smeallie
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2-4_17 Pencils and Inks, and the Page That Doesn't Exist
🕑 Added 2025-04-01 14:55:47 +0000 UTCOk so like. This one is confusing, wtf happened here?
What happened is I was looking over the script for this story and realized it was long! Like, longer than I wanted it to be. There's a point in this episode, in my mind, where "stuff starts happening", and realizing that it took me 20 pages to get there had me concerned about the pace for the reader-- and the pace for me, the writer!
Page 17 and 18, as originally outlined, were just too anemic to justify them both. The combined dialogue of the two pages is less than a lot of single pages, and there's not much else happening, either. I actually struggled to fill page 17; the silent cityscape in the version posted here was my final attempt to fill that space between the Kay scene and the Arizona scene with. Something. Most of my ideas were very literal, showing Diamond and Kay getting off the train or waiting around.
Ultimately I decided to overrule my gut feeling that Kay waking up and Arizona reuniting with the rest of them had to be on separate pages. I still agree with that feeling, to some extent but this is just one of those compromises you have to make when narrative time is also space on the 2d page, and also a week of your update schedule, etc. etc.
The real sacrifice in this merger was the three-panel sequence of Arizona walking through the city with the egg, which was one of the main images I had in my mind coming in to this episode. It hurts a little to cut it, especially as I'd already basically finished drawing it.
The only thing really missing here are some sound effects and the neon sign in panel 2 (that's what's buzzing). I couldn't think of something for the sign to say.
I'm torn on the finished page. Part of me feels that it's too fast? I think there's a lot of value in lingering on a vibe, and this chapter is intentionally built around quiet vibes more than Stuff Happening.
Another part of me feels that this episode has already introduced and reenforced the ideas that all these cut panels were meant to communicate, and at a certain point it's ok to move on to the next idea. I think I made the right choice, ultimately, because I have other places in the story where I'd much rather spend this lingering time!
