Page Commentary No. 305

Psu: Hey, it's our old friend Jander Quicke! Eagle eyed readers might have spotted a few of his stories here and there... Or wait is this the first time we actually put him in the main comic?

Gunwild: I think so, yeah. I would have to scour the Patreon to know if we've dropped it in the bonuses before... but the point is, if you're writing down all these interesting little ideas you've come up with for aliens, it can pay off later if you say it was in the person of some iffy travel writer. THEY got it wrong if we need to contradict ourselves later, not US!

Psu: Well I like that a lot too. It's the difference between a writer and a wiki. A writer inadvertently puts in a little of themselves into what they're writing. And here we just had Jander talk about the wide beautiful galaxy of aliens and friends. That probably cuts to the core of our comic a lot.

Gunwild: True. Still, what a nerd. Also, it may seem rude to represent an entire species with the Doll-Fins, who are clearly just showgirls, and nothing else. But since we haven't shown other members of their species in the comic it be unhelpful to show other fish-people, even to avoid presenting a monoculture.

Psu: I sometimes think you'd love it if we just did a whole comic, or at least a chapter about the Doll-fins. And if we had infinite time and infinite drawing hands, I'd be up for it. It would probably have more swords and kaiju than the Little Mermaid anyway. Wait... the Little Mermaid had a whole Kaiju fight didn't it?

Gunwild: I dunno, that could be what Avatar: The Way of Water is about, and then in a couple months people would be asking how we spent our CGI budget, and other points of comparison between those clearly comparable things.

Psu: Well I was gonna say we would have more cute aliens in swimsuits than The Way of Water but I'm also sure Cameron will beat us there too. Man... it probably doesn't pay to go head to head with James Cameron.

Gunwild: I was also not exactly sure what the particulars of the ancestral flesh and bone worship were when I wrote that bit in. I have more idea now, I mean, you know the ways we've tried to make Headhunter's Zoom calls look threatening.

Psu: Headhunter loves the way other cultures have an innate fear of something with too many eyes, is much larger than they should be, has a lot of teeth, and likes to display animal bones on their shelf. But I like how having this entry helps reinforce the notion that well... we don't really have monocultures in our fictional galaxy. You've just got some people that are jerks in all kinds of species!

Gunwild: I could probably get plenty done with more eyes. I've already got an equal number of screens and eyes going at the same time often enough.

Psu: Yeah but would you need that many teeth? Think of how long it takes to floss.

Gunwild: If they just grow in more and more teeth all the time like a shark or an alligator, it might not be a problem! Except for the Tooth Fairy's budget.

Psu: The Tooth Fairy is it's own entry in our alien catalogue and it's one we best leave alone...