Author notes

Chapter 1 Page 7

Abt_Nihil

on Dec. 1, 2007

I had a bit of trouble with this page… the thumbnails/script I've been working with for the last weeks indicated nothing more for this page than some shots of the café… but I feel by now I've done enough interior shots of the diner, and I wouldn't have added anything significant on this page. I try to keep this fresh, so I asked myself how I could spice up the page… some kind of flashback seemed in order to add to his monologue. As I tend to do quite often these days, I chose this scene from my own memory. Doing so keeps me emotionally connected to the story, and it makes the comic more interesting to me. I don't know if everyone is able to relate to a scene like this, but even if you haven't experienced something similar, I think the atmosphere and setting alone should do the job of conveying the right mood.

I also edited down the monologue a bit, I'm not sure if that was the best thing to do. I thought about adding some metaphor, again to enhance the mood and convey his feelings, but I felt he shouldn't talk too much here. He's basically talking to a stranger, and even though I want to emphasize he's opening up a bit, I don't want him to bore her.

EDIT:

cda: Thanks for the support.
Fitz: You can relate to him? Hope that's not too much of a heartbreaking story ;-) I think this is the first signifikat page without a girl on it (except for the first shot of the diner). And I can't say I get tired of drawing girls, so considerations of what I like to draw were not involved in the decision to have this flashback here :-D Thanks a lot!
DAJB: Thought so, thanks! :-)
Midge: Quite simple: It's about both of them :-) Or you might say: their relationship. Most girls in my current comics are fantasy projections, so I can never really say that a comic is about the girls… it's mostly about the perception of these girls. But that's not really true either… with Naomi over on A.D 1997 there's some reflection on Naomi's psychology involved. It's a difficult matter, and I hope someone else analyzes it sometime :-)
Nepath: Thanks! The main thought behind this was exactly to convey the feeling of being "there with him", separated from the group we see from a distance. However, since the reader is "there with him", there's a bit of duality going on… not really separated, but not quite connected either. That's why his head is turned away too.