Page Commentary No. 90

Gunwild: I suppose I should have dropped some kind of info on it as background, but the idea here is just sort of that Theira went all "A Piece of the Action" and saw a gangster movie or played a gangster game (Personally I would recommend Mafia II). After that, she got on a jag... so she's going through a bit of a phase!

Gunwild: At one point I kinda considered that maybe in subsequent appearances she would have different personas she was trying on, all of them gun-based... you know, like Cowboy Theira or Pirate Theira. But it would kind of overlap with Nimoo's schtick, and this one more or less works because they're at a casino, as seen in the mob movie... uh, Casino.

Psu: This is probably one of my favorite pages in a comic. I know it's something of a bad thing among comic book purists, when a creator says that a sequence feels like a movie but I think this moment pulls it off well. And given the setting and fashion choices, I think that only heightens what we were going for, feeling like some of our favorite casino cops and robbers adventures. It's a little childish, Kettering and Theira are good at that for sure, and from this distance it looks like a big game.

Psu: Speaking on how we achieve that "movie" feel for this scene, the way the dialog is going over action that is revealed slowly and in desperate shots, feels more like a film way of doing something. It's a little tricky to do that in comic books because the whole page is presented to the reader right away. But since the panels at the top are big enough and the dialog moves the reader through those first, the reveal should play out like it were a film cutting to the bad-ass hero shot. Kettering's expression helps bring it back to earth.

Gunwild: I think that a lot of times when people say movies feel "small screen" it's because they don't use a big variety of shots that take advantage of the widescreen format and the higher camera budget. When making comics, it's obviously a lot of work to get some shots. But varying up panel size goes a long way towards making it feel like you have good "cinematography."

Psu: In this instance, using different kinds of shots helps accentuate the different steps. And by not showing the big picture until the end, we get a better payoff for the reveal. The trick was coming up with a "believable enough" unfolding suitcase. I don't have the skills of a lot of great mecha artists for coming up with realistic transforming machinery but I'll admit to saying that keeping the angles close helped to fake the feeling. Not unlike the big robot tail from some weeks ago.

Gunwild: Ideally people will understand that the main part of the suitcase is a power pack and calibration station for the anti-materiel rifle - hence the tether or cable. I still think it's a cool design.

Psu: The more complicated it is, the more it sells what it's gonna do in the next page. Also I like that the handle doubles as a sight guide. Which... now that I think about it... isn't good for how scope lenses work... Forget I said anything.