The Insignificant Other (page 2)

Fitz on Sept. 28, 2007

The comic just reached its first milestone - the 10th page! Wootations! Dance, drink and rejoice everyone - because it's not like I'll hit 100 in the next 10 years ;) Also, as you may have noticed, this time the update is here sooner than usual - the “usual” being the wee hours of a Sunday night. This is chiefly due to the fact that I got two weeks off from work. I get restless when I have too much time on my hands, as a result of which 90% of my time (regardless of how much that may be) is devoted to some sort of creativity. Thus, I posted 3 new pages in the past two weeks and got down to touching up an old novel of mine. Thought I'd write a short story and finish translating another one into English. BUT sometimes I do lie down and relax. So I've been making up for not reading much over the past few months. I just read “The Truth Hidden in The Eyes” by Giorgio Faletti. Absolutely LOVED it. Aaand I got myself the widely trashed Smashing Pumpkins' “Zeitgeist”. And what can I say? LOVE IT. Of course it's nothing like the “old” Pumpkins. But that ain't coming back. The last time I heard of James Iha, he was touring with A Perfect Circle, and the last time of D'Arcy, she got busted for crack possession. Meanwhile, this album is really fun to listen to, with a bunch of droolworthy riffs and unusual instruments. At times it sounds like something straight of the 70's or 80's, and sometimes like Deftones, one of my favorite bands ever. Good stuff!

But I digress… Back to the comic itself…

I actually got the idea for this page pretty much upon sitting down to start working on it. This episode was supposed to be shorter (and originally the whole comic was supposed to consist of one page long episodes - so fo figure). But then I thought I was kind of getting away from the original format of this comic - that is, showing very little or nothing of the characters themselves and focussing on the environment instead. So this time no cute rodents in sight ;) Instead, you get rain, rain, rain and more rain :P And yay for me, I actually figured out a cool method of getting a rain-like texture. Actually, I learned a bunch of new tricks with this episode. I always do, with each page, but I think this page is really artsy. Half like a painting, half realistic.

As always, there was a lot of background research behind it. That's an actual street sign in the 4th panel, didn't change the names of the streets. And the car is a fiat linea - although I really and truly suck at drawing cars, and I still suck at drawing in general, so it looks like poo. But with nice shading ;) And I was REALLY tempted to use the original referrence photo I used to draw panel one. But some part of me refuses to use something I didn't draw myself in the comic. Sooo, being the stubborn mule that I am, I drew the damn thing myself, dot after dot after dot :)

OK, enough of me talking :) Hope you liked this week's installment. Now, let the Hunt For Minutiae begin! Hope the contestants aren't hungover this time *coughtjmtcought* ;)