Page Commentary No. 242

Gunwild: I too sometimes cheap out on build quality in my electronics, and then later regret it.

Psu: Cases! Cases for your electronics are important, especially very important handheld ones like your phone! I couldn't give a patoot how well machined the exterior of your phone is, if it's super smooth chill to the touch iodized magnesium with gold inlays and sapphire glass. Get a 15 dollar case and protect yourself! It'll probably save your life! Also don't use old electronics as a table leveler.

Gunwild: Those are both good advice. I know phone screens are made out of Gorilla Glass and other tough stuff these days, but I'd still rather play it safe... anyway, tell us about some of the design thoughts for these old scrap robots (and Eggbot, who is clearly perfect).

Psu: Eggbot is actually a cameo from my friend Anon44! He'd been a big fan of ours for... probably already over a decade now. Eggbot was involved in one of our earliest illustration commissions together. I'm glad I got to give him a star cameo appearance as the second best character this chapter. 

Gunwild: There's also a robot who's a bit Megaman-like there on the left.

Psu: And another robot with a lighter for a head, which is a call back to a random super hero character I made called Pyrobo. Uh... he wasn't supposed to have died in the comic but I never really finished that project so uh... he never got brought back to life. Until now. As a robot warrior for justice. It's a long story.

Gunwild: It's fine, mechanical lifeforms deal with death and life and reproduction differently than us. Question: Dr. Botz has an extra toolkit type thing hiding in her shoulder. If you could have one tool built into your arms, what would it be?

Psu: Probably something specifically designed to hold my phone so it can hold it up to my face like it's a video game menu. Or something that can push my glasses up...

Gunwild: I'm going... triple laser claws. I'm sick of needing to cut things three separate times!

Psu: I think before we cut off, I should comment on the art stuff here. This ended up being one of the few pages I didn't ask Brell for help. I believe it was just a timing thing. But you can see the difference in how we shade faces.

Brellom: Surprise, I'm here! At first, I thought I didn't do any work on this page. But now I wonder if I did like... 1%, even if it was just menial labor.

Psu: Hullo, brell. A couple other notes on things include the use of sound effects. I tend to avoid them, when possible. (I'm starting to rethink that policy, but that's another matter.) But even though I was avoiding them at the time, panel 4 absolutely needed the crunch sound effect to make it look heavy. And impactful.

Brellom: But yeah, you can REALLY tell the difference in how Psu and I approach lighting. It stands out a lot with this specific page, because I worked on every page in the chapter after this. They look a lot different. But yeah I just wanted to say I didn't actually work on this page and you should eat and sleep.

Psu: I bet if I had a robot hand that held a phone up to my face, I'd never fall asleep again...