I gotta say, the more I read this chapter, the more I wanted to see a little scene with ol' Ramblin' Will and Jen. Maybe him finally learning to be as rough with her as she longs for.
Age old romantic dilema: she'd like to be taken in hand, he's under the impression she'll shatter! Ashamed to say, this mirrors my own history with women somewhat (well, if you can't conquer for real, better do it on the page... except I'm not really conquering there, either XD!) This thorny dynamic is meant to pay off in a couple of different ways... everything's slated to come to a head during the Swillwell raid.
The growing suspense at the coming attack is great, and I gotta wonder if we won't be seeing a more terrestrial take on the epic battles you treated us to in Spectacles of Doom, albeit with more contemporary weapons than rayguns and space-swords. 😉
The very thing I have in mind, Sammi! Thanks so much for remembering
Spectacles of Doom... that was a long time ago now! A number of frenzied battles are planned, and Swillwell will be the first! The raid will likely eat up a whole chapter, with not a moment's rest from first panel to last... make up some for the sluggish pace of the setup. A few more pieces need to be set in place... a few languorous scenes I'd like to include; and I've got to get back to Angie at least once so folks remember she's still in the story. Mayhem should commence three or so chapters from now. I'll hurry it, if I can.
And I loved the girls speculating on Sid's actual nature, each of them seeing in him something tempting.
Thank you! That scene was inspired by the old fable of the blind wise-men and the elephant (an Indian story, I think), in which each old gent gets ahold of a different body part... trunk, leg, ear, tail, etc. ... and gains a totally different impression about what an elephant actually looks like. I made the exercise speculative and reassembled the parts. It pays to be an economical thief... I never throw
any memory away!
But the biggest mystery I'm left wondering is... really... where'd Mercy hide all her hair in that one little bandana? :laughing:
I was waiting for someone to take note of that! :laughing: Not only her flowing mane of hair, but those pointy, intrusive cat ears! Sure, cat ears fold up, but c'mon! And most of the time, that bandana fits snug as a swim cap! I'd have done the visuals' credibility some favors if the cloth outline had been a little more lumpy or if Mercy had readjusted the load once in a while. Like the girls, though, I got caught up in the obsession to ensure she wasn't spotted by farmers! Damn those farmers!!!
Finally had some time to read and reply to this latest installment of "The Low Roads"... I absolutely enjoyed the agricultural scene; you really got the pace perfectly right in those pages; the wide open vistas viewed from high altitude and the labouring workers below, all suggesting the immense amount of time that passes as they work the fields. one could easily imagine the sounds of the country life that go along with such a scene. It's really a scene that could belong to a poem by Robert Frost.🙂
Very kind of you, Scav! Makes me very glad now I included a gentle bucolic scene (I did have trepidation... this is s'posed to be a tickling comic, and here I am, wasting time with row crops!) Very pleased to hear the tone was successful! I've spent a large portion of my life scratching at dirt, but that doesn't mean I could adequately convey any sense of it to a viewer. Flat fields are easy to draw, at least! One needs only establish a vanishing point!
Mercy's disguise was -as Sammi already said_ a bit awkward in my view at first, but as the chapter progressed, I kinda grown to like it's comical nature. 🙂
Excellent! The outlandish disguise (particularly the fake whiskers) was meant to put her at ill ease... by trying to integrate her (making her invisible to outside eyes) the ladies have isolated her all the more. She becomes a stranger even to herself. Despite her bull-headedness, Mercy is groping after direction. She's never needed it in Fairview, but the Low Roads compel to pull her weight and actually
become something. That's a lesson her sister Sephie had thrust upon her very (that is to say,
too) early... a contrast I'll explore in upcoming Chapter 16.
Between Mercy and the other girls there seems to be a kind of uneasyness (at least from Mercy's point of view) perhaps that is something we will see develop in the folowing chapters...
Mercy assumes the uneasiness of any outsider in a cohesive group. I well remember my first social outing with a college dramatics class in which everybody but me knew everybody else... I've never been comfortable around strangers, and felt totally as sea (this, of course, passed as soon as we became involved in our first production). Mercy really does have to prove herself after shooting off her mouth about how easy the work would be! And she isn't exactly covering herself with glory. Even simple manual labor is no picnic if you aren't practiced.
I too had half forgotten Sid was still around, and was very much surprised to be confronted by his bloated mass yet again.
I really enjoy drawing Sid! I never have to worry about getting the symmetry right (any roundish shape will do!) And he's such a flamboyant blow-hard... his dialogue is great fun to concoct!
Part of the pleasure of novel structure (and the reason I like these loooong stories) is the ability to weave characters in and out of the narrative. It begins to seem coincidental when you reencounter a character you haven't seen for a couple of chapters... these little surprises give the story structure the feeling of spontaneous life in a larger world. The hazard is that you can also lose track of such a large cast... Little Big Head hasn't been on for so long, you begin to forget he was ever around! Guggle and Snide haven't been seen since the early chapters, I think... well past time to reintroduce them!
Now, that eye-parasite thingy looked totally disgusting (as it was most probably intended to be). I actually was looking at that one carcinogenous, greenish eye and wondered if it would serve some other purpose in the comic... that's perhaps because in my film/animation-oriented education I was constantly confronted with the "setup-payoff" of visual elements, so I'm bound to be unconciously on the lookout for those, be it in films or in comics.
Sid's scamper eyeball
would look great animated! Probably ten times as revolting when it's actually wriggling around! Frankly, I'm not sure where this element goes past the disturbing setup (and giving folks some notion of the fluid nature of bogey flesh). I'd prefer it not just to peter out. I'll give the matter some thought... there's still plenty of time to come up with an idea.
Thank you very much for -yet again- a great piece of comic art!
And thank you for your ever-generous commentary! Always a delight! You've been very good to this little series, Scav!
