Comic for Thursday, February 7th, 2019
To be honest, I’m not really sure how it became Wednesday. All day I thought it was Tuesday, and that I was ahead of schedule. But then somehow it turned into Wednesday suddenly.
I probably shouldn’t say this, as being self-critical tends to just derail things, but I’m not quite happy with this page. I reckon I tried to put a little too much on one page, and it’s a little bit… choppy, as a result. I mean, it was supposed to be, to an extent, as the pace of events is becoming a bit more scattered and chaotic, but I think it’s probably a little too hard to make sense of.
I will try to pull back a to tune upcoming pages a bit better.
There’s a step where I go from my outline – which, while in order, tends to be a bit scattershot – to what will actually go in the panels. Usually I cut like… 1/3 to 1/2 of what is in the outline (as you can probably guess, brevity and me are not really buddies), but in some cases I sort of commit to having a little too much in the page.
I find it vaguely ironic that this exact issue was being discussed in the comments on last page.
I dunno, least there’s a lot of time before Monday, I’ll figure something out. I don’t think this actually a bad page, just more confusing than it had to be, which isn’t great as it contains a fair amount of fairly important things – which is the root of the problem, there was too many things from the outline of the page that I didn’t feel I could cut.
Anyway… I’m rambling, so going to hit post now!
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Anyone else notice Mium didn’t call her Miss Winters this time? Seems he can do serious when the world is (literally) at stake.
The snark processor might not be fully rebooted yet.
Alternately, as he was rebooted, certain parts of his personality and/or memory may be inaccessible and/or lost. The same way the Mium in the AA mainframe mentioned cessation of existence, an AI isn’t exactly… a continuous entity.
Atter was Kally’s mentor?! This is the part where in retrospect their red magic constructs do look pretty similar but since he’s such a murderous psychopath I guess I just never envisioned a past in which he was friendly enough to be a teacher.
Pretty sure that he’s talking about Sophie, as that’s been alluded to before and makes a lot more sense. We haven’t actually seen Sophie’s power, but she’s been called a Demon Summoning Sorceress and other things, which would make her a pretty appropriate mentor for the feared Red Dragon Witch (Kally), and it’s also been suggested that Witch actually means someone that uses a certain kind of magic, as Elizabeth was also called a Witch and used red construct claw that shot energy.
It seemed to me to be a bit ambiguous. One of them was certainly Kally’s mentor.But after reading this strip a few times, I’m pretty sure it was Sophie who was Kally’s former instructor. That having been said, it could easily be that both Sophie and Atter instructed Kally a bit in the finer arts of Eidos construction.
If Atter is a bound demon, at least partially under the control of Sophie, it would make sense for him to be tame enough to teach Sophie’s situation containment forces.
If Sophie was having a bound demon give magic lessons, it would make sense for her star pupil to chose to leave Situation Containment. I mean, usually, a star pupil will either succumb to such temptation as well or realize it’s past time to GTFO, and to make haste in correcting her error.
Someone has a scarier dragon than Kally. On that note, any particular reason why they would use a dragon out of all available options for a construct?
That construct doesn’t appear to have wings. All I can tell is it’s a giant beast with spikes on its back and lots of teeth. It has one leg visible and appears to be a form consistent with being a quadruped. But it could be a biped with a big tail that drags behind it. There’s fire around, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily breathing fire.
I won’t count it as scarier until we’ve seen a clash of at least results of Godzilla doing something. Big doesn’t mean more powerful
I didn’t notice before how that ridiculous braid thing of Atter’s resembles that ridiculous braid thing of Arkady and Camilla, just on the other side of the face (as appropriate for Mister Sinister, I guess). When I saw him here, I first thought I was looking at another Malsan …
… and now I wonder if Atter’s “battered shell” is of Malsan origin? š
That seems pretty likely, and is also probably to the answer to Kally’s question… “How would Atter even know about the Families’ trump card?”
This further implies that the “shell” is a bit more than just a form it takes, which has some disturbing implications.
Do you think he bothers to wash his hosts? Maybe only before meeting Sophie? “I’ll send you back to hell if you don’t bathe for our next meeting!”
Panel 4
Peter “This [is] all Sophie’s plan.”
Kally “This [is] going to”
Peter “come to [the] part”
Panel 5
Peter “threshold”
Perhaps Eliana is Atter’s host’s fiancee? Would explain how he knew of it. Though if his host was any member of a family, they all would probably know. But Eliana having to fight her finace’s face might give Atter an upper hand, in case he doesn’t have some ex machina control-any-demon-construct and actually has to fight her for it. Frankly, this one looks more intimidating than Fluffy, but their strength might actually be in their data structure/anchoring, not their physical melee abilities.
Did Central reach out to Palindra after the Kor’s World invasion? I think so because I think the tech they discovered in the wreckage is how they were able to start traveling in the first place. But what could they have been doing to bring out the Kor’s World dimensional police? Researching of stuff, or practicing of stuff? Kor’s world seems to not want anyone else to have advanced tech, e.g. their attack on research facilities. Or maybe they’re after the destruction of demons and Central had used some which triggered a response from Kor’s World, and now they’re tracking down Atter as well. Maybe Arron and Nathan are trying to take him out with a scalpel before Kor’s World does it with a sledgehammer?
Maybe Kor’s World has a good reason for wanting to restrict other people’s use of dimensional travel (such as, perhaps, it possibly attracting the attention of Chthuluoid beings…) : Wouldn’t it be funny if they were really “the good guys”?
^_^
I’d be willing to bet my bottom dollar that “good guy” and “bad guy” is pretty damn complicated in this comic. Frankly we have seen every indication that the IDS is very much not “the good guys”, the Consul is clearly ambitious as all hell, Peter’s motivations are at best enigmatic, Arron is a dogmatic loyalist, Kyle is a scheme manipulator, etc, etc.
Clearly the only option for “good guy” is Rovak. He just a man of pure and simple joys (while this is a joke, the first half the post is sort of true).
I think we can still safely bet on Peter being the good guy. It’s not 100% certain, but I’d rather back the inventor of the snarky but mostly nice AI. Kor’s World thought it was acceptable to use a HVW on a SCHOOL. Granted, it was a school with both Mium and Peter in it…uh….hmmm….an HVW on a target holding Muim and Peter does kinda make sense now….
Fixed, thanks š
Panel 4
Kally “This is going to get a lot [of] people killed…”
Peter “However, we have come to [the] part where things need to be hit with dragons.” [the] just needs to scootch a scoosch.
I like that phrase: “We have come to part…” the where you hit people with dragons, and I manipulate people.
Past Utopia was tired when he wrote the dialogue on this page. For example, Panel 6, Peter-bubble 2: “I don’t on plan letting Sophie get the Consul.”
Obviously, “on” and “plan” are in reverse order.
Alternately, and much less obviously, there was some major edit between “don’t” and “on”.
Fluffy’s strength isn’t their physical melee capability, either. Not that they’re particularly lacking in that department, but their dragon fire is the reason it’s tactical class.
Panel 3: “going *too* far”
Fixed, thanks š
I think the first three panels alone would be fine as a one page update, with most of the page given over to presenting just how big and dangerous that Eidos Construct is. With the small picture of it, it’s a bit unclear how large it is, as all that’s visible in the background are the tops of what I presume are buildings, but there’s no way to tell how far away the buildings are, and no way to tell how tall they are. Then Atter could take the top right corner for his gloating and glee, while Kally takes the lower right corner with her concern and worry.
I had originally planned to spend half a page on the first panel (as the outline assumes full pages still), and the other narrative would panel would have shown the people talking, etc, with Peter and Kally’s conversation being the the next whole page, as I cut out must of MYMs dialog here. This is part of what made me think I’ve taken the collapsing of content a little too far.
There is a couple reasons I collapsed that though, not the least of that drawing a wider scale image takes a lot more time; as is, drawing the Eidos Constructs takes longer than drawing characters, and I suspect that’s a bed I’ve build for myself coming up.
I guess it’s not like I want to “get to the end” of the comic, I guess between dropping to 2 updates a week and then to half pages has just gave me the feeling that I’m “behind schedule” despite there not really being a schedule. I always assume I’ll have more time in the future, but time has a way of getting filled by stuff unless I have drop-dead deadlines.
…Yeah, I think what most people are suggesting isn’t so much “trim stuff out and collapse content until the stuff outlined for now fits on the smaller page” so much as “we’ll all be just fine and happy if the story comes out somewhat slower than it’s been and has significantly more more page-breaks in it”, especially if it makes it easier for you.
First grammar corrections
…much better that [b] than [b] this battered shell…
I don’t plan [/b] on [/b] letting Biana
I also have two questions.
How do Peter & Kally plan to prevent Atter from taking control of Fluffy after she fries spirit beast.
And who is Atters battered shell engaged to and how will they feel about him being freed.
Unfortunately I doubt Atter’s vessels are functional after he is finished with them.
“I don’t plan [on] letting Biana get the Consul.”
You should also mention that this is in Panel 6 to make it easy to find.
I think the plan to prevent Atter from Possessing Fluffy is simple: Long range, alpha strike. Messy and likely to result in high colateral damage, but also safe for ‘high value’ assets.
It’s possible that the plan to keep Atter from controlling Fluffy is having Fluffy controlled by Atter’s former student. I mean, sometimes people learn things from their instructors that their instructors never intended. I find it happens often with the more intelligent students of less scrupulous instructors.
Panel 2: much better than this battered shell
Panel 6: i don’t plan on letting biana get the consul
Fixed, thanks š
Oh thats bad. Yeah calling in a Kally strike seems appropriate.
I can see what you are referring to, but I think it is fine.
Giant data construct is summoned. We get to see what it actually is, and it looks cool. That is good.
We get to see that Atter, the suspicious demon guy, is involved.
Kally confirms what is going on, and resolves the interrupted sentence from last time.
Peter puts together that Kor’s World is the real threat, and gives us another good clue as what he thinks Kor’s World is doing.
Kally is unwilling to split up with Peter, but realizes she does not have any choice. She is clearly worried about him, despite him being sort of an asshole a few panels ago.
Haha, well, hopefully it’s just me being scatter brained right now then.
Well, I think on this page, Peter has basically spelled out that he didn’t go rogue – Sophie did. And if Biana knows Sophie’s plan, Biana did, too. But the problem with directors going rogue is that they have the clout to be able to deny it and not go into hiding for a long time.