Comic for Monday, July 3rd
I swear to you that reading Panel 5 is not really necessary, but I know that most of you will anyway, so I did my best to make it legible. I don’t think Mium really has a great concept of brevity when it comes to writing notes, as reading a page and reading a sentence are not really significantly different time-frames to him.
The language of the background text in the 9th panel is Reshlic represented by <{ text }>; I’ve changed the brackets on that one a few times, as last time I used <| but got a few people noted that it wasn't super clear since in some of the fonts I use "<| DO" and "< I DO" are not all that different, so occasionally it looked weird. Frankly it doesn't really matter, beyond that I did intend for people be able to assume it probably wasn't the IDS or Arpon SF arriving, which wouldn't make a lot of sense given that they would presumably be on a extraction mission and slightly more careful about damaging goods. I sometimes speculate that Rovak has less of a grasp on normal human morality than either Ila or Mium, and that's sort of saying something.
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Panel 5 might not have been “necessary” but it was certainly fun to read. ^.^
I feel like “agreed on location” should be “agreed upon location”. “Agreed on” is less formal, and Mium otherwise uses very formal language in that message.
Probably, but as that text is monkey’d with (rasterized, for those that know what that means) it’s probably not worth fixing unless I dun goofed super bad somewhere on it 🙂
Bad influence on Miss Sister?
I think there might be an error there. But otherwise Mium played everything well.
Mium switches back and forth between calling her “Miss Ila” and “Miss Sister” historically. He seems to treat it like he does a nickname.
He pretty much always uses Mr/Miss, the only exceptions I have noticed being Peter and Miko. He even calls Naomi “Miss Naomi”, but still appends them to nicknames too, like “Miss Winters” when he is teasing Kally.
Unless you are questioning Rovak being a bad influence on Ila as an idea, which is valid debate as Ila might be the bad influence on Rovak…
Apparently some of Peter’s proclivities are rubbing off on Mium. I believe the phrase indicating that someone’s actions have had an adverse result, is “Hoist by his own petard.” ^^
Mium just guided the results for maximum effect. 🙂
And Mium is worried about Rovak being a bad influence. All Rovak does is occasionally blow people up. Peter… now there’s a bad influence.
Interesting part of the note that Mium notes that he is paying Rovak in releasing his companions. The one “human” quality to Rovak we have seen is that he seems to care about his minions. In particular Mium probably had custody of the girl (who makes the glowing chain). He may have been able to release anyone arrested by Malsa as well (or even the IDS for that matter). Interesting that he would give them back to Rovak so easily though, given that Rovak is (nominally) his enemy.
I get the feeling that Mium barely distinguishes between “enemy” and “friend”, just jots down different people’s loyalty and motivations in how to make them move around the board. He told Mir that he cannot “hate”, I suspect that he cannot really have a personal enemy due to that, he can just have people that are more or less convenient to his plans. Though maybe he can “dislike” as apparently he can “like”.
Did MIUM ever capture Rovak’s companions? Obviously he had the oppertunity but I can’t recall that he ever did. If not then the note might be as much about pitting multiple groups against each other as it is about imparting information. The only “real” information given is “protect the president, because your employers want it” and the monologue on ice cream, almost the entire rest is about framing him for collusion with the kidnappers. Afterall, anyone familiar with Rovak would know his investment in his companions so it makes the lie of working with MIUM and Illa all the more believable.
It is difficult to tell if MIUM holds a grudge, Peter pointed out this fact before. That said, Rovak’s involvement in Illa’s damage and deactivation would be cause for a grudge if anything would (despite the fact that Rovak healed her afterward, though to be fair it was an attempt to manipulate MIUM). The “time of your inevitable betrayal” indeed.
i was just going to touch on the “like and “dislike” part.
i think a lot of it comes from query and peter. while there might be ppl that peter dislikes more than others, he really doesnt seem to care a whole lot on what they do. only that they do what he wants them to do when he inputs… i mean says the right words.
When one is an immortal badass, well, one tends to outlive all their friends.
And, so one would tend to talk to the only person that has stuck around the whole time.
Themselves.
And Rovak’s monologue is awesome. Eclipsed only by Mium’s note.
I just lost it at the “(statement not inclusive of Miss Ila’s views on the matter)” and then got to the entire paragraph postscript on how to handle the ice cream.
Rovak was talking to himself as he blasted his way into the Avon building as well. He is several screws past sanity, as multiple people in comic have confirmed (potentially a side effect of either being immortal or the process of how he got his immortality).
That said, I can appreciate that aspect of his insanity as it always provides entertainment.
I agree.
Rovak is absolutely entertaining. He is at once, very caring and very destructive.
I love him… As long as he stays on that side of the screen
well we dont know really how old rovak is. or how he got the i-code. but when you die… a lot, it could also have a way of knocking screws out.
also when the ids witch hunters fought him, it felt like they knew he was a few fries short of a happy meal.
It’s not an important point, but I feel I should point out only ones in the white armor are Witch Hunters, it’s a subset of the people called Monster Hunters (which is an informal name for the Situation Containment branch of the IDS).
Kally identified the one went after her as a null caster and a Witch Hunter, though we don’t know yet if those are a complete Venn diagram, it seems likely, though I suppose we don’t know too much about null casters yet anyway.
… anyway, just rambling. 🙂
And yes, they did seem to be suspect of his sanity on ID’ing him has having the I-Code.
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I am now curious as to why the chairs were stacked on the table. Blocking his line of sight so he didn’t see them coming?
To prevent President Kokato from getting hit by flying glass presumably. Maybe not super clear from the angle, but they are stacked between him and the windows 🙂
A good technique I’ve seen in other comic-like media is to have the beat panel between the “Why did he…?” and “That clever little…” panels have a particularly simplified cartoon drawing of the room layout that very clearly illustrates the men with guns lined up outside, and a dotted line showing how the “fort” blocks line-of-effect from the gun to the glass to President Kokato.
It allows for the same “show, not tell” effect, and makes it very clear what Mr. Zombie has realized. Having him standing UP in the cartoon drawing would also help to explain his frustration.
In fact, maybe the glass-breaking panel could be split into two, one on the left as described above, and one on the right with the calls being made and the glass shattering in a way that shows it being blocked down low while letting it whip past Rovak’s face.