Comic for Monday, May 6th, 2019
I think some people are probably annoyed by my tendency to cut to characters they care about the least, particularly when there are so many characters to be keep tracking of right now, but I tend to think of what the most useful perspective of events are – in the sense of what perspective contains the right amount of information about the situation.
We will at least see character’s whose names we know next page 🙂
Given that he’s out of cell service range, it’s taken him a bit to figure out how to get the communications system to work. Arkady is watching over Ila (as she’s still ‘asleep’), and just isn’t that interested in how the ship is flying, Camilla is watching over Arkady (as she’s fussy like that), Ash is watching over Camilla (as she is supposed to still be in the hospital) and Elliana isn’t really prone to wandering around. I reckon the mage-commander here would leave Renna to watch over the rest, as he’s sort of suspicious they know more about what’s going on then they are telling him. Which I guess is true for half of them, to an extent.
Loading ...
Hey, really sorry this update is coming so late, but there won’t be a second comic this week. Unfortunately the end of my week just has too much stuff happening and I’m not going to get the comic done. Additionally, as I’ll be traveling this weekend, if I do manage to get the comic done, Monday’s comic might be tricky as I’m not sure when I’d be able to do it.
So, next update monday. I know that schedule has been slipping, and I’ll try to rebuild the buffer at some point. I was planning to take a day off next week, though I’m not sure that’ll be possible looking at my schedule again. I’ll keep you guys posted.
@past
Pannel 3 bubble 3
“If the Consul is IN danger….”
Somehow i don’t suspect she is the source, but rather the recipient of any danger.
That’s a good point. I originally thought that was “If the consul is dangerous…”.
But that makes no sense. OF COURSE she’s dangerous! Mage Captain dude would never question that.
Fixed, thanks.
Any comic posted on Monday is inherently Monday’s comic regardless of when it might have been placed into an arbitrary framework. Life happens, and it keeps happening until its not, and then entropy wins. Stressing about what might have happened in the past leaves you unprepared for future happenings, and the only things you can change are happening right now.
This just occurred to me…you should always try to do the hardest thing first, because after that, everything is easier. Remembering these things is hard, so by putting it here I’m also writing it down so i can look it up later.
Icarus tried the hardest thing first, and it didn’t work so well for him. I’d advise you go with the hardest thing you can manage, followed by the next hardest thing you can manage.
Depending on other factors, sometimes the hardest thing you can manage is also the easiest thing. That can be really frustrating, but sometimes life is like that. But no matter what part you do first, so long as later work doesn’t invalidate earlier work and earlier work doesn’t make later work impossible, hardest first or easiest first will get the job done if you keep at it long enough.
It’s tough to know who needs to hear this when. I’m pretty sure you know this stuff already, and probably better than me. But sometimes when life is especially frustrating, it helps to hear things again. I hope you are well and not too stressed out.
If we’re handing out unsolicited advice, I recommend you do the comic first.
Next year at this time you may or may not be working the same day job, you may or may not remember what you were working on now. At annual review time, your upstream will need to be reminded of what you are working on a year ago.
But the comic? That is what is going to make you look back and be happy.
What’s that you say? My words could be construed as 100% self serving?
Sure, I admit that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.
That might sound like a good idea to you, and PastUtopia could certainly use an artist to be able to focus more on the story, and pipeline the whole process. But while I would totally enjoy having advanced notice of the upcoming strip, I know my art skills are nowhere near PastUtopia’s level.
That said, I suppose I could probably get some practice doing some fan art, and if I get to the point where I think I might possibly be able to handle that, I could submit some revamped chapter 0 work as a proof of concept. I think that would probably be a reasonable plan for any of us who could have aspirations of getting a heads up on the script in exchange for more involvement in the process. I tend to think that others who had such an interest would probably be able to get to that point before me.
(I totally understand you weren’t actually talking to me, but I had some concerns for being misunderstood as I was typing my response, given that Just_IDD had replied to themselves rather than PastUtopia, so there wasn’t an option to reply proximally with.)
So, not Myers and Mir, but not IDS either. Just Mium on his own, commandeering a decidedly non-military Avon-developed craft.
Panel 5, bubble 3: “it’s” should be “its”.
And while not typos as such, I wonder if the overuse of “apparently” in the second bubble of the second panel might be a bit much?
The threefold “communication [has been] sporadic” seems intentional though – right? 🙂
Five panels, that sounds more sustainable? Still feels like good story progression to me.
I’m convinced Mium, the original Mium, is in this. Maybe not wearing one of his usual skins, and without a speaking role, but tell me that ship isn’t directly under Mium’s control!?!
Panel 4, speech bubble 5:
Then they most have…
Probably should be:
Then they must have…
Thanks!
Fixed, thanks.
Well, my plan here – and we’ll see if I can keep doing this – was just to sort of combine some of the “talking heads” panels. I know a lot of people say not to do talking heads in webcomics, but that’s like… half or more of all my panels, because I like words.
There’s not too much added to these panels unless the expression of the character matters. With a character like this, the emotional range is pretty low, so I figured combining a few of the panels would be fine. The normal problem with combining panels it means you have to do a wider shot of the background, but in this case the background could sort of be… simplifed without much drawback, so it was a good candidate.
I think the thing I need to do better at as focus better on where art matters and where it doesn’t – it’s better to have one good shot of a background a few shots with just no real background details than have 3 panels with poorly drawn backgrounds. It’s better to spend more panels on reactions/events/details that matter and combine other panels that basically just people talking. Having panels for the sake of having panels helps no one.
That said, panels can’t always be simplified or combined, but it’s something I’m trying to keep in mind. Like, this page took closer to half the time of than the last few pages, and doesn’t seem that much simpler from a progression view… that’s partially because characters like Mir and Martin take longer to draw (and Miko’s avatar… I should have just copy pasted her last page, between the size and distortion and the fact that she’s an avatar with minimal change, bit I could have gotten away with it 😀 )… and drawing anything more than the head takes a good bit longer, in this all the shots can easily be kept close because of the frame without much problem.
“could have gotten away with it”
If it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their dragon…
😉
Well, I suppose, if you really want someone to say that…
That airship is totally not under Mium’s “control” in any sense of the word.
I hope my compromising my integrity with this boldface lie makes you feel better.
Hmm, sounds like he’s talking about Mium here, which is funny, since that last panel would technically also almost entirely work for Ila….but pretty sure it’s “Mium drove a ship our direction to pick us up”, except he has no idea who/what Mium is.
It’s a good thing I’m not in this situation though, as the two questions that want to be at the forefront of my brain right now are “Did Mium pack some food on board for Ila?” and “Is it tasty food?” (Actually, third question, who all got picked up? Mage Commander, Arkady, and their other buddies can pretty much be assumed, and Ila seems pretty obvious too, just curious if Kally’s hitching a ride with them or not. (Actually, she’d probably rather fly “with” them on her dragon, instead of “with” them on the ship.) Guessing Naomi wasn’t on the ship because she was either on top of the ship (because inside would be too boring) or because she was too busy/far away to get there.)
Kally is still busy applying Dragons to Atter. We will see more of that eventually. I think we will catch up with both Kally and Naomi before the end of the chapter.
“To purge a demon, apply dragon to it’s face until it finally doesn’t come back.”
Hee~
Looking forward to it!
Dragon Based Justice is ALWAYS a solution – perhaps not the solution you would have chosen, but ALWAYS a solution 🙂
It’s like violence, but turned up to about 13 and has a +4 to style and awesome, each.
Maybe not always a good answer, but by the time you’re done, you probably won’t find many arguing that.
Unless the issue is someone has a bigger dragon. Then you have issues.
I was thinking that must be a rare situation. But then I thought, isn’t that kind of what we just saw?
Atter got himself a big dragon looking thing, albeit apparently not a flying one. Then along comes someone with a BIGGER dragon. Man, days like that just suck. Poor Atter.
I’m pretty sure Atter’s dragon was bigger, but did not seem to have Fluffy-grade breath weapons. The actual dragon in Kally’s case isn’t really the weapon, it’s the fact that it shoot a beam of annihilation so strong it makes the prospective zoom out.
It’s important to keep track of the bouncing ball. Atter’s dragon was bigger *then*, but that was *then* and this is *now*. *Now*, Kally’s dragon is bigger. So it wins.
Fluffy’s also in a smaller number of pieces. Admittedly, number of pieces is one of those variables that’s kind of difficult to measure how important it is. In a sense, it seemed like Atter was in a larger number of pieces for a bit back in chapter 10, which made it harder to deal with. I expect the same thing could happen here, except that Kally is taking the time to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“Fluffy-grade breath weapons”.
It sounds like it belongs in a kid’s playroom, and you hope to never actually see in anything less than a warzone. I’d love to see the reaction to anyone’s intelligence files with that. “‘Fluffy-grade weapons’? We’re supposed to be scared of that?”
Well, for what it’s worth, I, at least, care about this guy deeply, and will probably continue to do so so long as he continues to be the most frequently occurring character for whom I still don’t have a real name that I’m actually tracking.
Well, OK, I’ll admit, I don’t have a real name for Kor’s World Minion, Kor’s World Soldier, or Arpon Tank… and I do care about them quite deeply, too. That having been said, they seem to all be strangely tied, apart from the who may be dead. Though, that wasn’t actually made clear; there was a pilot, and the entity which took out the tank is kind of known for not actually killing people. It’s probably difficult to not admit that entity killed a Kardus, but then a Kardus isn’t exactly a person, is it? At least, it doesn’t seem to be one now.
I will admit, I am going through the archives a bit trying to add in tracking on other characters whose names were not so clearly given or not so clearly tied to a specific character.
Is it Elliana or Eliana? I was pretty sure before this commentary that her name just had one L. I suppose it could make a difference if it’s spelled all in caps or if it’s mixed case…
In any event, I somehow imagine she’s like my ex. Just because she spends a lot of time sitting in a wheelchair doesn’t mean she isn’t feisty.
I think it should be Eliana one “l”, but my spell check doesn’t like that, so I think it gets converted to Elliana sometimes. She’s a character we will learn more about in time. She sort of had bad luck on first appearance in comic.
It hasn’t really been my intention to leave this guy unnamed, it’s just that everyone keeps calling him “sir” or some variation thereof. Sort of like how we never see the Consul’s name as everyone calls her “madame consul” or refers to her as “the consul” rather than her name.
if you right click/option click on your spelling, you should get an option to add the correct spelling to your dictionary. Then it wont alert on or attempt to adjust the spelling.
If, by ‘should’, you mean that’s the way the world is supposed to be, even though it’s not sometimes, then I completely agree.
But if you mean, “This is the way things work as far as I am aware but I like to use at least one weasel word per post so that I am always right”… That depends on your browser. There are several I use on occasion that lack this feature. I do personally find the inclusion of a spell checker without the inclusion of an easy way to adjust the dictionary to be an odd choice, but it seems the makers of WebKit might disagree with that (at least, that seems to be the commonality among the browsers I use that have that particular mix of features.)
Of course, even though I do use a wider variety of browsers than most people I know, there are some browsers that I do not use, or try to avoid, and I don’t know how browsers in either of those sets handle spell checking. It’s my understanding that there are some members of both of those sets with spell checking, and other members of both of those sets without spell checking. But I’ve no real idea what kinds of horrors may or may not lie in the “sort of has spell checking” areas…