End of introduction scene, start of shenanigans
Updates might be a bit wonky for a week or two for a couple of reasons… Suffice to say that comic needs to be put second to real life sometimes. I’ll try to have the next page done for Sunday at least, to stay on schedule. In the meantime, read some comics that are better than mine XD Here’s a good one! See you then
Ohhh, looks like they do have electricity in The Meek eh?
Nooo, they use it to dry clothes.
Or meat. In which case it becomes a giant sun dried Shish Kebab. Fun for everyone!
Yaaaay shenanigans!
And don’t worry. I think this is one of the few webcomics that has had a sporadic update schedule that I actually keep coming back to. I guess I’m just too hooked to give up now.
I would so go lesbian for Soli. Next to last panel gave me -shiversss-.
I’m with you. D:
lol but she looks like a man. Its funny tho cuusee like Soli looks like a guy and her sidekick looks like a girl. its quite confusing ;p but does add interest
I think it’s safe to say that in only about 3 pages, the fandom is gay for Soli.
We’re just.. in lesbians with her! =D
OH MAN. I love you now.
HEY GUESS WHAT I LOVE YOU TOO! <3<3<3
This place just has so much love :'D
… please tell me that was a scott pilgrim referenceeee
So would I.
And I’m a man.
I don’t know what it is, but I just love Soli’s face in the last panel. I think she’s becoming my favourite character! Haha but of course I love everyone else as well! Awesome page, like always! :)
Asfasf second last panel*
Her face is very expressive in the last panel. :P
The last time someone looked at me like that I didn’t live to tell the story.
Wait, what?
touche ;)
I enjoy shenanigans. Can’t wait for the next panel.
Awesome! Hilarity shall now ensue!
And I hope your life stuff is going okay.
For some reason seeing that antennae surprised me. No idea why. o_o I guess it was technology I didn’t expect. XD (And Alamand eee! so scrawny)
And I hope whatever is going on in real life goes smoothly. <3
Can. Not. WAIT.
Also I hope the big big panel for this page will be that second to last one. :D
That third panel really has me worried about Alamand. I’m afraid that at some point down the line he’s either going to a) shoot someone with Soli’s guns, b) get shot in a confrontation where he tries to protect her with the guns, or c) accidentally shoot himself while playing with the guns.
hey you’re right:O Until now I haven’t noticed that the panel looks kinda creepy….
I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s “creepy.” I’m thinking it’s more along the lines of “significant.” In good works of comic storytelling (such as The Meek :D ) there is very little in the way of “throwaway panels.” Every panel either advances the plot, establishes the setting/scene or develops the characters–often at the same time.
That third panel just jumps out at me because it does so much with only one line of dialogue. The tightness of the shot highlights the gun and drives home the fact that it’s a real one, not a toy. We don’t know if the gun was loaded, but judging by the fact that Soli put it right back in the holster suggests that it was. By putting the gun front and center, we know that the gun will be important for the story later on. It also dramatically changes the mood of the scene, suddenly becoming deadly serious.
Alamand is also developed in that panel. While before he was treating the guns like toys, that look suggests that he knows full well how dangerous the weapon is. He’s clearly still fascinated with it, but there’s a sense of awe (and perhaps a little fear and apprehension) in his eyes. Perhaps he knows that Soli plans on killing someone with that gun, or maybe that idea is only in the back of his mind. Maybe he’s in awe of the fact that for all his playacting, Soli can use those guns for real. Perhaps he wants to be a gunslinger someday, and is trying to learn by watching a real one.
I know that that’s a lot to get out of one panel, but that’s what a good comic should be doing ;)
Woo! Finally, a comment that isn’t “She looks like a dude!” or “Electricity? Wha?”
Great insight, you really helped make this already great page for me. :D
But she looks like a dude :C And are those power lines???
To be fair, this is the first indication we’ve had that there could be electricity in this world. That’s surprising enough to deserve comment. Though I agree that we’ve had enough pages of Soli now to get over the fact that she’s not a dude. :-/
I really like the angle on that last panel. Like, REALLY like it. It’s arty somehow. XD Of course, the rest of the panels are fab too.
Soli <3
Is . . . is that a broadcast tower in the last panel? The vibe so far has been entirely pre-industrial; is it possible they actually have electricity and radio in this world? Or am I misinterpreting what I’m seeing? Either way, I can’t wait to see how this minor mystery unfolds.
Well, I *can* wait in the sense that I want your real life to be going well, and if something’s up then comics can wait. Hope everything’s okay. :-)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that antenna is the first indication that telecommunications exist in this society.
I think there has been mention of radio, at least on Meekipedia… Pinter might have said something too.
I avoid the Meekipedia because I don’t want spoilers. But I don’t remember Pinter saying anything about radio, or saying anything that really implied it. Hm.
Actually I don’t think he did either XD
Soli: wake up alamand, we gotta build that tv antenna
A radio tower? Intriguing …
(And I’m assuming that Soli’s gun was at least unloaded while Alamand was playing with it … )
;)
Yeah… I hope it was too D:
BTW, I’m currently working my way (slowly) through the archives over at Evil Diva, and I have occasionally seen an “alexds1″ appear in the comments. One and the same, I assume?
:mrgreen:
Yeah, I get around :) Also Brinson (the former lead artist) is a friend of mine.
Alamand is a bit too comfortable with those guns for a little kid. xD Soli better keep an eye on him!
And am I the only one who thinks Soli and Alamand look a bit alike? They could almost be siblings. Or…mother and child. o_o But they’re not so maybe it’s a ancestral (geographical? regional?) thing, like dark skin or red hair might be to specific races or areas of peeps.
I think it’s a bit beyond “comfortable”. Perhaps “obsessed” is the word you’re looking for.
Someone who’s obsessed with something is generally too excited about it to be truly comfortable. I’d definitely call this obsession and not comfort. Actual comfort does not set in until the excitement (and novelty) has worn off.
i love soli already
my favorite page yet
I love how in these few pages we see so many facets of Soli’s personality! Two pages ago, she was asking Alamand for help with spelling. And now she’s acting motherly by telling him that he needs to get to sleep! Such a sweet relationship! :)
Yes, she is a lot like a mother (if your mother let you play with deadly weapons).
(she did)
Wait, that’s not normal?
That is one mischievous grin right thur. xD Can’t wait for more.
this may sound stupid but what is in the 3rd frame? or like, what part of Soli? Is her jacket off in just that frame too? I’ve gotten to where I can’t unsee that being like a really skinny arm above her gun there
It’s her hand/wrist.
shit, now I can’t unsee it as well.
It’s true, if that’s her shirt it needs one more line across the arm.
AH,NO. Wait, it IS her arm! It looks like she has a scar. The problem with that arm is that the little violet shadow it projects it’s still a bit too subtle to differenciate the arm from the shirt. It may be realistic, but it’s still a bit confussing.
Now that I look at it better, that shirt is probably sleeveless. So it’s not a skin-shirt issue. It’s a skin-skin one XD (or torse-shoulder one)
It’s her hand pushing the gun into the holster? I can’t see what you’re seeing, for some reason… does it look like the elbow is going the other way, or something? Maybe I can show more of the fingers if that makes it clearer?
I had trouble seeing what it was, too. I think showing just a bit of her fingers would help greatly.
I know what the problem is! You have a lovely tangent going on where the arm meets the border of the panel. It makes it hard to tell whether that arm is going below the sleeve or above the sleeve or whether it just ends there or what.
So! Here’s a quick fix: http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa253/noodlenoggen/allbetter.jpg
Oh, also, this was what I was seeing, since you said you couldn’t. Do doubt because you drew it, so you obviously knew what was going on, and that it certainly wasn’t THIS: http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa253/noodlenoggen/somethingsdifferent.jpg
*No, not Do. OKAY DONE COMMENTING NOW.
This is also totally what I was seeing.
Took me a while to figure things out, even with your help, what with the skinny wrist and big hand…
AUGGH. D: I still can’t figure out what’s going on hand-wise in that panel! I just.. Can’t.. See it right…
lol, she is reaching across her body with her left arm to put the gun in the right holster XD The heel of her left hand is resting on top of the gun, with her fingers curving around it to the other side. That’s why her arm is so skinny, cuz its where her wrist meets her forearm.
Because I can’t reply to YOUR comic, O Great Der-Shing:
:D AH HA! I see it now. <3 Thank you.
The image is made slightly abstract by the lack of clear fingers and the fact that her skin color is very similar to her clothing color. I had to take another look at it to make it out too.
Your drawing literally made me snort I laughed because I laughed so violently.
Um, so the larger thing you see on the left is not her upper arm, it’s the back of her hand. The bend is not her elbow, it’s the heel of her palm (her hand/wrist at at 90 degrees to each other). The thinner thing is her wrist, leading (right) to her forearm with goes into the sleeve on the right. It’s the opposite arm you were thinking (it’s her left arm)…to anyone who is confused. Haha!
OH AND TO MR./MS. DER-SHING — Your comic is fantastic! It’s kind of the only one other than Hanna is Not A Boy’s Name that I follow, because the art is amazingly amazing and the storyline is fabulously (and intelligently) entertaining. I kind of forgot to comment until now because I am a quiet internet-goer, though I’ve been following from the beginningish-middle of Ch 2.
CRAP my first post and I typo’d
=_= how lame
*snort because I laughed so violently
Yeah, I had trouble interpreting that too. After a bit of looking, it looks like really wierdly foreshortened arm on a too-short torso, with the upper left being the shoulder and the lower right leading to an out-of-image hand. It looks like she’s already put the gun up and is taking off her coat with that free arm.
Visual cues to help interpret the other way: show a bit of her arm inside that sleeve on the right, and size the hand down a smidge (it looks too big to be a hand on that wrist). Fingers might help, also, though also likely need to be smaller — what I could see of fingers my brain interpreted as SHOULDER!
It occurred to me to ask: which do you mean to be the closest to the viewer in perspective: the gun/hand or the sleeve?
On forcing myself to visually re-interpret it the way you meant (hand on the GUN not on the SLEEVE) I realized that the proportions on that oversize hand seem to suggest that it’s in the forefront of the image. However, her body positioning seems to suggest that she’s standing with that hip cocked slightly backwards, with the gun tilted a bit toward Alamand, and thus her other hip and that visible sleeve are farther forward toward the viewer.
Yo man I love your artstyle it looks just like anime which is cool because you’re not Japanese
I have to disagree here; this art is awesome, and looks nothing like anime.
… if this were anime, ALL of the women in the comic would have huge boobs. (And most of the guys would probably look like Soli … )
;)
I love the shading in this one. Not only does it make the fire seem more real — the interplay of light and dark and the localization of the lighting — but it’s also just plain beautiful.
Yay, change of scenery next!
Wow! Can’t wait to see more of Soli ^^
Looking sweet as always. These colors are really yummy, I tell you! I love Soli more and more! I love how she shoves her hand up his face like that… XD
A small thing, though: I had a hard time figuring out what happened in panel three too, when I saw this page on my laptop screen (it’s already been said). Now I can see, though – on a better screen and more wake mind! My sleepy brain and laptop screen thought she had a really muscular shoulder and was hanging off her coat in a fish-eye perspective. I guess I read it that way since she is getting the gun in her other hand and puts it into her belt with the other. I guess it’s not a big issue though. :)
Keep up the good work and don’t worry about the schedule. RL comes first~
Sooo. I wonder what their shenanigans could be…
I hope it involves violence! YAY VIOLENCE!
The radio tower threw me, too. This world keeps getting more and more intriguing.
I agree, I really can’t figure out what’s going on in that third panel. I’m also seeing a wonky, skinny arm-like limb.
Awesome page, otherwise. Soli is just so badass.
Oooo, power lines? I can’t wait to see the town/city they’re heading into, and what other kinds of technology they have! Sunday?! But that’s TOMORROW! D: SO. HAPPY.
Can’t wait for more :D I can’t stop thinking that Soli is a guy >_> She’s pretty sweet though.
I know what you mean, I realized (after my friend bonked me on the head with her notebook), that Soli was a girl, but I keep staring at her going, “..could you become a guy, so I can hug you and then be like, ‘I wuv you’..”
Something very interesting about her..
Curse her being a girl!
This comic is in so many places. Jungle. Wild west. Palaces. What next?
Radio broadcast station, ofcourse! :D
I started to read this comic out of curiosity after finding it a couple of times in the past few days when reading other online comics.
I’m happy I did start to read it because I had fun sitting here by the comp a good while going through the pages.
The settings and places are very interesting and the beginning has brought a lot of questions in my mind which I believe will be answered when I get to read more.
The story is very easy to follow and you have made it easy to learn the basic personalities of the characters so far.
Good work :)
Hey, thanks very much for coming by to read :) I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying it so far!
She STILL looks like a man, to me.
A very sexy man at that.
SHENANIGANS
… just realized the other thing that’s making me interpret her arm backwards. ALAMAND’s SHOULDER AND ARM RIGHT ABOVE! Move his hand in the second frame down slightly to match the end of her arm going out of frame, and that’s what we’re “seeing”.
Modern Technology!
OOOOH technology! I’m excited =D
” We’ve got a busy morning ahead of us. Gonna do a lotta asswhupping tommorrow. Also gonna take you to the dentist ” XD hah I love Soli and that grin on her face cracks me up.
Yeah, he probably needs one of those headgear setups :B
The third panel is a mystery.
They’re going to take down a radio station?
You know, I was thinking the other day. “What can make The Meek better than it already is?” and I couldn’t rightfully come to a conclusion.
Then you put gunslingers in it and I was like “Yes. Yes this is what I want.”
I misinterpreted panel three as well. I was originally planning to comment about how her coat returned in panel 4 after she removed it in panel three, but previous comments have disabused me of that notion.
So, I think I have worked it out:
In panel one her coat hangs down in front of her torso as she reaches with her right to accept the gun by the carriage in panel two; transfers it to her left in a reverse butt hold between panels (thumb at the very bottom of the grip), then reaches across her torso to holster it in panel three (thumb is out-of-sight towards the body). She’s right-handed so holstering it cross-body with her left is awkward looking.
Part of the confusion has been the lack of coat in panel three – the brain just fills in: coat missing = in process of removing. Actually, her right out-of-panel is holding the coal back. Additional confusion arises because her sleeve doesn’t slide down her left arm – apparently she has a special short-sleeved coat…
Shame that her knuckles are out-of-panel; that would remove most confusion.
Maybe adding a hint of metacarpals to the back of her hand, instead of leaving it so smooth would help?
Huh – I just realized that the almost concentric arcs in this chapters header logo are to symbolize radio waves. Until now I thought they were just a cool looking design – I should have know there was more going on than that…
I see the last panel… now I feel like going and calling CQ. :)
For some reason the first panel looked like she was hitting him, like for no reason, and then I realized it was more like she was asking for the gun. I guess I am silly silly.
Also the broadcast tower, while sudden, is kinda not amazing I think. It sorta fits with the imperialism/WWI vibe I got from the Luca chapter.
I TOTALLY THOUGHT SOLI WAS A GUY.
…Until I read the cast thing.
OTL
are they going to rob a place?
I just read through you archive and found your comic wonderful and deeply moving, especially chapter 2.
I’m eager to read more and see the novel in printed form!
You know, I seem to remember reading, back a ways in the archive, that The Meek was no longer listed on TobWebComics.
Well, I don’t know whether you missed something, or someone else somehow put this up, but guess what? I found it!
(And just in case that html code doesn’t work: http://topwebcomics.com/vote/11383/default.aspx )
So, would you have any objection if we started voting for you again?
:mrgreen:
Actually I took it down from TWC myself because I was getting tired of certain aspects of it. Someone else must have relisted it, as I removed my account. I guess you can vote if you want, but I don’t really have anything to do with whatever is listed there XD
Oh my…Loving this Soli character so far. Very sexy, cool and funny. @_@
<3
Hey, read your status on Facebook about how life is crazy for you right now. No worries and no need for apologies. We can wait for our shenanigans. It’s more important that you get some to yourself to deal with the issues you’re now facing.
Hang in there!
That’s a nice pair of Chekhov’s guns you’re drawing attention to, there.
Maybe Pinter’s the dude she’s hunting down? Just a thought.
That’s what I was thinking, actually.
I’d love to see that chase..
Pinter: JEEZ WOMAN I SAID I’M SORRY
Soli: NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Soli’s turn! ^_^
Just a question – what’s Soli doing in the third panel? To me it looked like she was taking her coat off, but then in the fourth panel she still has it on…
Can’t wait to see more!
Nevermind, haha…got it. Putting her gun in its holster. Took me a minute! >_>
wait…soli”s a girl?
Haha, yeah.
I just wanted to say thank you for making a great comic! You are fantastic! My girlfriend and I are huge fans of the Meek. We both purchased copies of the scetched and signed versions of chapter one. Will chapter 2 be available in a similar way any time soon?
Thanks again!
-Cale
Does anyone else think the final panel looks like an old analog tv antenna?
It looks like a four element Yagi-Uda antenna, except for the last director element, which is too long. Good for high directionality and gain.
Ham Radio Operators in Space.
Four Element Beam antenna with loading coils. 40 meter?
Gne, I think I like Soli. <3
……Mooooooaaaaarrrr??
D:
i had no idea that was a chick o.O
Soli totally looks like Jack Van Burace from Wild ARMs 1.
That makes me happy.
It has taken me since this page was posted to understand that arm putting the gun back in its holster. Is she putting the gun back with her left hand? And that’s, like, her wrist and the meaty part of the hand under her pinky?
Yep! The jacket goes over her forearm, then her hand (pinky side out, pinky visible) is pushing the gun down. A lot of people can’t read that image for some reason… it confuses me, since it looks understandable to me and I like to think I can tell when I’ve made some big error. Anyways, it has enough comments that I’m gonna fix it up for the final!
Where’s her tattoo?
Shit. Thank you for the head’s up, I reuploaded from the source files (some of which are incomplete >_> )
the previous pages don’t have them either. :3
Good lord D:
lol
Imagine what else mighta slipped your grip?
ó_ò