Page Commentary No. 51 (Patreon)

Gunwild: Hey everybody, see that Vanaa clutching his head in the lower left of the first panel...?

Psu: Any chance I get to reference THAT Superman cover I will take it. This is another one of those wildly weird pages that are just natural to our comic. I know we spent a lot of time thinking up ways to mess with the unusual biology of our aliens.

Gunwild: Psu's talkin' about Action Comics #1. It's got a guy doing that with his hands and turning away while Superman lifts that car. And yeah, I think I got the idea for this from when I was a kid and I liked to go watch the bigscreen educational features they offered at the American Museum of Natural History. One of them was all about astronauts, and them showing how fluids (and their food) floated in space.

Psu: And I think I referenced a lava lamp for the usually dignified Gleb in the bottom panel there. I wonder if smaller vanaa starcraft have small spheroid cockpits so they save energy on gravity generation.

Gunwild: I like Moc the communications-Vanaa remaining pretty calm and professional. Also he's establishing a particular speech trait he has, which is to invoke fortune - he says things like "Good fortune!" "Inopportune!" "Providentially!" I'm sure nobody notices but it pleases me to have that kind of consistency throughout a secondary character's appearances.

Psu: I must've mentioned this before, how I thought it was really good that we establish this side team as broad caricatures with easily identifiable traits. Even if it doesn't pop up that loudly. I think Pixar said the same about how they built up the side cast of characters in movies like Finding Nemo. The Fishtank Cast was each distinct in voice and design. With the Vanaa, it's the little differences visually that go a long way.

Gunwild: But the important thing is the Vanaa computer saying it can't find the problem and wants you to contact the sysadmin.

Psu: I just wanted to add, its probably considered very rude of Farring to hug Kwah like that but Kwahs a good guy at heart. He wouldn't let it get to him.