What’s up, Poptropicans?

First off, I wanted to mention the very funny joke the Creators played on us:

Available on both 3½” and 5¼” floppy disc, Poptropica: The Text Adventure is compatible with all leading desktop computer platforms, including Commodore 64, TRS-80, and Apple IIe. Coming soon!

Poptropica: The Text Adventure was just some white words on a black background:

And for those of you who don’t know what a floppy disk looks like (or is), here you go: (I actually had to ask my dad for help on this, as I had no idea what it is either 😀 )

As far as I can understand, a floppy disk was something you would insert into your computer, run the program, and the words would show up on the screen ( I may be wrong though 🙂 )

Aside from that, over on the Creator’s Blog, we got an interview with the Mystery of the Map illustrator, Kory Merrit!

Captain Crawfish: How did you get involved in illustrating Mystery of the Map? 

Kory Merritt: The Poptropica Creators originally hired me to illustrate the Poptropica comic strip. After a little while they asked me to try some graphic novel page samples, which led to me working on “Mystery of the Map” with author Max “Galactic Hot Dogs” Brallier.

CC: What are the challenges of adapting Poptropica’s art style from an online game to a graphic novel? What are the joys? 

KM: Poptropica has a very distinct style. I’m actually an art teacher by day and didn’t have much freelance experience, so working for Poptropica was the first time I had to draw someone else’s characters. It took a little while to get the hang of it – the Poptropica design might seem simple at times, but there are little details that can make or break the characters. Fortunately, the Poptropica Creators were very patient and helped guide me along. I’m pretty happy with the results, for I think the illustrations resemble the standard Poptropican model, but at the same time have a hand-drawn, comic-type feel.

CC: What’s your process for illustrating the book?

KM: I’m old-fashioned enough to still use pen and paper for the most part, but for “Mystery of the Map” I also used digital color and made corrections in Photoshop.

CC: Who’s your favorite MotM character to draw?

KM: The Vikings! It’s fun to draw angry faces.

CC: What other projects have you worked on that Poptropicans might like to know about?

KM: I draw some of my own stories, mostly just for fun. One of them is on FunBrain, and some are on GoComics.com. It seems I will also have my own illustrated book coming out later this year, published by Andrews McMeel.

Now many of you have seen my theory on the possibly upcoming Mystery of the Map Island, (since it is sticky 😛 ), but here is a little more evidence that I found 😀 (thanks to the PHB for some of this!)

• If you type mysteryofthemapisland.com, it will direct to Poptropica!
• Daily Pops are blasting with MotM pictures! Look at them below (be prepared for a “Viking’s Grotto” common room!)

I’ll probably go into more detail about the images once the island is confirmed.

I can’t wait for MotM, but that’s my personal opinion 😀 What are you guys thinking? Put it in the comments!

Trusty Biker

P.S. Wolfy- I totally fell for that joke about you leaving 😀 Don’t ever do that again! 😛