Page 14: issues 8 (Fearless) and Special 4 (Sysyphus Part 4)

shastab24 on Aug. 21, 2012

I'm putting together a crossover project for next year that will run through many comics and hopefully benefit the Hero Initiative. If you're interested in participating, e-mail me at karamesser@hotmail.com or PQ me on this site.

Top page: Panel 1 was an experiment. I wanted to see if I could draw a head that's slightly upturned from the front. He's looking up at the Runner, but not too much. But about the story stuff–we do finally get some names bandied about. The Runner's name is really only something that can be said underwater, but I'm going to give him a proper surface name. Also, I figured that Humer merfolk would have two names each–one for the surface and one for underwater. Priflin is his surface name, while his underwater name is one I imagine to be like the girl in Splash–a lot of screeching. I didn't make the Runner's name into screeching because he's been talking a bit in his native tongue while on the surface, and I wouldn't want that to be screeching, since he wasn't drawing attention when doing it. Therefore, I figure Flimerrans talk a lot with bubbles (like how, in the original Dr. Dolittle movie, it was said fish talk). They do have vocal chords, though, so I would imagine some vocalizations in their language, too.

Bottom page: I draw this to a close with the remaining eight photos I took, as well as some terrible image editing on Tempore's part. His side view has consistently been the same picture as on the cover. However, I didn't want him always looking up, so I had drawn his head in profile, looking level, not realizing how much this drawing would clash with what I already had. But I do like my subtle mannipulation of the feet when he's flying. He keeps floating all around the place because I needed him to work with the photos. Also, the penultimate panel was supposed to be me flicking him into a portal, but it didn't work out that way. Oh well. I realize from this that I should not give myself this much photographic facetime. I'm sensitive about how I look sometimes, and I definitely don't look as feminine as I would like. The post-issue talk stuff is bad enough sometimes, but this is an extended, story-driven look at myself, for a sequence that seems a tad pointless. I was hoping to give Tempore further development here, because I know where he's going after the Caper, but realized I had no idea what I could say to him that would push him further down that path.

On another note: today, August 21st, is my birthday! I'd wanted to do a special picture for it, but I'm stretching myself thin with two concurrent issues as well as a couple Drunk Duck Awards pages. But I'm 28 now and hope to get lots of presents and cake. Especially the cake. I have a bit of a sweet tooth.