Page Commentary No. 315 (Patreon)

Gunwild: Two sets of abs on one page, sure, but more importantly, the smuggled gun leg. And the piratey wooden replacement. Totally Psu's idea.

Psu: You gotta be careful with that weapon, the kickback on it is pretty intense. Hey, shout out again to Sat for letting us use Skarf and Lark. Maybe someday we can get her to tell Skarf's backstory...

Gunwild: Also, there were some comments about it, but I wasn't at all consciously invoking Pulp Fiction. As you might recall, the couple doing an eatery robbery in that movie escaped because someone just as dangerous is de-escalated the situation. And Feti is gonna do... not that. Even though the robbers appear to be using non-lethal weapons, I think Feti would probably do about the same thing anyway if they were really, really well-armed. She's a very "It's the principle of the thing" type of character, huh?

Psu: And she's too serious to be the kind of character that would take the little plastic sword to use in a fight.

Gunwild: I mean maybe save that beat for if we ever introduce a shrink ray into the setting, there's probably one lying around.

Psu: We have shown she's pretty resourceful in any given situation. Like... I suppose she's the type of character that's never "unarmed" even when on vacation and wearing a nice bikini.

Gunwild: Writing-wise, I think we've both read a lot of shonen manga and do love a good "my rival is very important to me and I take them seriously and feel worried if something is wrong with them" beat.

Psu: Yeah on a serious note it's also like a very selfish way to look at something. "How does my rival's life affect me, the real main character of this story?"

Gunwild: True. I guess I was trying to suggest that she is actually interested in the reasons for this. I probably wanted to consciously recall how she and Maddy were in a position to take their fight to the death, and Maddy was just like "Nah" and Feti probably had to think about that a lot. Which is actually a lot more like that Pulp Fiction scene now that I think about it. But anyway, it felt important to set up the possibility that she could be rethinking her outlook, even if at the end of the chapter she's just dug in harder and is going to follow orders to the letter!

Psu: Well... when I look back on this page I start thinking about how I could have drawn the anatomy better along with a couple technical mistakes. But I was busy trying to come up with a robot leg and draw a lady with three hands and a billion abs...

Gunwild: You did fine, quit having religious guilt about doing a good job! You're like Michelangelo doubting he can make art exquisite enough to glorify God properly, but the faith is in, I don't know, pretty ladies and cool stuff.

Psu: Well at least unlike Michelangelo, I'm unlikely to paint myself as being a sad loser in the corner of one of their masterpieces.

Gunwild: It's okay, art can still speak your truth in unexpected ways! Like how this page may not be Pulp Fiction inspired, but it could probably do with some surf music.

Psu: I would join in the pulp fiction references but it's really been a long time since I've seen it. But I suppose we can imagine the music playing to this scene.

Gunwild: I also like how the WHAM transition seems like it's the zoconut being slammed down, but it turns out to be the door. Pretty sure that was not in the script for the page either.

Psu: Figuring out how to combine the smash cut between Feti musing and a couple of idiots barging in on it was a tough nut to crack. Eh? Ehhh?