Annotated 23-1
This whole scene was nowhere in my original outline. I had planned for it to begin with Braggadocio visiting Bert, then move into the founding of Fightopian society, and only then escalate into a situation the Peacemakers would have to deal with.
Phil felt the story needed a more dramatic lead-in and expressed that feeling as less of a suggestion, more of a demand. This represented a breakdown in the “I get a chapter, then you get a chapter” division of labor we’d set up. The angry struggle for control we’d been trying to rise above was resurfacing.
But I have to admit that in this case, Phil’s storytelling instincts were sound. Even though none of our protagonists are in this scene, it creates a situation that will more immediately demand their attention. We’d just done a story that completely ignored the existence of our protagonists for its entire length; I don’t think we could have done that for another 16 pages without drifting too far from the idea of whom our series was supposed to be about.
I honestly wonder if Kahn ever reads these annotations and goes like “Well fuck you too T” or “in the end I think you were right” or something, though he never posts himself.
These annotations add a lot for me, learning about the process, thoughts and feelings on every page before and after their conception. However sometimes, and I mean this as a thought not really a complain or something that needs to be changed, it feels like Campbell’s writing his memoirs, so Kahn may one day know peace.
Because he died.
With HR.
Spoilers.
I assure you, Phil is alive and quite enjoying his post-Guilded Age creative life. But whether or not he reads these annos, I could not say. Kinda hope that if he only reads them for one chapter, it ain’t this one, because in case I wasn’t clear before, this was pretty well the nadir of our relationship.
I’m doing my best not to be completely unfair, though. As I said above, he WAS right to adjust the plotting here.
I have to confess that I find it fascinating in an almost morbid way. It’s like having an apparently uneventful and pleasant plane trip and later overhearing the pilots talking in the bathroom about how very close they were to hit a mountain and how about that was precisely the time when the console caught fire and a flight attendant had a cardiac arrest scare and so on.
I’ve said it before but kudos to both of you for managing to entirely keep such issues out of the comic in ways that we could have never suspected anything was wrong.
Thanks, and I agree. Outside of some stormy moments behind the table at cons, we did keep this struggle out of public view, and I appreciate Phil’s part in that.
Yes, they were decent parents to us.
I find it odd that Henry’s apparently completely unfamiliar with the idea of food that needs to be boiled/soaked in water/broth/gravy to be edible.
Does Gastonia not have hardtack, or saltfish, or meat salted to the point that you need to change the water multiple times during preparation so as to not be preserved yourself when you eat it?
I myself am not familiar with those types of foods, but those noodles look like ramen, which I could easily see someone thinking is actually plastic. They’re just that dehydrated.
Definitely a commentary on ramen, at least, the experience most Americans have had with ramen. It’s unfortunate, really, what Nissin did to it internationally.
I think they were driving the point that Henry isn’t smart. All he probably knows is potatoes.
He’s just a moron, chief.
Potatoes… have to be boiled/cooked/prepared to be edible, too
Potatoes do not have to be prepared to be edible.
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew
Sounds like the junk haulers Rufus and Joel in “Gasoline Alley”.