Page Commentary No. 280

Gunwild: Thanks for being helpful, silly corrections officer lady! She's so nice, I wonder if she's from the same planet as Cupcake or if that's just the galactic hair color of being a sweetie.

Psu: I suppose it is a somewhat anime inspired space future, so natural cotton candy hair colors are not that unusual! There do seem to be more pink and purple headed characters than redheads in CQ. Maybe it's a harmless side effect of being a faster than light civilization? 

Gunwild: When I was a kid and trying to write sci-fi stories, I definitely tried to think up 'plausible' reasons for almost everybody to have some pretty anime hair colors. Like uh, one was that they deliberately gave everybody who'd received significant gene therapy some kind of outstanding physical differences, to make it harder for them to blend into society. Maybe that's not the standard in Cassiopeia Quinn, but hey, it might have been a thing back when that high-gravity planet Cupcake is from was first settled. So it's full of pinkheads!

Psu: Or high quality hair dye is much more available. I just tend to take advantage of the fact that when designing characters, I can select whatever color I want on the color wheel...

Gunwild: That is fair. We've got little octopi rolling around in totally convincing human body shaped robots, so I'm pretty sure space-tech can account for a lot of people's appearances. Also, everybody read The Charge of the Light Brigade, it's about people dying because nobody is sure how to deal with Russian expansionism in Crimea.

Psu: Learning about our current predicament from stories in the future, talking about stories in the past. That's how you get the good writing awards. But yeah, this is kinda a serious page. I'm curious if you struggled with wanting to put in a joke or something more lighthearted.

Gunwild: I tried to keep it a bit light by featuring the silly prison guard from our earlier comic. And I enjoy that Maddy seems like she's fibbing about needing to go to a function, but in only two updates that's proven to be true. So that was lighthearted and amusing for like, you and me. My favorite thing on this page, though, is panel 4 where she takes off her hat, because the video call is over. We've all gotten a little more used to the job of managing our appearance for video calls over the last couple years, right?

Psu: I've been wearing a hat to zoom calls cause my hair has been terrible the past three years... I also wanted to bring up, I wanted to reinforce that no matter what Maddy and Russ are comrades? Though they're somewhat in antagonistic roles, they both want what's best?

Gunwild: Yeah, they can talk about serious stuff! That's the thing, though, they're both responsible for their ship and crew, but Maddy's also responsible for how that ship and crew interact with the broader, trouble-filled galaxy. Maybe her captain's hat was just feeling pretty heavy after that call.

Psu: It does look ridiculously heavy. Captain hats just be like that. Hey. How come no one in Star Trek has a Captain Hat?

Gunwild: It varies between real life organizations (and fictional space navies) but actually, it's the normal custom to remove your hat (often called a "cover") indoors on a ship. So I figure the Regency doesn't hold to that rule, and officers may wish to wear hats as part of their uniform at any time (any time Psu wants to draw them). And on Star Trek they ditched the hats entirely, because I guess they noticed it rarely rains in space. 

Psu: I think in general you're supposed to take off your hat in doors. But it's cold. Beanies keep heads warm.

Gunwild: jots down note Regency... has... hats... because... space... is... cold.