Description
Philo is an improv live-drawn jam-comic recorded LIVE Tuesday nights at 9pm EST/6pmPST. Each episode consists of interviewing and drawing with a guest artist who joins us to continue the story from week-to-week using suggestions from the chat audience. Philo was created by Hamil Griffin-Cassidy and is continued by Amber Greenlee and her co-host Robin Fisher. You are reading these rules because you are invited to be one of those guests.
Philo’s 1st Commandment
Thou shalt do thy tech-check!
The first step to Philo is the tech-check. This is to test:
•Camera-Share
•Mic-Share
•Screen-Share
The quality is important to make sure that it will work for the needs of running an internet show. Most of Philo’s guest artists have contributed digital art to the project, of which we have templates available for you here.
•PSD File, Photoshop, Krita, Procreate
If we are doing Traditional Art, then each panel can be completed at 5″X5″ with whatever materials the artist wishes to use as long as scans of the artwork are returned back to Amber within the same timeframe as digital art. It is suggested making a template ahead of time out of card stock or matt board to trace quickly or to prep your bordered panels ahead of time. Use whatever materials you want to make the Philo art: ink wash, charcoal, brush pen, whatever- but it has to be Black and White, no Color.
All art must be turned in within 3 days of the episode airing to give Amber enough time to put together pages and promos for the next episode. As part of the tech-check, or prior to it you should have also filled out this form with information that makes thing easier on this end to run the show and put the pages, books, and panels together after the episode airs. The form also has details about future Philo books and the distribution of profits based on the percentage of panels generated by each artist for the project.
Philo’s 2nd Commandment
Thou shalt draw fast!
The average panel should take about 10-minutes to draw. We draw concurrently and the episode is only 1.5 hours long which gives us an average of about 6 panels per episode. Sometimes we’ll do more, sometimes less, but 6 is the average.
This is convention-level sketch or 24-hour comic level panels. Put some detail into them, but not so much it’s going to kill you, and only add backgrounds if it’s important to the story or they are very simple. Artwork is Black and White/Monochromatic/Shades of Grey! No Color! This is done because printing is cheaper and it ties the different art styles together with some consistency if it’s all monochromatic.
Perfect is the enemy of done, but we do allow some wiggle room for clean-up. You have 3 days to get us panels you’re happy with, but don’t spend forever working on them. Spontaneity and what’s drawn on air is the draw of the show, and we would prefer it be closer to what was broadcast anyway.
If you are still working on a panel, or Amber is still working on a panel, it is okay to leap frog over each other to allow the other artist to catch up. This is why we have the next rule. Speak up if you are done drawing your panel! Amber is drawing too and not looking up so often to see you are finished. Audio cues help her. “I’m done with this panel,” goes very far.
Also, please make sure your artwork is centered and visible on the broadcast screen. She can’t do that on this end. This is something you have to manage and be aware of so please check the Restream screen often on your end to make sure during broadcast.
Philo’s 3rd Commandment
Thou shalt number thy panels first!
The naming convention on the file is like this:
•ARTIST_NAME_MMDDYYYY_PHILO_CLEAN
Return it back to me like this if you are giving us separate files per panel:
•YOUR_NAME_MMDDYYYY_PHILO_PANEL0X
So if your name is Joe Smith and you drew panels 2, 5 and 8 on the 4th of July 2025 and give us back separate PSD files, then we should get file names back like this:
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL02.PSD
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL05.PSD
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL07.PSD
It is so easy to just start drawing what’s been decided to be drawn. No! NUMBER THY PANEL FIRST, even before we figure out what you are drawing in that panel, number it. As soon as we know what number your panel is, number it. Number that panel. When Amber is putting pages together later on, she needs that number. If you are using separate files, number the files.
If you are using separate folders and layers in a PSD or CSP file, make sure all layers for each panel are in their panel folder and number those folders with PANEL 0X and the file. So Joe Smith’s PSD would come back to us like this:
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_ALLPANELS.PSD
And the panel folders with all of their layers in them named:
•PANEL 02
•PANEL 05
•PANEL 08
Philo’s 4th Commandment
Thou shalt write in thy captions second!
After we know what panel you are drawing on the show, we’ll figure out what you are drawing in your panel. Once that caption has been figured out, write it down.
So the order goes:
•1. Panel Number
•2. Caption
•3. THEN Draw.
You can type it in if you are drawing digitally. Here is a link to the font Amber uses which is called Captain’s Talk or you can use an easy to read font with no wild characters. You can also handwrite in your caption on its own layer. This is perfectly okay. But after the panel number, and before the start of the drawing, there should be a caption written in.
The nature of the show is juggling drawing, talking to each other, talking with chat, telling stories, and looking up reference for panels offscreen. It’s very easy to “get lost,” doing Philo. It’s easy to forget the order, lose the story, and remember what you were doing because there is so much going on all at once. Do yourself and especially Amber a favor and caption it second after you number your panel. It’s happened to her more than once. If you write in your caption first, then you can reference it silently and go “oh yeah! That’s right!” Trust us on this.
Philo’s 5th Commandment
Thou shalt label and date thy files!
Please, when you send your Philo panels back to us, include in the file name the date of the episode and your name. Please make sure that all panels are labeled correctly, referring to the 3rd Commandment, whether they are separate files, or separate layers on a single file. The file itself, though needs a date and your name. Thanks.
I will repeat this exactly as above because it is so important.
The naming convention on the file is like this:
•ARTIST_NAME_MMDDYYYY_PHILO_CLEAN
Return it back to me like this if you are giving us separate files per panel:
•YOUR_NAME_MMDDYYYY_PHILO_PANEL0X
So if your name is Joe Smith and you drew panels 2, 5 and 8 on the 4th of July 2025 and give us back separate PSD files, then we should get file names back like this:
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL02.PSD
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL05.PSD
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_PANEL07.PSD
And if you’re giving us one file with separate folders within it:
•JOE_SMITH_07042025_PHILO_ALLPANELS.PSD
And the panel folders with all of their layers in them named:
•PANEL 02
•PANEL 05
•PANEL 08
Philo’s 6th Commandment
Thy strengþ of lātas!
That’s Old English for “The Politics of Commoners.” The world sucks right now, politically. And it makes Robin and Amber want to scream. But talking politics takes over the show and takes away from the art. We’re not a political show. We can touch on it, but we don’t want to dwell there as it’s easy to spin deep down that rabbit hole. Here on Philo, we love Canada, hate the Orange man, want healthcare, housing, and food for all, and want peace in the middle east with a 2 state solution. Our discussions and chat tend to lean that way, but, again, we don’t want this to be a show about politics; it’s supposed to be about comics.
Philo’s 7th Commandment
Philo is thine comedy ent’rtainment for thou adults!
Philo is a live-drawn improv jam-comic. It is live-theatre, live-drawing, a very lively chat. It is on late at night in the US and streams live around the world. The artists will draw panels based on suggestions from chat. By having that interactivity it encourages people to both watch the show and tune-in each week to see if their suggestions drive the story forward. We don’t discourage chat’s suggestions, but we do steer them like a cattle drive: we discourage them from where you don’t want them to go. That being said, we can not control the internet and sometimes we get random people or lewd suggestions that chat goes crazy for and we have to steer the cattle drive from jumping off a cliff…
For this reason, we are stating that Philo is a 21+ comedy show. Comedy clubs will give themselves similar labels because of the live interaction between comedians and the crowds. It’s a liability issue.
Philo’s 8th Commandment
Amber and Robin are harde weorcin’ wifoynn!
That’s Old English for “Hard Working Women.” Both Robin Fisher and Amber Greenlee work 2 day jobs on top of doing Philo in the evenings for fun. Sometimes we’re tired, sometimes we’re caffeinated, or we have brain farts. We do this show because we both love comics so. Amber is both drawing and show-running at the same time, as well as steering the story. Robin is sharing about comics, toys, and interviewing guests. Please give us grace as we figure out this weird experiment. Thank you.
Philo’s 9th Commandment
There be no forebȳsn cartan!
That is Old English for “Model Sheets.” There are no model sheets. Part of the fun of Philo is seeing the different interpretations of the characters from different artists and how they choose to attack the problem. Philo is very amorphous as a character.
He has a big nose and antenna. That’s about it. Amber puts him in shorts so he doesn’t look naked. The octopus is an octopus, the dog is a dog, the mushroom is a mushroom, etc. How you choose to draw these things is up to you, and the story carries because there is (usually) only one Philo. During each story, new characters will be introduced and we do try to keep those story elements consistent, but once that story is finished, unless it’s a callback, we generally won’t see those characters again. So have fun!
Philo’s 10th Commandment
Thou shalt have fun!
This is meant to be a fun thing to do at night and not a super-stress inducing thing. Before the show Amber opens the room 30 minutes before airtime to do a quicky tech check and a story recap for the artist where they can ask questions so it doesn’t slow down the on-air story recap. We also get the wigglies out.
There is a casual countdown. She lets you know every 5-10 minutes when the broadcast time is approaching within those 30 minutes, with the last 5 minutes being close to every minute updates. Amber closes the screens, and bring them up with introductions before doing a quick story recap of the previous weeks episode. We then pick up the story and trade panels for 1.5 hours. This is the bulk of the showtime.
If at 1.5 hours, the guest artist is still finishing a panel, they are given the option to run long and finish on air or finish it off air. If they want to finish it off air, we will end the show there and say our goodbyes with finished artwork expected within 3 days. If the guest artist wishes to continue then we’ll go until the panel is complete and then end the broadcast.
If at the end of 1.5 hours Amber is still finishing a panel, the guest has the option to either stay long and chat (and is not obligated to draw, but can if they want to) or leave at that time. The guest has agreed to 1.5 hours. If the show goes long, that is on Amber Greenlee, the showrunner, and the guest shouldn’t have to feel obligated to stay in that case. If they do, it should be because it is their decision to do so. They always have an option to leave at the 1.5 hour mark.
Amber will close out screens at the end with an outro for each, say goodnight to the audience and end the broadcast. After each show she keeps the room open for 15-20 minutes to discuss the show and how it went and how the guest felt during broadcast.
If at any time, something on the show is making you feel uncomfortable you can always email or message us privately. If it’s during broadcast (like something suggested in chat) there is a private chat available in Restream we can use to discuss the issue quietly, without making it obvious during broadcast that is what we are doing. Examples include “I think I have to leave early,” “So-and-so in chat, can we ban him?” “I have to switch programs, but there’s… something on my screen. Can you close it for a second until I’m good so I don’t have to re-share on my end?”
Our loyalty is to our guests over the chat. We will back you up every time. But you have to talk to us and open the communication if an issue arises.
