Comic for Monday, May 30th
Midweek Excuse/Update:
Head’s up; Thursday comic will be delayed. Was a rough little last week to start with due to work and personal stuff, then someone decided to wreck my new car. Fortunately for my well being I was not in said new car at the time of their jousting practice, though I suspect that speaks greater volumes of their driving ability. It was in a parking lot, and the great question remains of why they were going fast enough through a parking lot to rip off the bumper and smash up the side panel, moving the car about two parking spaces in the collision. An impressive feat considering they’d hit at least one car before mine, and likely two from the unidentified pile of broken glass a little further down.
There is going to be a long list of related comics this time… 😐
In case it’s not clear wtf Naomi is doing in panel 1, she is re-ponytail-ifying her hair. It seemed like I’d just forgotten her hair was de-ponytail-ified when I sketched out the page just skipping that step, but admittedly it’s not super clear, especially as her ponytail generally seems to magically forgo conventional hair-ties and occasionally physics. It’s one of those things that just sort of started that way because I had no idea how to draw and seems weird to change now, but I assure you the ponytail is fact not magic and does in fact use a hair tie.
As the sudden onset of rain may indicate, weather can be a little erratic in Malsa. Previously we’ve seen that it’s been noted to be very cold at night, but rainy days are typically warmer there. A clear day during this season is typically warm enough during the day and quite cold at night, while a rainy day is typically somewhat warmer. I’m no meteorologic, but I did spend a few hours on wikipedia (which is pretty close for any profession, right? 😀 ) determining the plausibility of the weather patterns until I decided that it really didn’t matter that much… I felt I should mention it as they seem fairly unconcerned about standing the rain when the only prior mention of temperature suggested it was cold; though the way most of the locals dress I reckon would indicate it’s fairly warm during the day.
As for various references, see related comics below…
Related Comics:
- Two people in armor? A squad with four members saying they were missing a third of their squad due being split? Probably related.
- What Naomi is suggesting he help Tyler with, assuming he recounted the plan accurately to her.
- Peter’s last seen discussion of what do about Kally.
- The last time we saw Kally.
- The probable source of Kally’s moniker.
- Reference to Kally’s (at least technically) military past.
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*plays “Ode to Joy” on my flute to calm your upsetting nerves*
You’re valiant flute playing efforts have been appreciated. Nerves somewhat less upset 😉
“we’re from the goverment and are here to ‘help’ you”
yeah something wierd is going on with the various groups of the ids and central goverment. im not shure ALL of them have the bridgepoint/relocation sceme as a good idea, or for that matter the total of their plans.
the armor… honestly i’ve not noticed it other than all the random non-goverment mooks having their own armor.
tho i will say your wet style is good, peter’s polo and hair do almost excatly what mine do when i get that wet. cant say that about naomi, but then i dont have that much hair 😛
The IDS may have outgrown a single vision, and there are other factors at play to put different pressures on each branch.
I’ll continue to work on the armor, and in clothing in general (along with expression and posture fluidity) are the main goals of what I want to improve in the art when I have more time to work on it.
Glad that the hair/clothing seems right. I will definitely continue to work on it, especially with the clothing.
I’ve been looking at the armor on the last few pages, and there are some differences in detail between that worn by the I.D.S. personnel talking to the Malsans and the others. I wasn’t sure if that was artistic ….. um, license or differences in rank.
If it is the I.D.S. that took Kally, the squad leader is right to point out that his superior is telling them to commit an act of war. That’s something that would be remarkably stupid even for a middle-level manager. 🙂
Panel 3 brings to mind the fact that the I.D.S. is hurrying to send a bunch of people from their world to Malsa to settle/hide. Peter is on to something here, and even though he’s badly off-balance right now, I have faith in his team to come out on top–even the ones who don’t know they’re on his team. ^^
The wet hair and clothes effects are working well. I especially like the raindrops running down Naomi’s arms–it’s a nice touch. 🙂
The armor differences are mostly based on what sort of thing they do. These people are all mages (of a sort, at least) so their armor tends to be tailored to that. Of the six we’ve seen, there are ‘supposed’ to be four different styles. That said, tend to edit the armor frequently and fairly drastically change the level of detail based on how far away they are or what I’ve forgotten 😛
This is one of those things that would be better to take more time with; I should draw up a good 3d reference for each set of armor, etc. A lot of comics that make use of armor do that for a good reason. But we hit this arc with far less prep time then would allow for that :p
For example, the white armor will probably be unrecognizable in the future, because I don’t like it. While I don’t retcon plot, as we’ve seen all bets are off when it comes to art details 😛
The plot with Kally may be a little more complicated. The IDS departments are not exactly friendly with each other as we’ve seen, but the reason Arron sent her back under his military authority rather then his Criminal Investigations authority was to put her outside of that jurisdictional squabble. But the people that attacked her in the subway way back didn’t seem to be IDS, even if these ones definitely seem to be IDS…
Recap:
Certain higher-ups in IDS are engaged in some shady stuff. Recently, Peter (who had been missing) has made himself a nuisance to IDS’s shady dealings in Malsa by giving Webber a gate detector and pointing him at illegal gate activity which said high-ups told their own agents to ignore.
Speculation:
Shady IDS higher-ups worry that Peter’s further meddling will ruin their shady plans. And they are aware of Kallisto’s ties with Peter. So, they kidnap Kallisto (or rather, secretly take her into custody on trumped-up charges)…
Grammer:
There should be an “of” in front of “the gravity of your order” in the last bubble on the last panel.
Fixed the sentence. Thanks!
It’s certainly possible Peter is underestimating his contributions to mucking up their plans forcing their hand at a higher tempo. How much he actually knows about the higher-ups Bridgepoint plans is up for some debate as well, though he knows they were mucked with (and apparently how) we don’t know many details there yet.
The recap is certainly accurate, the speculation, we’ll see. 😛
They said that all roads led to Rome… but I suppose the question here is do all Plots lead to Peter? 😉
You said you weren’t going to try wet clothes and wet hair, but I think you’re doing a fine a job of it so far!
‘both of them’ did he send Ila and Mium after Kally?? That is worse than I expected……. left both himself and Miko unguarded……………. -.-
Without any wetness to the clothing and hair they looked sort of like people made out of matte plastic, so I gave it a shot. I still think wet clothes should probably look heavier and draping? I dunno. Will work on it I guess now that we’ve gone down this path.
Only time will tell I suppose, but I don’t know who else she’d be referring to as ‘both of them’ considering he prompted Tyler to go to Avon. 😐
Theory:
The last thing Peter said to Mium was ‘approved’. He could have been approving leaving Miko, but we also know that the Mium can be/is in Avon’s computers, and the only thing that stops him from taking over completely is limits.
Based on speculation I have on Miko I can’t imagine Peter leaving her(?) alone. So Peter is could be letting Mium run both Avon-computer Mium(MYM?) and F8 Mium. Not sure what he could do without the prototype, but probably something.
/end wild Theory.
“Miko” is a title being used as a nickname. If you look it up, it might clear up the gender issue. 🙂
Mium can be in more than one place at the same time as evidenced by THIS PAGE where he’s talking to Naomi at home while the F8 was walking down a street somewhere else. He could easily send the F8 after Kally while still protecting Miko.
That’s not a wild theory–you’re dead-on right. ^^
(And this time I tested the link before the edit timer ran out. ^^)
Raises more speculative questions:
So with the Mium ‘being in two places’ thing it begs the question can he do his magic(not magic?) while the F8 isn’t there? Is that a function of the prototype or Mium?
And if Ila can do the same thing about being two places, can she do magic remotely through a computer? Or is she not ‘AI enough’ to dissociate from the prototype?
Lots of possibilities either way.
Oh, and I see what you mean about ‘Miko’. Again that raises a slew of questions though as that is an explicit reference to an ‘our’ world culture if that is the source of the name.
Probably a ‘her’ though given that. Good catch.
Peter isn’t -entirely- unguarded. He’s talking with Naomi ATM and she can kick some ass. (Though, to be fair, she was asleep until a moment ago.)
And this (along with the nagging missing thread) is why I think he’s so surly about his plans at the moment.
He likes having some unplayed powerful cards and he’s at enough of a deficit that his self-preservation strategy requires going and sitting next to the unconscious one. That signifies that his options for dealing with additional surprises are currently in the “desperate” realm (slightly better now that Naomi’s awake and can see).