2-16 Hello Leon!
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007– Commentary –
(Kitsune joins us for this commentary)
Kitsune: Is that the Maintainer?
J.D.: Yep, that’s the Maintainer! And that’s the Tim the Alchemist we keep talking about.
Kitsune: Is that some kind of demon dog?
Craig: That’s Ringo, the Maintainer’s dog.
J.D.: He is not! He is Lillith’s dog! The Maintainer is just borrowing him. She even says that later. And just for the record, we had the Maintainer before Pirates II came out.
Craig: Oh, yeah, way before. I had designed the Maintainer back in early ’04. I had created him in ’03, but I didn’t decide on his form until a little later.
J.D.: I love the look of him.
Craig: The astute reader might notice a similarity between the final panel of this page and the final panel of page 1-24.
J.D.: I made a Maintainer costume for our Cthulhu doll. But the Maintainer is not meant to be Cthulhu. For starters, he has no wings.
Craig: Seriously. If the Maintainer were Cthulhu, he’d use Mythband to lure players in and then eat them.
J.D.: Speaking of food, the Burger Star food is shaded brown because it’s from the Earth Realm, and therefore it’s not part of the game. Someone behind a screen wouldn’t be able to see that Leon was eating.
Craig: I really enjoy drawing the Maintainer in either of his forms. Each form is both fun and challenging. In his human form, I can express a lot of emotion through his hair.
J.D.: In this form, much more of his expression has to come through his eyes, because his face is distincly non-human. You can convey obvious emotions through his tentacles —
Craig: — he’s REALLY HAPPY here —
J.D.: — but the more subtle ones have to come out in his eyes and the shape of his face.
Craig: The Maintainer dresses about the same in both his forms. He might wear jeans in the Earth Realm, but he still has that vest/mantle thing going on.
J.D.: I made you one of those.
Craig: Yep, I wore it at GenCon a few years back. I’ve got pictures. 🙂
Kitsune: Is Lillith based on you and the Maintainer based on Craig?
J.D.: Well, that wasn’t our intent initially —
Kitsune: — but it’s turning into that way?
Craig: No. Absolutely not. Although the Maintainer shares my love of computers and roguelike games, we’re more different than alike. I see more of Leon in myself, or Ignatius, than I do the Maintainer.
J.D.: You’re not like Ignatius.
Craig: I did base Lillith’s appearance on J.D. to some degree. She makes a great model, and lends Lillith very believable expressions and poses. But Lillith is not a “J.D. avatar” by any means.
J.D.: No, no no. Lillith is much cooler than I am. 😀 Though it is nice to have someone I can believably dress up as when we go to conventions.
Craig: This is the second time Leon has said “What the–” at the Maintainer’s sudden appearance. Somehow I don’t think it’ll be the last. 🙂
June 14th, 2007 at 6:16 am
I never noticed the slight shading difference between the real world and the Mythband. It’s very cool, but I suspect most people won’t notice it if they aren’t made aware of it.
What similarity there is with this page and page 1-24, besides the maintainer’s speech font?
And who’s Kitsune?
June 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
IA! I-er, ah, oh, it’s the MAINTAINER. Nice reference there, guys. 🙂
You had me going there for a second.
And because I haven’t directly said it yet: Your artwork is beautiful. It had to be said.
~ Seamus
June 15th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Similarities w/ 1-24:
– there’s a chain
– there’s lots of green
– the maintainer’s voice bubble implies something…different…than “normal people”
…am I missing something else?
June 17th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Joel: Look at the shape of Leon and his chains in the last panel of 1-24; compare to the symbol on the Maintainer’s mantle in the last panel of this page.
Lackluster: Kitsune is someone who, like J.D.’s mom, regularly visits us and is often around when we’re working on Penance. When they have something interesting to say about the page, I like to include it because it sparks off discussion.