Page Commentary No. 304

Gunwild: I don't fully get to feel out the triterrans as such, they're our friend Sat's creation down to the sidedness of having too many arms. But having one staring and trying to figure out a classic four-armed Edgar Rice Borroughs Martian is like the funniest thing we could have done in a two-fer of using other people's creations, and I stick by that decision.

Psu: Just wait until they start encountering six armed creatures. But besides octopuses we will never have a 6 armed creature because I hate drawing arms. They're difficult!

Gunwild: And yet people call them squid jocks. I won't get offended on their behalf, but watch yourselves. Actually though, when I wrote this the first time we hadn't thought of that thing about the realistic-looking masks yet. It was thanks to you we threw it in.

Psu: This is post our faux West World story right? So we basically introduced "realistic" masks, well after we had Squidjocks. So ya know, you put two and two together and you've got a conspiracy theory!

Gunwild: The two and two equaling five, in this situation. Or more! Also, Ashley's from a heck dimension, that hasn't changed. But she's nice so it's okay. Also, I think I may have messed up some of the conventions of binomial nomenclature here...

Psu: I admit… I didn’t think to check your work there. I generally just trusted you on that!

Gunwild: I find speculative biology a really cool part of speculative fiction, but I actually don't know a ton about regular biology! So for instance, in the Barsoom books, which are over a hundred years old now, there are distinct color-coded 'races' of Martians (no doubt influenced by prejudiced theories of the time). But despite some seriously varied characteristics, all are considered the 'Men of Mars' and bear eggs as young, and in fact at least the Red Martians are even able to reproduce with humans! Which is a neat trick, considering being from different planets... but again, very oldschool sci-fi. All told, these facts led me to categorize our Burroughs-derived intelligent bipedal life from Mars as one genus, "Ares," both because they're from Mars and because they're also immortal (unless killed by violence). I would have to know if they can crossbreed with each other and have fertile offspring to declare the many colors of Martians one species, though.

Gunwild: If this is how much thought I put into the things nobody cares about in the comic, then what I do for stuff the audience is actually interested must be amazing! Right?

Psu: Heck, this is the thought you put into someone else’s work which we borrowed! I know we’ve got a lot of cool lore waiting to show up later. Like just how many members of the Regency are actually Squids.

Gunwild: Well, there's no law against 'em joining! At least, I hope not, that's not really one of the problems the organization has been shown to have. It's got plenty of others.

Psu: Yeah, I like to think overall we have avoided adding excess specisim into our comic. Like… there may be some characters that harbor hatred of the solids. But it’s pretty rare to find characters in our world that are prejudiced against other aliens.

Gunwild: Although this article's making Ashley's species sound pretty scary. And as long as we're here, "Idemonia morax" is just the name of Doom makers iD Software thrown on the front of "demon," and then the species name is Morax, which is a demon described in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577). I think the drawings of Morax have bull horns, so it seemed like a fair name check given Ashley's horns. Although drawings of her are way cuter, and therefore better!

Psu: I thought they were cute when I drew her. I’m glad adding those little horns gave us a lot of backstory to work with. I think this isn’t the first time we’ve talked about how I’ve just added things by sketching fun stuff into the page and gunwild approves. That’s how we get squidjocks too!

Gunwild: Okay well they're just a fun idea anyway, and I bet as kids we were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like, "Why is Krang not in that robot's head? Why is he riding in its belly? He even looks like a brain!"

Psu: I definitely asked that as a kid. But as an adult I learned how genius it really was. The core is the safest place to put the nervous system!

Gunwild: I read this with my eyes - which evolved to have lenses that see everything upside-down, before my brain corrects that error - and still thought "Well if that's true why isn't MY brain in MY stomach?"

Psu: One would say we think with our… gut.