1.33
June 6th, 2009
I like this page! I think its one of the best ones so far. I think its because water is really fun to color.
Getting pretty near the end of the chapter! I’m excited.
Oh yeah, I went back and edited page 11 because a lot of people hadn’t noticed Angora setting down the bottles. I removed a leaf and made it more obvious. I think the exact logistics of where they’re all running around is a little off (I recall making the creek a straight shot to his tent in one panel but I put in a big bush here, guh), but hopefully its starting to come together… I’ll go back and edit the major discrepancies later.
As ever, thanks for reading and for voting to support the comic! We’ve slipped to #6 in the last few days but I’m not complaining XD Next page… soon!
D8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! meek is amazing!… I love you! lets get married!( I am aware you’re a guy, but I’m a girl so the world keeps spinning!)
Pinter just made me start singing ‘Alcohol’ by Barenaked Ladies. Ah ha ha.
Your attention to little details is wonderful and I love how to render expressions <3, I can’t wait to read more!
I love that you are a Les Stroud fan as well as myself!
I hope you don’t mind a wee bit o’ constructive criticism here, but in that third panel it really looks like Pinter’s breaking the fourth wall. Well, he is breaking the fourth wall. And that not only brings me out of the page and also the story at the moment, but it brings me entirely out of the whole story up until this point! I don’t mean that as a massively bad thing because all it would take for you is to move the pupils over one way or the other (screen left or screen right).
Oh, yes, looking at it again, each time, I see Pinter staring directly at me and it just… really brings me way down and way out of the story. I know you can think of a thousand ways to redo that frame, so I can’t wait to see what you choose to do instead. Otherwise, I’ll be wondering why in the heck Pinter is staring at me, gaping at me with fruit in his mouth while I’m looking at him from my desk, wondering why and how he can see me! Oy! Is he detoxing so much that he can break the fourth wall? Because that would be an awesome super power.
I’m loving the composition, lines, color and shading, but most of all the wonderful cabaret of expressions that you bring to each character per new panel every new page!
lol, you think he’s looking at you? I can’t see it, honestly… to me he looks like he’s looking slightly to the (your) left. The center line of his face/ body is pointed in that direction, and from the next panel its obvious that he’s looking at a point beyond whats in the frame (that would mean behind you, the reader). I don’t think I’ll change it just cuz I don’t see it… maybe in the printed version it will be more obvious where he’s staring, since at a higher resolution you can see his pupils and other useless detail.
Yeah, lol, it really looks like he’s staring straight into the camera, or at least is distracted by the camera, lol. I can see how you might now see it given that you have the original hi-rez images, but trust me, in mass production and on the website, it really looks like he is breaking the fourth wall. It’s really distracting. I mean, I have no complaints and nothing but love up until that frame. I think it could be problematic down the road for you, and trust me, I know these things. (You’ll just have to trust me on that.)
While “the center line of his face/ body is pointed in that direction, and from the next panel its obvious that he’s looking at a point beyond whats in the frame (that would mean behind you, the reader),” on the basic level it just does not play out that way.
In other words, it’s great in idea, in concept. It makes sense according to comics and film framing conceptually, but this is one example where in practicality it just doesn’t work. I’m sorry! I’m only telling you because I love this work so much and it kills me seeing this mistake which can be easily overlooked or debated. But the simple fact that it can be debated is enough to know right away that it has to be redone. (You have no idea how many hundreds of film shots I’ve worked on in which we’ve had to re-do everything to avoid this very issue because it causes such major problems!)
In the end, it is so up to you, so totally up to you, but because I love what you are doing, I have to tell you in all good conscience as a fellow professional and a lover of your work that it is in your best interest to redo that panel. There are so many reasons why, and I’ve only mentioned a few. But thinking ahead to future panels, if you ever want to toy with breaking the fourth wall, then this panel will be a deal-breaker.
As a fellow artist here, a cinematographer, director and writer, this is what I’d do. (And I say this out of pure love for what you are doing.) In the first five frames you have a great screen/panel left angle on Pinter; all the action is of him in each frame moving, angling, and looking and darting screen/panel left. And it SO pays off in the last two panels. When he finally in jubilation gets his moonshine, he is looking left from screen/panel right. This whole scene works so well on a psychological level because when you have two characters (or an item or a character) in panel/on screen, the item or person that has power is on almost always on the left. It’s just the ways or brains work as Anglo-readers (we read and watch movies from left to right). So in all those panels he is chasing the object in power, the booze, which is on the left! It’s so brilliant! And he is moving toward it, trying to get it darting in from the right side of the frame! Wonderful!
But in that third panel he’s look if not right at the reader/camera, then he is still looking pretty much “over the shoulder,” as the term goes, of the reader/camera. Instead, it works so much better if he keeps looking to the left, his body coming from the right. Please trust me on this one. It works wonderfully; imagine him angled to frame left in the third panel, with the same expression, the fruit in his mouth! And then in the fourth panel he runs in that exact direction he is looking (also the direction in which his exclamation work bubble is spouting out of his mouth.
And, if you are following me, willing to follow me, then the HUGE pay-off is when his attention is jarringly shifted (as well as the readers’ attention) to frame/panel right! By Angora!
(In fact, it’s even more confusing because of that very thing; he looks like he’s looking at… I have no idea. In other words, I have to stop and think about it to try and figure out why he’s shifting his like that way… It’s just really distracting, that panel, really distracting, taking away from the page, and inevitably taking away from the whole series of pages.)
That’s where the big pay-off is! All that attention going to panel left, just to get swept up in embarrassment in a sudden direction change to frame/panel right.
I hope you are okay with that cinematographic constructive criticism, because it’s tried, it’s true, and it’s valid, and I only mean the best for you. So, please, for the love of all that is sacred, do not make me beg any more for that one small panel change.
*blinks* That was really very ranty, you must take your fourth wall business quite serious…
Well, my first glance over the comic there was no thought in my mind that he was staring ‘through’ the coming, it looked to me that he was startled by something, like a deer caught in headlights. I even grinned a bit to see it was his precious moonshine, like a gift from the heavens. Even now going back and staring at it, he still doesn’t look like he’s looking at me. I have to completely stare at the comic intently and imagine him looking at me to even see it in the slightest… and then I start to feel a little weird trying to get a comic character to stare at me.
On a different note, wonderful comic. I always hope for surprise updates because I love reading it so much. Such nice coloring and original art. Thumbs up from me.
*Oh, and P.S. Don’t change a thing with that panel, it’s great. If you move his eyes it’ll look like some one is trying to sneak up on him or something, totally ruining the effect of finding his glorious booze.
Get a life, theatre major. There is nothing wrong with the way the panels on this page have been laid out.
Okay, okay lets keep it nice in here :B
Okay, well I was willing to give your idea a chance and ran it by the LJ… preliminary conversation seems to show that other people did not notice any jarring or discrepancy! Since I didn’t as well I’m just going to keep the panel the way it is. Thank you though for pointing out that it looked odd to you, half the time people say that to me I tend to agree right away! It always helps to have different perspectives
Thanks again for commenting!
WOW!(I don’t mean world of warcraft) mr paradise! you seem to enjoy typing! and constructive critisism! and have a strange love for the fourth wall and don’t seem to like to see it broken! you must have alot of free time on your hands… or just ype really fast… do you teach cartooning? you seem to know what you’re talking about or are just a good BSer.
I type incredibly fast. And yes, I work for money in these fields. It is always up to the decision of the artist, and I absolutely respect the decision of the artist. Always. However, constructive criticism is extremely important, and conversation with fans and peers is also important.
So, cheers! And I love the next page!
I love the colors of the jungle–they’re so vibrant and full of life! X3
Pinter is so fun–the expressions in your comic are wonderful.
I know everyone else has said this already, but it really is some stunning work (I mean the graphic novel as a whole, not just this page). As for the last panel, as soon as I saw it, my mind figured that he was looking up at Angora sitting in a tree. Even if it isn’t Angora, it simply looks like a part to continue to the next page. I’ve seen quite a few graphic novels in which a character is staring directly at the reader, but he’s looking at something in *that direction*, not breaking the fourth wall. Then again, I’m not an artist (or at least, not a true one.
), just a general readers opinion of what it looks like. I’m sure that if you do a lot of art, or cinematographic work, you look at all the little things. But not everyone is going to look at it that way. Anyway, my opinion on it doesn’t matter much, so just keep doing what you do best. ^_^
XD Of course your opinion matters! Thanks for commenting, and I’m very glad you’re enjoying my work!
I can see how in the third panel some would complain about a break through the fourth wall, but I didn’t even notice that at all. I saw it as him being surprised or something like that.
Also, I absolutely love this. I can not wait for the next one.