrary to popular belief, Downlow is a girl.”
Downlow gets surprised and asks, “Contrary?”
Uptop explains, “Yeah man, a lot of people thought you were a boy for some reason.”
Downlow asks, “What people!?”
Author note: I’m working on adding character bios to the website in the future. Hopefully this confusion will happen less often after that.
Pixel checks out his phone and says, “By the way, Kimi got back to me. She says, ‘Stop treating me like a cat, Pixel!’ So yeah, there’s your answer, none.’
Pixel then says, “I think that’s all the questions we have for today! Thank you two for coming to my podcast and thank you viewers for tuning in.”
Uptop says, “Wait, ‘viewers’? But this is a podcast.”
A video camera user interface then shows. Pixel says, “I’m uploading a video of this later tonight.”
Uptop says, “Wait but where’s the camer-” but Pixel turns off the recording before he can finish saying that.
The second part of the Q&A is questions to the creator. Now it’s my turn.
anoymousthefirst: What page size do you use?
Width is 3014px. Height is 4600px. These are the numbers according to CSP, though I kinda hate it cuz I learned the hard way that I never properly accounted for standard print sizes and bleed, which comes back to haunt me whenever I try to print this series. Next season I plan to change it to something easier to manage. Regardless, I reduce it to 940px wide when posting online (it helps it load faster).
PowerPlant: What're your favorite video games?
I gave this question to the characters for fun, but I’ll answer it as well: I’ve played a lot of games, so it’s really hard to decide, but I think these are my current favorites: Wandersong, We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Sonic Adventure 2, and Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling (my favorite). Follow me on Backloggd btw: www.backloggd.com/u/kirbo_kirbstar/
NinjaNix: What inspired you to make this comic and what’s kept you going with it?
ShiftyMcFlea: How’d you come up with the idea for JumpHero?
My memory’s vague but I recall the first ideas coming to me in a daydream. Around 2018 I imagined a character jumping around an undefined area. He unintentionally looked very similar to the main character of this very underrated indie game that I played around the time (the game is called Odd Bot Out and you should totally check it out especially since it’s now totally free!).
Even though it wasn’t on purpose, I consider this to be the main inspiration for Uptop’s appearance and eventually the rest of the bodoblocks. I also then got this idea: What if video game main character doesn’t want to be a hero oh geez I’m a genius.
Back in 2018, I was also young and naive so I was also towards the end of my decade-long phase of “these story ideas I have can only work for TV cartoons.” So yeah JumpHero kept marinating for years as I brainstormed and kept changing it.
Did you know that the bad guys were going to be actual bad guys for a while? I do like what I’m doing now better than that though.
Anyway in 2020, I got talked out of that mentality and decided to finally make it a webcomic series.
While this series is based on countless inspirations, I think these may be the ones that inspire the foundational aspects (with no given context lol): Kirby, Sonic the Hedgehog, CookieRun, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, My Little Pony (I didn’t choose the inspirations, they chose me).
What keeps me going with this series is that I have so much in mind and I want to get it all out there. It makes me really sad to see so many webcomics get canceled and stay unfinished. It's almost always beyond the creator's control, but I want to avoid that fate as much as possible. So I keep making this story. it may be long but I just got to get it finished.
Kyochan: Do you play Among Us
I haven’t played in a long time but I do have the PC version because I got it for free once.
Handspike: Can Poppins beat Pop-kuns from Pop’n Music?
There are a lot of poppins, so maybe.
Minty: Who’s your favorite character?
It changes every once in a while. for a long time before the series started, I was a big fan of Kaizo for some reason, which is why he has a lot of screen time in "Biggest Bad Guys," but then upon writing the rest of the series my interest has moved to other characters. It really does change every once in a while. I pretty much draw doodles of a different character every few weeks in my sketchbooks.
Oh I guess that’s finally the Q&A then. See you next year :)
I really didn't wanna split this into multiple updates over here so I tried my best to compress and split this up the best way I could. I think I'll keep doing page format from now on haha. If for some reason it's taking too long to load for you, perhaps check it out on Tapas https://tapas.io/episode/3024099.
So yeah that's the Q&A. Hope that answered some BURNING questions. Now I can work on other stuff on that todo list before Season 2 starts. If you wanna keep track of that list, maybe join my Discord server! https://discord.gg/CyCXytmPHC
Ok, just read through this entire comic, and I have no idea why I didn't read this sooner!! It's been so fun to read, and the whole "Slice of life but with video game antics and subtle hints to a much deeper plot" is SO WELL DONE!! You just earned yourself another sub, and I can't wait for you're next update! Keep it up!
Here's the clickable link to my Backloggd account. It's really just Letterboxd for gamers: https://backloggd.com/u/kirbo_kirbstar
So yeah that's the Q&A. Hope that answered some BURNING questions. Now I can work on other stuff on that todo list before Season 2 starts. If you wanna keep track of that list, maybe join my Discord server! https://discord.gg/CyCXytmPHC