Page Commentary No 261

Brellom: Oh hey, I worked on this one. This page has another best girl too.

Gunwild: I worked at a big corporate-owned chain for years, for wages so low there are now laws against them. But I admit, one of the times that grind was actually nice was when you felt like you helped out somebody who was simply trying to make their holiday season as special as it oughta be.

Psu: I once helped a stranger pick out a game for their kid in the PS3 aisle of a Walmart. I told them God of War is extremely violent but they might like Uncharted if you're okay with Indiana Jones style adventure. Does that count?

Brellom: I've never helped anyone a day in my life.

Psu: You're helping us now!

Gunwild: That counts, Psu. Not to Brellom though, Brellom hates the youth and opposes their happiness.

Psu: That is also possibly true.

Brellom: bah, humbug

Psu: Anyway, I think this is one of my my favorite locations to draw in the comic. Vraxiopeia I mean. Not necessarily a Burger World. I like it because I got to just start dropping in things I'm familiar with being from a small New Jersey town. Everything about the lights here feels very homey. Even though the mountains and the stars are kind of alien. And every time we visit this colony, it seems to get bigger and more prosperous. I think we discussed how neat it was that a franchise might settle in by this time.

Gunwild: Indeed. Oh, the "Hello-Ho-Ho" in panel 2 is something said at the holidays by video-maker Stuart Ashens, who we watch.

Psu: We haven't ever included his couch in a strip... or have we? Is his couch the same as the couch on the Damselfly?

Gunwild: No, his couch is much worse, despite never having had a hundreds-of-pounds heavy cyborg sit on it regularly. 

Psu: Zeke isn't hundreds of pounds? Is he?

Brellom: Many people are at least 200 pounds. That counts as hundreds of pounds.

Gunwild: He said he's a bit too heavy for a horse's comfort.

Psu: Ah you're right. Another strip from our visits with the Orphans.

Gunwild: SPACE Orphans.

Psu: Heh. Okay, time to talk art on this page. The colors for Burger World were actually first made for Minx's temporary robot body. The Yellow and Orange are kinda like a retro Burger King color before they started adding blue everywhere. I then had to take that theme and then make it into a store. So Burger World has the giant Burger Lights on the side of the store. While that's pretty good branding, one issue is that you can only see it from one direction. So I have to assume somewhere off screen will be a big tall sign with the logo. You can't really see it from this direction, but the back of the restaurant is their drive through with a lit roof. It's supposed to give the restaurant a space ship silhouette, like the drive through area is a warp engine.

Gunwild: You're always low-teching it... it's the space-future! They probably have holograms of menu items floating at giant size high above. Dripping holo-sauce on passers-by.

Psu: If it's TOO futuristic, it won't look recognizable to people from the modern day! That's why her grill station still looks like a regular grill station even though it is nearly fully automated! And speaking of recognizable objects, which of the burgers the kids are eating looks the best?

Gunwild: The one with the very tall top bun. Always feels like a special bonus to get one of those.

Psu: The one Cally has? I wonder what kinda burger that was supposed to be. Looks like a barbicue chicken thing. I think I want Weird Kid's pretzel bun burger. That's probably the one with the cheese filled bun.

Gunwild: Maks's bun is the tallest from where I'm sitting. But it all seems nice. You like drawing food that looks good and also have much better plating skills than me.

Psu: Maks is thinking how he's going to approach this challenge.

Gunwild:  He'll probably have it figured out by New Year's.

Brellom: I like burgers. I wish I had one right now.