Page Commentary No. 40

Gunwild: Surprising amount of actual science on this page.

Psu: Scoot Scoot Scoot

Gunwild: Well, not that part, obviously...

Psu: I think I remember not being too happy with this page when I first made it. A lot of style stuff started clashing in how I was drawing it, the colors are all over the place with warm and bright and cold colors that are all very high saturation. It has a poppy effect but I'm not sure it's one that I like. And I think I could've done that last panel a little differently. I should have spent less page real estate on it.

Gunwild: The reason I had the idea to do a planet with some similarities to Titan was because it was talked about a bit in Cosmos. The new one, I mean.

Psu: I do wonder where the methane is supposed to come from but it serves as a nice little ticking time bomb for us in the story. We overshadow that with the competitiveness between Kwah and Farring. I think at the time I was worried that we were emphasizing an argument between two characters the reader hasn't had enough time to care about yet. But really it's supposed to be endemic of the wider hostilities between the two sides.

Gunwild: Titan's atmosphere has measurable amounts of methane! It's what the seas are thought to be composed of. Along with ethane. Which is why Kwah mentions it.

Gunwild: Anyway, yeah, hopefully this set up what we pay off later about how really, Vanaa and humans aren't all that different.

Psu: They both want their brownie points.

Gunwild: These two are arguing about how they both agree on the same freaking data.

Gunwild: Also, it's subtle, but this is Farring being the competent, well-informed science officer, despite his musclebound space adventurer nature.

Psu: And there's Kwah who's being maybe a bit too similar! They've probably had similar confrontations in their past careers. We've definitely implied that Farring has had some rough adventures before being on Madison's crew. And I remember we considered Kwah to be one of the few Vanaa on the medical vessel with military training.

Gunwild: Or at least experience fightin' of some kind. Yeah, they are a bit similar because of that, but c'mon... it's a theme!

Psu: It really is. I guess we did a good job reinforcing our theming!