sequential daze

Friday, July 10, 2009

5.40 - Welcoming Committee

Whew! Finally got that page - #5.40 - drawn and coloured. It ended up being a lot more involved to produce than I expected... but I shouldn't be all that surprised given the number of characters involved. So this page brings us roughly to the mid-way point of the story.

I had expected this story would take only 50 pages... clearly I'm wrong in that regard! So I'm thinking 80 or so. I don't want it to be much longer than that. Despite my intention for brevity it was the defeat of Oz Magellan which bumped up the page count. Originally it was intended to only take a few pages but then I started using it as a way to properly introduce each character - plus I wanted to show them being picked off one by one to make their defeat seem a bit more plausible.

There's still a fair bit of ground to cover in the story but things should speed up somewhat from here on in...

posted by xmung at 10:32 pm

10 Comments:

  • I don't know why you always seem to be apologizing for a big number of pages. I mean, it's not like you were asking US to give extra effort for YOUR reading pleasure.
    And it's not like we're paying for high printing costs because of extra paper. :-)

    Don't feel yourself compelled to stick to specific standards because "all the mainstream comics follow them". I love it when a Magellan story isn't mandatorily over in 22 pages! (22 plus an equal amount of often pointless ads. ;-)
    I think your "unheld promises of brevity" are part of what makes you, in my book, a top-ranking storyteller. You know how to take your time for the sake of good narration and the reader's enjoyment. And this, coming from a hardcore reader since my tenderest years.

    I've long noticed that the majority of suspense/action books/films seem to spend half to two-thirds of the story setting the scene and building up the tension, and the real, all-out action is in the rest of it. In your stories, we're very quickly in the deep end of the pool for the nicely macho flipping-somersaulting diving contest.
    For lack of a more clever image. ;-)

    But Fatima would probably applause to my here aquatic image. :-)

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 1:06 pm  

  • Next update: "Hostile takeover of the zombie yes-men!"

    Big group of carefree youngsters? Check. Field trip in unknown terrain? Check. Eerie, overly friendly locals? Check. Monsters lurking behind the corners? Check. Red-eyed demons? Check. Conflicting passions? Check. Betrayal? Check. Flying space vessels? Check. Sexy female reptile mutants? Roger, that's a Go!
    Now, all we need for a PERFECT classic B-movie is a Charisma-type character for Cameron Diaz to play. You know, the blonde popular bombshell with an acute awareness of her own worth! ;-)

    You add a few eye candy scenes while I call Hollywood.

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 1:52 pm  

  • "I don't know why you always seem to be apologizing for a big number of pages."

    haha - I think I'm probably apologising to myself more than anything! ;-) But yeah, I agree - a story should be as long as it needs to be... it just means that the really long ones = lots of work for me & a marathon effort!

    By Blogger xmung, at 4:21 pm  

  • Then you must simply pace yourself.
    Also, drink lots and fluids, and try to run in the shade. :-)

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 5:45 pm  

  • Tuesday 14's update only confirms : the amount of attention that went into that simple-looking page [5.41] is extraordinary! Not a single detail is superfluous. We dive head-first into increased depths of the story, the characters, and their relationships.

    I had forgotten about Brelvis, and how he certainly couldn't be hoodwinked easily in such a situation. Dogs notoriously CAN be that extraordinarily perceptive, between the sense of smell and the animal instinct.
    Is this the alternate start of a great collaboration with Kaycee/Maverick? :-) Those two have assorted practical wits. KC already has a suspicious look on her in the previous page.
    But "We can't go on together
    With suspicious minds"    ... ;-)

    Another classic quote this page reminded me of, is Wolverine popping his claws, while growling to his team of equally suspicious X-Men: "Smells like NIMRODS to me!"
    A few Brelvis nods to Wolverine certainly wouldn't hurt the fun factor.

    I shudder to think of the implications, after what we saw in Ch.4, if "the Others" manage to mind-control Maya. Then again, it's not proven that she's easy to control with something other than her own power. Any telepaths in that field trip group?

    BTW, I still don't know what are the special abilities of the demons. Could become very interesting very soon... With every character having both unique abilities and very well defined personalities, the only thing I don't expect with your stories is the expectable! ;-)
    R.I.P., non-parodic clichés...

    Also, only now I notice, from Justine's profile, that like Go! she's probably got some native Aboriginal ancestry. Her skin tone was a bit misleading at first.
    Interesting, that animosity between two characters of common ethnicith. (Then again, the closer you are to a person, the more disagreements will turn bitter. Typical among Black Americans, "pride" vs "sellouts".)

    Hey, using Blogger to comment on the updates is as easy as the original comments widget. Nice!

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 2:31 pm  

  • "Also, only now I notice, from Justine's profile, that like Go! she's probably got some native Aboriginal ancestry."
    Well spotted but unfortunately not correct (also, a sad admission that I didn't quite get her profile to look they way I wanted... may require a touch up at some point). Justine is from the USA and her ancestry is African American with something unusual added. More on that some other storyline! One detail I don't think anyone has picked up on is that I sometimes spells words with UK/Australian English and sometimes with US English. I figure that despite the fact I personally use AU English that any American characters would use, of course, US English. You might notice that Justine says "civilized" where as I'd personally say "civilised"... (look out for other examples from time to time... "color"/"colour", etc).

    "BTW, I still don't know what are the special abilities of the demons. Could become very interesting very soon..."
    The only thing that's been vaguely mentioned is that it is some kind of 'elemental magic'... as to what that entails and how it might differ from witch/wizard style magic practiced by Motana-Rose, et al remains to be seen...

    "Hey, using Blogger to comment on the updates is as easy as the original comments widget. Nice!"
    Yes, although it has the limitation that you can only comment under an existing entry that might not be specifically relevant to what you want to comment about - but that's what the great god "Offtopica" exists for...

    By Blogger xmung, at 4:03 pm  

  • "Offtopica", is that the Magellan equivalent of Kobra or Hydra?
    "HAIL OFFTOPICA, EIGHT-TENTACLED THREAT OF THREAD IRRELEVANCE! WHATEVER! TALK TO THE HAND! PERTINENCE IS FUTILE!"
    (Oops! Forgot: the Hand is already taken as a name. Um... the Foot? Drat, foiled again! "Whatever!")

    African-American does resemble Aboriginal in features, especially in cartoony style, so I'd say you didn't really mess up THAT badly, Mr Perfectionist. :-)

    As for jayog... geewog... jehaugr... for COUNTRY-variable spelling, I'm not the one who's going to nit your pick (or vice of the versa)! No siree, no ad-vice-versa from THIS versatile Mr Nice.
    Like many foreigners, my English learning mixed all sources, and I constantly get mixed up and hesitate.
    No Dictionary that I have can help much in this regard. It would double the required paper!

    See why French would be better as an international language? Vocabulary may vary, but never the spelling.

    Now, Florns, bring out your own "spelling" so we can see. :-)

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 4:53 pm  

  • Just wanted to say I love Oz Magellan. The balance between character bits and action bits seems perfect, so while you're right to keep thinking about that, don't worry while you think--the result is grand!

    By Blogger Will Shetterly, at 3:19 am  

  • Thanks Will! For my money, it's the character bits that make people really care about those characters when the action bits crank up. And believe me, I have some cranking action lined up for the next few pages...! >:D

    By Blogger xmung, at 6:36 am  

  • i-Spy... is that another Apple produce... I mean, product? ;-)

    By Blogger Pascal [P-04referent], at 2:35 pm  

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