Page Commentary No. 201

Gunwild: "That is an accurate statement" is something so robotic I wouldn't even write a robot saying it...

Psu: I think we say it to each other a lot... Or wait. I say that. Am I the only one that says that? Am I failing a Turing test right now?

Gunwild: Maybe I put it in the comic because you say it and I find it endearing.

Psu: I am having a minor existential crisis. Anyway. Do you wanna talk about the writing? There was a lot of good writing here.

Gunwild: I feel like the exposition inter-cuts pretty nicely with that neat, actiony panel 2. I probably had some pretentious idea about how even the blocking is the same, with Maddy coming up behind Feti and getting deflected. What's much cleverer is the horizontal slash in the horizontal panel, which I'm sure was all you.

Psu: Well, as a rule of thumb, when it comes to timing comic book panels. Vertical panels are faster. Horizontal panels are slower. But if you're going to set the stage for a scene, a horizontal panel envelops the reader better. So while I could have probably cut the scene into tighter vertical panels, the overall mood of this page is somber. The action is an afterthought. It's about where Maddy's head is at. And now, after this page, we realize it's about where Feti's head is at too.

Gunwild: I guess a lot of people at home are watching Hamilton on Disney+ these days. It's obviously a musical myth, not real history, but it does illustrate some things that are hard for a modern mind to grapple with. Like, if you know somebody who wasted their life dying in a duel, how do you square that with continuing to take part in a society that values personal pride over peace? I guess you have to compartmentalize really hard. Feti's good at it, it's important for an officer I s'pose.

Psu: We've sorta dived into her reputation as being ruthless, like we've even written her that way at times. The appeal of a ruthless pirate hunting lady is pretty awesome! But I think, if we've done anything with Cassiopeia Quinn since about chapter 3, is that everyone's a little more than they seem? Like this page! I'm just remembering some more of the thought process when it came to cutting between the sequences. Like... ALL the panels reflect each other a little. The top panel, with Maddy reaching out to Feti while Feti seems vulnerable, only to be completely deflected and shut down in the next panel. The sword play mirrors the flashback, which reinforces this whole thing about old wounds. Which sting more than a bap on the shoulder.

Gunwild: I feel like... sometimes people reach really hard trying to make "sympathetic villains" and just veer into "somebody was mean to me once, that's why I'm trying to kill everybody" territory. I feel like it doesn't have to be that huge. There's no complex reason in Feti's backstory why she would feel pukey about stabbing a man to death, but I think it's the most relatable thing she does. Or, that was what I was going for, anyway.

Psu: Yeah. I think we discussed quite a bit just how far we wanted to go with it, one way or another. And panel 3 hits the right tone. Because she does deflect Maddy's sympathy. They didn't become friends. Captain Alberic is still dead, partially because he was a duty bound doof himself. Feti doesn't like any of this and doesn't like Maddy all that much, but she did what she was supposed to. Did we ever decide to tell the audience what exactly it was that Alberic did?

Gunwild: No, but because of that I don't remember what we imagined it was, either. The point is, it wasn't enough to warrant any level of stabbos, and that gets across. I think.

Psu: We weren't supposed to admit that we didn't settle exactly what Alberic did! We're supposed to sound like brilliant geniuses with a mystery box!

Gunwild: I think certain popular movies have proven that the mystery box never has anything cleverly settled in it...