Tut comics told us what inspired them to create these comics: "Honestly, the biggest inspiration for the world would be the RPG and adventure videogames of the mid-’90s, as cliche an answer as I bet that is for the people behind a webcomic. We wanted to build what felt like a living, breathing world where anything could happen, and the fantastical nature of Ancient Egypt with all its myriad mysteries and deities was just a perfect fit."
In these comics, there are many well-known deities. Like Ra, the God of Sun, Order, Kings, and the Sky, who was believed to be the ruler of all. He is portrayed with a falcon's head.
Anubis the jackal-headed God is the one that presided over the embalming process and accompanied the dead to the afterworld. Anubis also placed hearts on one side of a scale to see if the heart was heavier than a feather. If it was rejected, the soul would not go to the Field of Reeds.
Bastet was the Goddess of protection, cats, medicine, fertility, music, and art, but also warfare and warriors. She is portrayed as a cat-like creature.
"Our primary goal is just to establish this half-fantasy half-inspired-by-fact world, sort of like a canvas where we can tell a hundred different types of stories if we so choose. If there’s a secondary goal, however, it’d be to bring the Ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods into the entertainment mainstream - there’s tons and tons of books, TV shows, and games all exploring every last bit of the Greek and Roman pantheon, but Ancient Egypt seems to get consistently overlooked. We’d like to change that."
There are many comics here on Bored Panda. Here are some about everyday problems, and here are some sarcastic comics that will probably make you think or just confuse you. Here are some funny and clever illustrations to brighten up your day a little bit and last but not least, some illustrations about feminism, patriarchy, and society, if you want something more serious.
There is a team working behind these comics and they told us more about themselves: "Mohamed and I had the idea for these comics together, but we knew full well that neither of us would ever be able to draw them. So we went outside and found an artist who we thought could bring the world to life - that was Rick, our original artist. Eventually, Rick had to unfortunately leave, and we collaborated with some temporary artists before eventually setting on Angelica as our new permanent artist, as she has been for over a year now.
Beyond that, Karnak Studios (which is us) is also busy creating our first mobile game starring Tut and set in the world of the comics, so our game dev team has even more people on it. But for the comics, it breaks down these days as me (Kayvan) doing the writing and Angelica doing the art, while Mo spearheads the development of the game."
They told us what the most difficult parts of creating these comics are: "I think there are two different answers to this before you’ve really got two classes of problems with a daily comic strip: the macro and the micro.
On a macro level, the biggest challenge isn’t what I thought it would be - I suspected going into this that the biggest problem would be coming up with raw ideas, as a new comic every single day at least sounds like it’s going to stretch you pretty thin creatively. But that actually hasn’t been nearly as big an issue as I thought. Instead, on the macro level, my biggest issue is often balancing the different corners of the world we want to express as I’m writing and scheduling the comics for the month. We have a lot of different characters and a lot of interesting things to do with all of them, so it can be difficult to find just the right tempo in bouncing between them all on a day-by-day basis. You don’t want to have so many comics about the deities that you forget about Tut and his friends, and you don’t want to have so many comics about Tut and his friends that you forget about the Pharaoh, and you don’t want to have so many comics about the Pharaoh that you forget about...etc, etc.
On a micro level, paring each comic idea down to only its most essential parts is always a challenge. You can see that a lot in some of our earlier comics I think - it took me a while to really get the hang of editing down the thesis of each individual comic into a clear, crystallized idea that was easily expressed. And with such a limited amount of panels, you need that level of focus, or the comic is just quickly going to become bloated, which in turn quickly makes it unenjoyable."
"We try to strike a balance between relatable human themes, big-picture history, and the awe and wonder of the mythological stories (focusing largely on how the mythology would impact the world of Ancient Egypt as we’ve established it).
Additionally, over the last year, we have introduced two weekly non-fictional features. The first is Mythology Monday, where we take stories from Ancient Egyptian mythology and just directly illustrate them. The second is Factual Thursday, where we take real history and historical facts from Ancient Egypt and bring them to life similar to how we do so with Mythology Monday. Our fans have loved both features, and they’re a nice change of pace from our usual comics."
If you ever wanted to create your own comics here's some advice for you: "Always lead with a character-centric approach. A lot of people build out all the lore for their world and want to desperately make sure everyone in the audience sees how much work they put into it, but the truth is that if you lead with the world and the lore, you’re purposefully working with a handicap. People love interesting worlds and they love great lore, but they’re not hooked by it - they’re hooked by character. So you should absolutely build all that out, but don’t lead with: lead with character, and let the characters slowly shine a spotlight on all the different parts of the world you’ve constructed."
The creators of Tut Comics share a little more about their personal life: "Mo and I actually met in Egypt - although I’m originally from the UK, I moved there when I was 6 and lived there until I moved to the US at the age of 18, and we initially bonded over playing the old DOS game Lemmings on a computer at school. From there we moved to bigger games and bigger worlds, and spent most of our childhood lost in some fictional adventure or another, all the while taking for granted that we also had all the wonder and mystery of Ancient Egypt so easily accessible to us. Just being in that environment, we definitely picked up an interest in history and mythology, and one day as grown adults in our mid-20s we decided to let all that mythology we had soaked up in our childhood inform the creation of our world. Well, semi-fictional world, I guess."
"Remember to Follow us on Instagram, and if you want the latest updates on how the Tut mobile game is shaping up in development come over and join our Discord server! You can even sign up to be a beta tester."
What do you think about these comics? Did you learn anything new about Ancient Egypt? About their culture, history, or traditions? Tell us in the comments down below and don't forget to upvote your favorite ones and share the article with your friends! Also, go show some love to Tut Comics and give them a follow on their social media!
