Willy of E-Junkie: I guess the first question would be what made you to decide to do a web comic when you started "Elf Only Inn" in 2002?

Josh Sortelli: This is going to sound like a joke answer but it is not: When I saw how bad the first wave of webcomics were I realized that any idiot could do it. That is still true today, there is absolutely no barrier to making comics online except for making comics online, but back then the major player was Keenspot and I was reading a comic called Fat Jesus and decided to take some ridiculous scribbles and use it to rant about chatroom roleplaying. I put a very small amount of effort into the first strips I made and I was certain that someday I would be on Keenspot too. And that actually happened.

Willy: Were you primarily influenced by web comics that were already around, or from comics in newsprint as you we growing up?

Josh: The funny pages definitely had an influence on me as a child but almost all the influence printed comics of any kind had on me started to dry up when I discovered webcomics. Webcomics can be by anyone and about anything, and it was incredibly refreshing to break out of the comparatively stale and predictable world of printed comics and comic books.

I mean, look at the big news from comic books this week. Thor is going to be a woman and Captain America is going to be black. People talk about that like it is new, but they already turned Thor into a woman in the absolutely abysmal Earth X books and the Falcon has put on Cap's uniform in any number of Very Special Episodes of Captain America vs Racism already. It was intellectually insulting and pandering then and I can't imagine how it will be any different this time around. And I don't have to read it any more, because I can get better comics for free online about new characters doing new things.

So to bring this around to the actual question, I definitely feel more inspiration and influence from webcomics over anything else. I no longer feel like I am reading something that I could have scribbled out myself either, most of what I read online is so far beyond my own abilities that it actually encourages me to try harder and forget my limitations.

Willy: Which comics influenced you the most?

Josh: Gunnerkrigg Court is probably at the top of the list, I wish I could be half the writer and artist that Tom Siddell is. I'd also have to say that a great deal of the influence and support I get comes directly from other artists even more than their work though.  One of the best things about being involved webcomics are the communities that form around groups of various artists, sharing recommendations and advice. We also gossip like the cattiest middle school mean girls and I make no apologies for it.

Willy: Going back to "Elf Only Inn," you ceased working on it in 2008, are you done with the story or do you see yourself returning to those characters some day?

Josh: I can't imagine picking it up again after dropping it so often. The big problem is that I feel the time has passed. The original subject, chatroom roleplaying, it just isn't what it used to be.  More importantly, I've moved on from it myself so I can no longer provide that insider's look into it that made it honest. I tried moving on to the MMORPG community after that but the same problem remains, I'm not as socially invested online as I used to be. The best comic I could make now in the vein of Elf Only Inn would be a comic about a bunch of webcomic artists acting like fools and that would be terrible beyond words.

Sadly that leaves a lot of the characters unresolved but focusing on them as characters was another thing that changed the comic from what it originally was. Characters like Duke, Nimoy, Megan and Lord Elf were archetypes that represented people you met in chatrooms, making them individuals with developmental arcs narrowed them down. That problem was strongest with Megan, who was supposed to be a preachy vegan control freak. But because I liked her I tried to make her a real person apart from that, and this stripped her of most of her negative qualities and she was no longer able to represent the kind of person who spends their time joining every internet lynch mob that comes along.

Willy: How did you feel being nominated for Outstanding Newcomer for the 2003 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards?

Josh: At the time I could not have been happier. I got into Wikipedia because of that award!  Then I got deleted from Wikipedia later and I got over it.

Not because of Wikipedia itself, really.  But online validation was ephemeral and look at what happened to the WCCAs -- they mysteriously sputtered out in 2008.  Just like Elf Only Inn!

What that award really meant was that I was accepted by part of the webcomic community, and I will always be glad for that.  Unfortunately that does not mean I was necessarily the most deserving of the award or that my later performance was worthy of getting it.

Willy: Your new comic, "No Scrying," is just over a year old, did you start working on the idea right after Elf Only Inn, or did it come to you more recently?

Josh: No Scrying came out of a script I was working on for fun before Elf Only Inn ended.  Out of all the other competing ideas for new stories this one felt the most compelling because it felt like less charted territory.  What I originally intended to be a sort of wacky romance adventure with Jors and Ariandre turned into murder mystery and intrigue accidentally and I started thinking that this would be a great idea for an ongoing story.  I spent years polishing what turned into the first two chapters of the story and the look and feel of the two main characters aaaaaand everything's kind of gone off the rails since.  I was hoping to build off of what I learned from doing EOI and while I do feel I have come a long way in my ability to tell a story since then I still have a long way to go.  But I'll never get to the level I want if I don't keep working at it so it looks like No Scrying will be my stepping stone to something better later once I've learned enough.  But it is a lot of fun though, coming up with new mysteries for Jors and Ari to solve while throwing in more monster girls to torment the paladin.  Maybe someday soon they'll actually catch the guy who killed Goodman Giles.

Willy: Can you tell us a little bit about your main characters for "No Scrying"?

Josh: Jors is a paladin, he represents a religious order that holds almost exclusive control over who lives and who dies. He's a fundamentally good person, but he has too much power and the will to use it to get his way. He has a way with the ladies, particularly ladies who belong to the classically "ugly" fantasy races. Ariandre is a sorceress and alchemist with a hidden skill for logical deduction.  As the story progresses she will learn to rely on actual science rather than magic.  Ari is the brains and Jors is the heart and muscle.

Willy: Are we going to see "No Scrying" products in the future, books, shirts, or the like?

Josh: My friends are insistent that I produce some books, but I want to be absolutely sure that I am producing print worthy material before that happens and I am not sure if I am there yet.

Willy: Do you have any other upcoming comics we should keep an eye out for?

Josh: Oh man, I can barely handle one at a time. There's no future plans yet, but when "No Scrying" does end there will be something else to replace it down the road.

Willy: Lastly, are there any web comics, other then yours of course, you think our readers should checkout?

Josh: Poppy O'Possum, Henchgirl, Hubris Comics (the outdoorsy one, this is not a Fallout reference), Space Mullet and all the lovely friends you can find on my Bromance links page.