Author notes

Issue 14: Requiem

Allyndn

on May 24, 2011

I have two things to say about this cover and this chapter in the story.

First, I've always thought steam punk was pretty cool even before I knew what it was called. That is, I liked the steam punk look and feel even when I didn't know it was called steam punk. In my original conception of how this comic was going to look, I wanted it to be more steam punky than it is, but I didn't have the art resources to pull it off. So, for this cover, we have a steam punk Naeima. Victorian-esc dress and a Flash Gordon inspired zapper gun. If I had the assets, the book might look much more like this.

Second, one of the weirdnesses of writing in this format is that I basically sketch a plot arc, write a script, and start generating panels in a matter of a day or so. In order to keep on schedule, every day I can draw, I have to complete a page (because there are a lot of days where I don't have time to do anything). It's good for me to have deadlines, because my normal method of working is with painstaking drafting and revising. In looking back, though, I often see that a particular issue would have really benefited from me being able to step back from it and reread it. Like, one of my friends, upon reading the Max/Naeima relationship plot arc in one sitting said, "That seemed to happen really fast." And it did, when you just sat there and read it all in one sitting. But for me it was six months of work. And I still felt I left out way too much of what the characters were thinking and feeling… me feeling so much pressure to keep the plot moving along. So, this issue is about Max putting his feelings about the events of the last few weeks (his time—it's been almost a year for the rest of us) into his own words.

Enjoy.