The Far Side of Utopia

While I wouldn’t call anything I’ve done with character design a retcon, the consistency or lack there of how I draw characters is… somewhat horrible. Most of this is due to simple incompetence, but occasionally their designs evolve a little over time. At this point I value improvement over consistency – it is my fervent hope that someday I find time to come back and redo all the art of these early panels in the mythical future when I’ve learned how to draw.

All that’s saying is that the light blue haired character above is indeed Amy, though I can’t entirely blame a reader for confusion on that part. As for what’s with the hair colors… that’s already been touched on in the comic, but non-natural hair colors are the mark of designer children, especially where the ‘color law’ requiring that is in effect, such as Malsa, the country the comic is currently taking place in.

A brief note on I.D.S. vs IDS and PACT, when characters say IDS they are saying “Eye-Dee-Es”, ie: the letters, when they say PACT, they are saying “pact” like the word, despite that they are both technically acronyms for organizations. This was inconsistently done originally, but moving forward I’ll render them saying the letters of the acronym with periods between the letters and them sounding it out as without. A weird distinction I guess, but I’d rather not write “Eye-Dee-Es” as that looks strange and would probably be confusing. Writing dialog is weird.

Fortunately we are building up a buffer of comics again nicely, so we shouldn’t see anymore schedule slip – not that I have further vacations planned – I think I’ve used up my vacation time…