Page Commentary No. 170 (Patreon)

Gunwild: So would Dr. Botz have blue electrolyte fluid for blood if not for the amazingly-titled game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance?

Psu: I think it was the nicest looking one for the composition. White Blood is iconic to Alien and can still look very biological. Red blood would make this page way too violent. But blue? It’s just robot gatorade. We needed a couple ways to say that Botz would be fine.

Gunwild: I think her one bluescreened eye is pretty cool-lookin'. Makes her look like she's in the Avatar State.

Psu: Heh. Anyway... astute comic book people will see that I broke the 180 rule of thumb. I did that pretty intentionally to emphasize how sudden the moment was. I mean, it at least surprise Botz!

Gunwild: The 180 rule of keeping characters mostly on a particular side of the page is so tough. Like in film it's easier but... in comics, it's important for the person speaking first to be on the left so that their word balloon placement makes sense. I don't know how you manage it so often.

Psu: One of these days we might want to walk our readers through the process on a page. I place dialog balloons down at the same time as placing my actors. In a way, Cassiopeia Quinn is sometimes just a complicated talking heads comic. So a good deal of effort is dedicated to laying out things in a logical manner. A visually exciting panel where a villain cyborg gets sliced in half comes second to making sure the storytelling makes sense!

Gunwild: I'm sure I'm no help with that... it's rare that I actually remember to keep the 180 rule in mind when I'm scripting. Like, layout is important to me, but usually my sense of the blocking on a page doesn't go beyond the one or two panels I'm writing in the moment.

Psu: It’s usually good enough that you tend to keep the same order of people talking in a panel. A couple other things worth talking about on this fun page, I’m just remembering the details we got to put into panels 4 and 5. I like that the doggo army got to show up. Did we ever debate giving the tank a maser?

Gunwild: Y'know I don't think we did? I'm pretty sure that's a HMMWV anyway, if you look closely. Besides, I know the very specific maser cannons are important to Toho Godzilla lore, but maybe we didn't want to make these guys look too capable or it might seem like Maddy wasn't really saving the day.

Psu: Well they should consider investing in Anti Giant Botz weaponry for the future. Maybe the Doggos in panel 5 could be Drift Compatible!

Gunwild: Oh, we'll see the Doggos do battle again if my outline comes together...

Psu: Hey, before we leave these guys. I sorta leaned into some hero story with the jacket Doggo. Like he’d be a punky protagonist of his own giant monster movie. The back of his jacket shows he’s like part of a mechanics club or gang. I think the other doggo is his little sister. She’s got a magical doggo tank top on. They basically aided Godzilla in saving their city!

Gunwild: Godzilla being a city-saver is so weird to me even though the movies are back to doing that... but yeah, dope threads!

Psu: Perfect for a hero.