2-19 A Farewell to Reason
Monday, June 25th, 2007– Commentary –
J.D.: I love Leon in panel 4. He’s just — broken for a moment.
Craig: He’s kind of unwinding. But not in the relaxing sense.
J.D.: So more like unraveling?
Craig: More like a watch that’s been tightly wound and has just popped a spring. 🙂
J.D.: Good thing for him then that Lillith and Tim are there to help him out.
Craig: The Maintainer has to duck to get into and out of the tavern. Of course, we don’t show that ’cause it’s not cool.
J.D.: The Maintainer delights in being impressive. To a halfling he might only appear to be six feet tall.
Craig: In panel 2 we find out a little bit more about the significance of names.
J.D.: And what Lillith and the Maintainer are capable of, since they’re not speaking out loud.
Craig: I like how you used the sparkles at the corners of the word bubbles to communicate that they’re thinking — or something — at each other. Was that difficult to do?
J.D.: Well, with the shape set I have, it is more difficult than one might think. I have to place where I want the boxes as though they were speaking, and then add the stars in the corners afterward, before I illuminate them.
Craig: Illuminate them?
J.D.: If you notice, every voice box has an outline of some kind. Most boxes surrounding normal speech are outlined in black. Boxes that are illuminated indicate speech that contains power. When Lillith speaks normally to people, she uses white boxes and black outlines like everyone else, as the Maintainer did when talking to his landlord. However, in this scene the Maintainer is intentionally letting Leon feel his power in his very speech, and when Lillith talks to the Maintainer silently she is also calling upon some of her innate power and so it’s reflected in the voice balloons.
Craig: Indeed, when Rex speaks to Bryce back in the prologue, his voice bubbles change from black on white to purple on black once he regains his powers.
J.D.: Interestingly, even when Rex speaks normally — black on white — he still uses his empowered font because he doesn’t have the ability to truly hide himself; his power can be felt even by the uninitiate.
Craig: Ingatius and Marcus also get non-standard fonts when they speak. Ignatius is a powerful sorcerer who —
J.D.: — wants everyone to feel his power.
Craig: Yes, exactly. And Marcus is under the power of another, so his text is shadowed.
J.D.: I think of Marcus’s text more as reflecting the instability between his struggle and Ignatius’s domination over him.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:23 am
“they’re thinking — or something — at each other.” I immediately identified this with what Elfquest calls “sending”. Of course, the Wolfriders could send with their wolves as well as other elves, but that’s beside the point…