Page Commentary No. 200

Psu: Ballsy, Maddy.

Gunwild: Don't blame Psu for that GIANT NBA VERTICAL LEAP Maddy has, I am the one who wrote it in. Because I think it still looks awesome.

Psu: It does look pretty cool, and probably shows Maddy has a lot more leg strength than she lets on. But really that's more of an exaggeration for visual drama. Which this page has a lot of.

Gunwild: Like Feti no-selling Maddy's impressive opening gambit, to show that she's not thrown by something that would overwhelm you or I.

Psu: I think both of these two can make the appearances of looking cool under pressure. Maddy in panel one is the classic movie poster warrior return of the king stateliness. But inside we know, even by the end of the page, something is off with her. I believe our commenters called her out on it when we posted this page.

Gunwild: Well, it woulda been a weird choice on our part to have her do that whole flashback if it weren't going to play into her mental state, I figure.

Psu: What if everyone in this page had a flashback that was somehow relevant to the current story? What would Cassiopeia be flashing back to? What would Kamsi?

Gunwild: Uhh Cassiopeia is flashing back to having trouble opening the popcorn she is now enjoying happily, to show how she has overcome struggles too. Kamsi would be shown taking a running jump trying to get into her announcer's chair. Everybody has faced obstacles that brought them to this point!

Psu: Maybe you just leap at em and cut through.

Gunwild: But isn't the lesson in this story that direct, attacky violence isn't always the best approach to resolving differences?

Psu: Oh yeah. Well learning lessons from your mistakes takes longer to write. Speaking of some mistakes. Besides the sword slashy thing, there were a COUPLE things I tried to be clever with on this page. Lemme see if I can explain this. Originally I wanted there to be three panels in the top row of the page. And two panels in the second row. Then one long panel. It was supposed to flow with the countdown. I THINK that would've been a good idea but we wanted the order of the visuals to be Maddy and Feti first, before we cut away to the background characters. Then the bottom panels are suddenly sliced and jagged because the action and sword slashy stuff begins.

Psu: That one still works I think. A thing that didn't work, mostly because I couldn't really figure out how to describe what I wanted visually, is the holo display in between the fighters. The bars are supposed to fill as the countdown goes. This detail comes back again later, as the holo display is broken in a later page when Feti strikes early. I'm not totally sure I sell it here. Looks kinda cool though.

Gunwild: It was probably a little too subtle, but that's better than going too far the other way and putting a big thing in the audience's way unexpectedly.

Psu: Well the other option was to have Vernon explain everything that's going on to the audience. He would too, if you let him.

Gunwild: I feel like when they commentate on something like a space chess match, HE'S the one who's loud and excited about everything and needs to be restrained.