Page Commentary No. 63

Psu: Man, I wish this page was in color.

Gunwild: I like it anyway. It's a charming vision of the apocalypse.

Psu: Have we talked about how Dr Botz was like... the THIRD character we created for the Cassiopeia Quinn universe? She's different in some ways than how we originally envisioned her.

Gunwild: I think we did a little in an Art Update only. True, she was initially planned to be Quinn's arch-rival... or one of them, anyway. Maybe a little less of a wacky evil professor type.

Psu: I think part of that "wacky evil" came out of how we started writing Cassiopeia Quinn overall.

Gunwild: Yeah, Cassiopeia had to get sillier to contrast with Maddy, and she pulled a lot of stuff with her.

Psu: Fun facts. There are a lot of nice little Easter Eggs on this page. The most obvious one are the fabled "transparent orange chainsaws" of Lego Fame. I used to love those things and it makes me wish this page was in color JUST for that. But another Easter egg, that has some odd implications for our story now, is in the background you can actually see Penny's Eyebot. And the robot below that? I was actually just taking the character who would be Motor Minx, and redesigning it to be a background robot. This was well before we decided to have Penny and Minx inside the comic properly.

Gunwild: I like that the eyebot just found and is holding a people-gun. Like, it's menacing and all, but still kinda funny.

Psu: Well the scene presupposed that most of these robots were just doing day to day robot stuff and not being killbots. Most days robots do NOT to rise up and enslave humanity.

Gunwild: Is that Green Martian in panel 2 flipping us off?

Psu: Huh... MAYBE. I'm not totally sure, I think I might've been drawing them carrying a cup with a straw. If only the page was in color...

Psu: On a technical level, I'm quite happy with the lineart. There are some questionable composition choices I made in the panels. But I think the thing I'm happiest with was getting a Botz design that I liked. She's considerably different than the original designs for her, and definitely a lot Cuter while we're at it.

Gunwild: I definitely like her jacket-and-catsuit-that-turns-into-pants combo. Do you remember if you saw that somewhere and liked it or put it together on your own?

Psu: It's not uncommon in sci-fi. It's a very retro look though I can't say with any specificity who exactly wore it best. What I will admit to is straight up "stealing" EDI's hair from Mass Effect.

Gunwild: Dr. Botz's is not left in "all one piece" mode though.

Psu: (?)

Gunwild: (Her hair!)

Gunwild: (Didn't you talk to EDI in that bar and she talks about her hair)

Gunwild: (And how when she was in infiltrator mode she turns it into thousands and thousands of strands)

Gunwild: (but when not imitating a human she leaves it "melded" in a shape she likes)

Gunwild: ("But when it's humid, I can't do a thing with it.")

Psu:  On more technical things about the page, I wish I focused on a couple more things. Like I wish I showed more of the spider-tank that Botz put her throne on. I wish I saw more of the robot controller dealie. But still... Fun page. Any thing you wish you added on the writing side?

Gunwild: Uhh, I think I like how Dr. Botz comes off here, where y'know, she's got very grand broad strokes of ambition and global domination, but tends to get titchy about the details, like one cyborg cowboy making it look like her plan's not a complete success. A lot of clever people, I've noticed (through observation, of course) will get hung up demanding perfection when they've clearly done work in the realm of "their best" and "good enough." So if she reads as  at all "real" for that despite the outlandish situation, that was my intention.

Psu: Botz is just that frustrated creative mind in all of us.

Psu: Waiting for people to appreciate her genius, yet completely unaware that she's already conquered MOST of the globe.

Gunwild: She knows, but those people aren't in her presence RIGHT NOW, and Zeke is, and he's acting like "whatever" and reading his book!