ATW#4 Page 07 (Patreon)

Cordial.

So here's a little behind-the-scenes thing that you might have noticed about this page, if you yourself make comics at all: the word balloons. ATW, like El Indon before it, has always used my preferred style of no-outline, color-coded word balloons, but the color scheme in this scene torpedoes that pattern. 

The Jacobsens were established in the previous issue to use white word balloons, which I don't want to change - white is the only color they can use, being very plain people - but the lighting in this grocery store, being an overwhelming white, means those balloons disappear into the background. This impairs the page's readability, which is what the wine-magenta balloons on this page are for, as placeholders. 

This isn't the first time the word balloons and the layout have been counterproductive, but it's pretty much the last straw for me. I'm going to apply outline strokes to the word balloons from here on out, and probably revise previous issues to match the new style. It would fit better with ATW's stronger lineart anyway, since unlike El Indon, it doesn't have the painterly, masked look to it. 

New techniques! Adaptation! Through progress!