Comic for Monday, April 4th, 2022
Hey Folks-
Sorry this one ran so late. Part of the problem is that this cycle doesn’t work great. The reason I went to half pages originally was that is that drawing a full page doesn’t take twice as long as drawing 2 half pages… yet I’ve been on the cycle of drawing two half pages for like a year now. The rest of the problem is a combination of time, and that I just don’t draw much right now. I used to draw a fair bit outside of comic related things, but for the last months (… or like year) I’ve been mostly only drawing the comic, which means it’s hard to find a block of time to attach working on it to (since I have to get the tablet, get drawing, etc).
I do think things will continue for the time being, and I will try to get back to drawing to full pages. I’ll continue to say that I am pretty confident I will finish the story as I planned, but will consider various options. It’s partially that I’m struggling to keep to schedule, and also partially that I’d like to tell other stories as well, but that’s clearly not that viable if I’m struggling a bit to keep to the schedule of this one. I sometimes worry that I cut too much from the comic for it to be fully coherent in the interest of keeping things moving at least somewhat forward, and that’s not to mention that there’s quite a few other side stories (…and full other stories) I wouldn’t mind writing as well. I’m not going to change anything for now, just things I’m giving thoughts. My current thought is that I will keep going with the comic, but likely any sequel or side stories after that will be less art intensive things, unless I start drawing a lot more again. I think I’d still want to do some art, but I often feel like a lot of the art I do end up drawing is just people talking. Not sure. This is an announcement of anything, just rambling (pretty much the exact thoughts I’ve shared before).
Anyway… comic!
See you (probably) next week,
-PastUtopia
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As for said comic…
Ila is usually connect to MYM’s system to some extent (that’s how she can hear him), but tends to differentiate the status of her connection between being able to talk to him, and something like this where he can modify what she sees, or borrowing computing power from him. That’s not something we’ve actually seen her do before. This is definitely than when MYM took over Ila’s body entirely, but there’s clearly been a change in how Mium can interface with Miko and Ila to some extent recently – we saw the something similar with Miko. We are seeing Mium run some degree of increased interface with Miko and Ila without the AA system seeming to be active (which was what would kick in a bunch of his restrictions). There’s obviously more to explore there in the story front so I don’t want to get into spoilers, but MYM would still not be able to fully run the F10 (and definitely not Miko) without activating the AA system, but seems to be able to still use something akin to the virtual interface he created.
It’s something we’ll learn more about later, but is likely a side effect of creating Vium. Of course, that’s only half the change – the other half is the Ila seems far more comfortable with relying on MYM’s computer systems after the incident, as she’s not as worried about him eating her brain (given that he already took control of the F10 and gave it back). She better understands the difference between her and MYM after getting a better idea of what he really is (as opposed to primarily thinking of him as his prototype).
Anyway, we’ll get more info later.
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Hmmmm … In panel 4 ILA asks Mium to “put a dot or something on all the bad guys … and then loan me some computing power.” What would she need the computing power for? Is our adorable little homicidal manic maturing and planning to limit collateral damage? Has she seen Rovak yet?
Ila’s limit on parallel spells is her brain power, so I assume with enough borrowed computing power she could hit every enemy in one barrage.
Cool! Maybe we will call it an ILA cluster bomb or MLRS.
I’m pretty sure Ila has not seen Rovak yet.
The dots are likely to indicate targets versus friendlies, suggesting that Ila may be embracing a less destructive approach to problem solving.
Computing power? Maybe she wants to apply more than 6 calculations at once? Maybe she wants to target multiple hostiles at once? Maybe Mium is going to provide the processing power for a shield?
But now I have a question. When the time comes, will Rovak be designated with a dot?
While Rovak might be expected to have a very big dot, Mium may observe him reposessing Orish mages and not designate him as a target.
Well Arron had expected the people from Orin to cause problems. This seems to be confirmation.
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-october-27th-2020/
Somehow I suspect all the “genius ideas” Rovak has ever had involve killing someone.
For a second there, I read his T-Shirt as SMITE instead of SMILE.
That works, too…
Pretty much both are right on the nose.
Thinking panel six “I was wandering” -> “I was wondering” ?
“Mr. I.D.S.”
Rovak really likes Mium, doesn’t he?
Yes. The character Wiki mentions that Rovak is a fan of Mium. Rovak’s speech in today’s comic reflects the trusim of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Rovak sees Mium as something of a kindred spirit, a frienemy, and maybe something of a compartner. He understands that the F-series were supposed to replace him and his kind as the new ultimate killing machines, but observes that they don’t have any job satisfaction, so feel that makes him a superior killing machine.
I feel like his statement to David here disproves his thesis. His job satisfaction’s going to cost him his job.
Maybe not today. Maybe not on this job. But sooner or later, an employer will take significant issue with his making choices like this. I’m not sure exactly what they’ll do about it. But I got the impression somewhere or other that he didn’t invent the i-code, he didn’t install the i-code, and it’s possible that the person or group who did could undo it. Once he’s annoyed a sufficiently connected employer to a sufficient degree, that’s likely to happen.
Assuming, of course, that Mium doesn’t kill him first, because Mium did at least come close enough to doing it to remind Rovak of what it would take to kill him with the i-code in place.
Been wondering when we would see Rovak again. His appearance really throws off all bets. Going to be a wild ride.
I feel like this might increase David’s chance of survival. On one hand, Rovak will not hold back in trying to kill people. On the other hand, Peter or Mium might save him to use as a hostage if he fights Rovak, while if he attacked Ila he’d likely get fragged before they could intervene.
In the last panel, it looks like Rovak might kill David insted of saving him.
I think the assumption is that Rovak won’t be quite as efficient as Ila, and so give the protagonists time to interfere. And he does tend to play around a bit, doesn’t he?
Not convinced. Its possible Rovak will manage to kill David *before* Ila gets to him, but not seeing how that improves his odds of survival.
On the other hand, Ila may well remember that Mr Zombie gave the Kardus the remote that caused them all that trouble back when they were rescuing Arkady, and while I am not sure Ila even CAN kill a warmage with an i-code, repeated high velocity strikes to the head would be a good way to test that theory… and give David enough of a window to make a prompt exit while the two of them duke it out.
Two other possible options that others have used to free up time for more projects:
– Danielle Corsetto (https://www.girlswithslingshots.com/, etc) hired a person to act as a ‘colorist’. I think that grew into additional collaborations.
– K.B. Spangler (https://www.agirlandherfed.com/main?i=1&p=about) hired a person to do the artwork
I think in both cases they tied it to kickstarter or Patreon goals. I know I would give money towards that-perhaps enough others would?
I’ve seen the colorist option in a couple places. IIRC, Cassiopeia Quinn does the same thing.
“This is an announcement of anything”
*runs around screaming in panic*
Some days an IDS thug just can’t catch a break. What started as a simple child kidnapping has degenerated into a brawl against people with enough firepower to exterminate a full brigade. ^^
@Past: The whole idea of going to half pages was to give you a break and let you build a buffer. It hasn’t worked. You are now cramming as much content into a “half page” post as you used to put into a full page, which leads me to wonder if any distinction remains between the concept of “full page” vs. “half page”. O.O
Holy, Rovak recognizes that this plan is bad enough that he is pulling the plug. Rovak. Just speechless on the implications.
Rovak has tested the waters with Mium, and doesn’t have a path to success there. That’s impressive, because Rovak is nearly impossible to kill, and Rovak only requires his own survival to count as a success.
I’m not sure that’s true. It seems to me that Rovak needs his own survival and at least a sense of job satisfaction to count as a success.
That latter bit is something of a sticking point, because he doesn’t like having teammates die on him. I don’t see any of those here, but he may be including the (I’m guessing not pictured) Orish mercenaries that he’s stating he’s collecting into that group.
So, for him to consider the interactions here a success, I think he needs to recover at *least* one Orish mercenary (not himself), not have “too many” of the Orish mercenaries injured “too badly”, and survive. That gives him plenty of opportunities to fail.
Alternatively, if he was assisting David instead of attempting to do him in, he’d need to not have “too many” of the Orish mercenaries injured “too badly”. If he knows who Ila is, and he understands they’re going up against her, then he understands that just wouldn’t be an option.
I’m kind of thinking his spur of the moment idea with David is probably to salvage his sense of being an “ideal killing machine” by killing someone and getting some job satisfaction from it as he’s doing his other work.
But I think most people’s definition of “ideal killing machine” includes “doesn’t kill the people it’s supposed to be protecting / not killing.” I’d guess that Sophia is one of those people. It could be hard to say with her, though, so there’s some hope for Rovak’s relationship with the IDS, I guess. Maybe.
Re: future stories: a potential intermediate possibility between “draw comics” and “web novel” would be something more sprite-based, like the comics WSWFG and Alastere.
In those cases, the choice is arguably a bit more than stylistic, but the “reused minimal assets” aspect should work well if you want to do less work for a dialog-centered comic but still have the feel of a webcomic.
Or do a hybrid approach, like Erfworld used to do, where some updates are text and some are comic-based.
That said, based on the Tyler’s side story, I personally wouldn’t be disappointed by purely text-based updates either, if it led to more frequent/longer updates.
Panel 4, I can’t quite read what Mium is saying to Ila. Panel 6: I was wondering what you were doing with my stuff…
Until you pointed it out, I completely missed Mium’s “speech.” I can see Miums first line in a separate “speech” box as “Miss Naomi only asked.” Next, ILA talks over a few lines of Mium’s speech and only the word “they” is legible.
I also missed that there was text from Mium there. Thank you Willis!
I believe the intent is just to show that Ila has every intention of using lethal force as her opening move, and Mium is trying to talk her into a lesser option. While I suspect strongly that there is actual text from Mium used here, I think it was not intended to be legible, nor do I believe it is required.
Mium says “Miss Naomi only asked you to keep them from hurting anyone if they came over”
But ila seems to not only be using lethal force as an opening move, but _making the opening move_
Not quite. I mean, that’s what Mium said, except he used all caps and included a period. I’m not certain you’re right about Ila.
She’s prepared to make the opening move. She’s apparently intending on making the opening move. But will she? It’s a race between her and Rovak. And they’re apparently oddly on the same team.
Chapter 17, page 14 seems unlikely to go well for David.
But for Ila’s zealousness, it looks like they actually have an opportunity to save David and the guy from the rogue families and convince them that working with the IDS is a bad plan, because it has them working with people like Rovak Stas.
Still, that seems like an opportunity that Peter would like, but Ila would turn down, and I’m not sure how anyone else there would feel about it. Arron would probably also like it, because it’d be less paperwork and another ally within Situation Creation could be helpful, but he’s not there.
That said, he is by a Mium *and* a teleport pad that has only been used in a limited capacity compared to what it could be, so maybe he could be there pretty damned fast.
I do find the change in her skin tone an interesting touch. Going Sith already? Does it enter her calculation that her engaging in lethal action in this particular situation will not be well regarded by either her current friends or her creator?
Her face is just shadowed by the hood.
I do think David has a better chance of survival now that Rovak has shown up, Peter/Mium might save him from Rovak, while if David tried to attack Ila, he’d probably die before Peter/Mium could intervene (Mium technically could intervene to stop Ila any time probably, but I doubt he would).
He might also save him by the fact that the ‘plan’ is now so severely understaffed that David leaves the Rouge Family Mage hanging in the wind.
I like the idea of a Rouge Family Mage vs. Arkady who is clearly an Orange Family Mage. Skip the names and just call them by color!
I do not like that particular pair of colors being the distinction. I mean, there are colors within the ranges for rouge and orange which are nicely distinct to my eyes. But the reddest orange is not so clearly not the orangest rouge.
Also, if life has taught me anything, it’s that with that as the distinction, there’s going to be someone who uses a color that’s right between them but neither, if such a thing is even possible. (I’ve not plotted out spectra; I’ve just googled rouge and visually compared it to stuff I know is orange.)
It’s probably all a rouge, anyway.
Technically, Arron is nowhere near as close to Mium as ILA is. And Mium, who knows Peter pretty well, is feeding her enemy data. It will be interesting who gains the designation of “enemy”, won’t it?