Astray3 Chapter 3: Gain Pg3 (Patreon)

And here we are, the first page of "Astraylien." ( Or Murbish in this case. ) Lucky for you, dear patrons, I'll be posting the translations here on release day. Non-patrons will have to wait a few days to see them here or on the main page's blog on Saturday. 

For those not familiar with the old comic, you might be asking what is up with the alien language in the first place. Other than making the setting feel more exotic and foreign it has to do with a Moebius interview I once read. This an excerpt from the Epic Graphic Novel ( A Marvel imprint ) Moebius 6 published in 1988:

In reference to his comics without dialogue...

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 " It all goes back to something I experienced when I was a teenager, and read American comics without understanding a word of English. I wasn't even trying to understand what the characters were saying because I felt that the stories had a more powerful, poetic impact that way...Also, in The Airtight Garage, I have a pseudo-western sequence where people all speak a made-up language, so you the reader don't understand what they're saying. In essence, I put the reader in the same position I was in when reading American comics.

When I do these "silent" stories, I try to throw myself, then the reader, into another world. We become like observers who would be looking at what goes on on a faraway planet through a telescope, but could not hear what the people were saying. In my opinion, the necessity for the reader to recreate his own dialogue conveys a poetic and powerful impact that no written script could have."

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That had a big impact on my young mind and I endeavored to create that feeling with my comic. ( Of course, in my case there is actual dialogue hidden beneath the chicken scratch code. ) Unfortunately, as the creator, I really can't surmise how effective the spell is. Since I'm privy to all the secrets, it's hard to approach the work with the eyes of a new reader. 

So, you can say the alien language version is the true way to experience the comic. Feel free to yell at me about spoiling it with cheat sheets. 

On the technical side, this page is completely digital. Other than a pencil sketch I radically deviated from, there are no inks. This will only be the case for background heavy pages. I'm really looking forward to seeing how far I can push this technique.