Comic for Thursday, April 12th, 2018
If Peter seems like he’s had a long day, well, I think I had a long day today, and my day was still a day… it’s been a little over a month since we’ve seen him, and he’s just now getting to the end of his day… (okay bad meta joke I feel bad now 😉 ).
To be honest, I did not intentionally draw Evan offering to shake hands left handed, so don’t read too much in that. Its a common problem when drawing the flip the hands if your paying much attention. I ended up leaving it because he was extending the same hand in all panels, so it was consistent, if just an odd choice. I guess he’s left handed now. Of course, if I’d just shut up about it, the chance that people would have noticed would be lower… 😉
Some people are probably going to be cheated that I changed scenes, but, come now, did anyone not expect a scene change there? That was basically a guaranteed scene change… :p ; fear not, we have much to learn this chapter still.
Loading ...
To fix all the problem just mirror this page vertically and then write:
“When reading manga, read right to left.”
Haha, that’d be the real troll. I don’t read much that’s right to left, and it pretty much always confuses me when I do. Takes like 10+ pages before I look at the right side before the left.
You could always put in a piece of paper into his hand, make it look like he is trying to hand out his business card or something. It wouldn’t take much work and would fix the right hand/left hand thing quite easily.
There’s lots of solutions I guess, wouldn’t have been that hard to redraw, in the end I wasn’t particularly worried by it though. The art has never really been a masterpiece, I just figured I’d point out things that weren’t intentionally to stop people from theorizing about those parts 😉
lol. You mean like theorizing that he is holding out his left hand because he is missing his right hard (which, coincidentally, neither moves nor shows up in the comic… and the sleeve does seem like it might be flat (if it isn’t the angle))?
We would never do that. [said in the most convincing tone possible] And anyone who believes that we wouldn’t try to spin those wild theories hasn’t read the comments on at least half the pages of this comic.
:p
Mr. Farschel you have to offer something he doesn’t already have…
I know, it is intrinsically unfair that he gives Avon gate technology, while never even bothering to work for Egenus. And you are 100% correct: Peter is in charge of MSB, and therefore MSB policy. I anticipate Monday, when you will explain how Egenus will facilitate Peter’s agenda to, best I can tell, destroy your world.
Oh… PastUtopia, the perspective that disturbs me is the door: On January 15th of 2018, the door opened into the hall and the dead bolt was affixed to to the door. However today, the deadbolt is affixed to the doorpost and the door is broken opening into the room in panel 6, and in panel 9 the door is open into the room, but the deadbolt is nowhere to be seen. perhaps hidden behind a word bubble? I didn’t notice the hand, until you mentioned it, and I dismissed the hand as only gesturing as socially adroit people are known to do, but since you obviously wish to obsess about perspective. Even if the door were double hinged, Peter is a much stronger character than we have hitherto been led to believe, if he just forced the door in the reverse direction of the already broken out deadbolt latching mechanism.
Avon was in the right industry, and played their pawn role without being briefed. Ryn basically maneuvered Peter into having to give the detector technology. As Dr. Martin, Peter was basically exploiting Avon’s labs because they were convenient. Sure, Avon benefited, but it wasn’t about them.
Egenus, on the other hand, is not apparently in a related market. I would guess that they are competing with Avon, but on product lines unrelated to what Peter has been working with Avon. Evan comes to Peter not really understanding what to offer Peter, but not wanting to take Peter’s rejection if he can help it. He’s probably also coming to Peter with a sense that Peter was more in control of things, rather than reacting to minimize damage in the face of premature escalation from three different groups. While assuming Peter was calling shots could be seen as something that Peter wanted, thinking that he allowed what happened to happen… Specifically, I think Evan is interested in the war with IDS benefiting Egenus, while Peter is wanting it to end quickly in his favor so that he can deal with Kor’s World without that distraction.
Also, keep in mind that everyone has limits. Peter’s playing a game with a huge set of variables already. He’s been managing to keep on top of things, but Egenus playing a role if he has no part for them to play is an extraneous complication he may not feel he has the bandwidth to handle.
I’m not sure where you’re seeing Avon here. These statements look more like a non-Avon company that’s part of Pact (“writing is on the wall in recent enforcement actions” & “clear competitors in Pact network” & the fact that Kally & other IDS associates are contracted to Malsa through Avon).
@PastUtopia – Since you offered custom avatars, could I have the broken door frame and adjacent deadbolt from panel 6 (without Peter’s elbow) or similar image from a previous comic? I like odd avatars where possible.
Haha, yeah, I did flip the direction the door opens it looks like. The deadbolt is still attached to the door (you can sort of see it behind Peter in Panel 6, and in the last panel the door is opened inward, so you can’t see it well.
This is really a previous mistake though, as I got confused by door protocol. Office doors always open inward, so that’s what I did this time. I try to follow the rule of “interior doors open toward the room, exterior doors open outward” but I run about 50/50 on if I remember to do that correctly.
Exterior doors didn’t always open outward. The reason they do now on new commercial or multi tennent structures is because of fire code and safety regulations. It was determined that in a mad rush of people trying to get through , if the door opened inwards, people die because the door can’t be kept opened reliably and consistently and instead people press up against the closed-door getting smothered.
On the same type of structures inner doors open inwards to prevent them from blocking the hall. Which would impede the flow of people exiting the building that is also a safety issue for commercial and multi-person structures.
Security can also drive having doors opening inward although people don’t realize it for the most part. Hinges are on the side the door opens to. For a long time and even currently on residential doors the hinge pins can be relatively easily removed. That isn’t the case on Commercial exterior hinges which are made as a unit with the pin welded in place. With the hinges being much more difficult to attack now having an outward opening door is in many ways more secure than an inward opening one because it is much harder to put pressure outwards from the outside. You could pull the handle off before you open the door.
Peter your door is always open because Kally keeps breaking your lock. Also, I wonder if Evan even realizes the level of fire he’s playing with here. In many cases if Peter wants something from someone it’s likely that he’s already stolen it from them, or manipulated them into acting the way he wants.
On the other hand, if you know who Peter is I can understand wanting to become his friend rather than his Enemy. Tyler showed how it should be done though. Heck even Ryn knew what he was getting into when he was pulled in.
Ryn knew he was getting used as a pawn. He also crunched the numbers to the best of his ability and decided being a pawn was a good move. Peter’s really talent seems to be making people who don’t know the scoreboard (peter: Alot, peter’s obstacles: Zero[ish]) feel being cooperative is the best direction.
Which really makes me wonder what Evan thinks is going to happen, given that he just IMPLIED Peter is the unofficial head of Malsan black-ops.
Also in retrospect SMASH cuts when we finally get close to answers are all too common. Still can hope that one day they won’t. Also grammaring that sentence was hard.
It’s not the lock, it’s the frame. Look at the last panel on the right side.
Yep it’s always the weakest part that fails. Looks like the door and the lock are still intact. The door frame not so much.
I really love the pacing of this comic. Talking about intense world changing events, and emotional conflict that has been building for hundreds of pages, and a title reference, and then bam. Scene switch to a character we are’t familiar with having a conversation where both parties work hard to understate their respective importance.
Does this conversation give us a bigger and deeper understanding of the world? Of course.
Will this conversation be important to future events? Of course.
Will that importance make perfect sense in the world, and not rely on weird coincidences and irregularities? Of course.
Do we have an idea of why yet? Just barely.
You sir deserve a custom avatar at the least for your succinct encapsulation of what it is to read this story, Bravo!
I can’t award a custom avatar unless they tell me want they want 😉
If anyone does want one though, let me know.
Maybe you should make the custom avatars a Kickstarter reward?
I actually really like the automatically generated icons here. They are kind of cool and fit in with the aesthetic of the comic. It also fits in with my username, which is commentary about at the idea of humans being “imperfect” computers.
Thanks for my requested odd custom avatar.
Haha no problem. I grabbed the one from a few pages ago as the one here is too small to get a square for the avatar.