Annotated 23-3
FUN FLAG FACTS: This flag is partly inspired by the flag that Rwanda had from 1961-2001, when someone realized their red-yellow-green design was completely identical to the flag of Guinea and slapped an R on it to distinguish it. Historical precedent or no, Phil was enraged when I suggested the design: why wasn’t I taking this nation that Sundar founded more seriously? (sigh) Good job developing it, John.
Phil’s wanted this scene to go on another page, with Sundar delivering oceans of backstory in a wall of text to explain how he went from desperate child-seller to founder of a nation. I put my foot down on that one; you can only do so much “ironic invoking of a cliche” before you slip into just doing the cliche, and withholding the story of his journey gave him some secrets. You’ll get the essence of what happened to him in the next chapter.
I think one of the small things that sustained my partnership with Phil during this trying time was that Sundar’s a fun, funny dude to write. No matter how many drafts we took him through, there he was, grinning back at us.
There’s something about unearned confidence that really works in certain characters, even though such confidence can be disastrous in real life. (Especially when it comes to running a nation, cough, cough.) I think it’s because we can enjoy identifying with the character and feeling the confidence we wish we had in our own lives, and then we can switch to schadenfreude when said character’s actions blow up in their faces. Not very nice of us, but hey, they’re not real, their feelings won’t be hurt.
I feel I should’ve realized sooner that isn’t just a fugged up F, it’s actually a bear.
If that was explained in the story I don’t remember, then again I went hard on this comic when I found it (nearing completion) so I feel I retained even less for it.
Huh. I never noticed it was an F!
Huh. I never noticed it was bear.
Likewise. On a shirt (?) hastily converted to a flag? What is the story behind the flag, T?
I mentioned the Rwanda thing above. The script’s description of it was “basically a repurposed cape from a suit of armor, with the shoulder-joints still attached, and an “F!” sewn into it.” John modified it further, figuring out that if the cape had an existing bear image and that was turned to the side, it’d approximate “F” well enough for the Fightopians (and then they add that painted-on “!”).
In addition to serving as a Macguffin in the story’s climax, the Fightopian flag says a lot to me about Fightopia itself. Everything about it says it was created in wild haste, and John’s addition of the bear says they’re more interested in wild individual strength than anything else, with the exclamation point substituting enthusiasm for competence.
Guilded Age‘s #1 example of a nation gone wrong was by now Gastonia, with its blinders, racism, economic inequality, and looming threat of takeover. But there are other ways for states to fail. Because the pacing of the series meant that the Peacemakers had to confront the Fightopians before Fightopia’s internal politics could decline, I felt we needed some pretty obvious signifiers that these amateur nation-builders were getting in way over their heads.
Oh, that’s an exclamation mark! I just thought maybe it was some stain, or trying to represent the shape of Fightopia, or maybe the bear had just pooed on the flag, or what … because it looks kinda like cow droppings to me for some reason, and for some reason I also took several looks to recognize the bear because my brain just really wanted to see a cow instead of a bear… I wonder what all that says about me…
I saw the bear first, before the F!
But then, I’m from California, where we actually have a bear on our flag.
I remember allot of people saw the Bear first on the cover page, made a bunch of Fallout: New Vagas jokes and then noticed Sunder made it look like a F! after the Fightopia line. I’m more surprised how few people remember that from the first time.
Oh, right, this chapter. I remember finding the tone weirdly irreverent for the subject matter.
Isnt that the mama bear cape or something?
It is! And NOW I’m not sure I remember which idea came first, that it was a bear or that it was Mama Bear’s bear. Can you shed any light on this, John?
I believe so, T. According to my files, I have an e-mail from you or Phil that describes the cover of this chapter with the Fightopia Flag. It say the “flag” is Brunhilde’s battle cape with her Bear sigil emblazoned on it, and when it is tilted sideways it looks kind of like an “F”, with an exclamation point hastily painted beside it.
So it seems the Bear “F” idea was already decided before I saw the script. It was a very good idea… whoever had it. ;-D
Okay, that was definitely Phil, then. Pretty much everything related to Brunhilde the Bear was his.
I do like the farmers reaction, like ‘wtf? We just wanted to go home!’
A one-eyed armored badass who wants to create an independent country for fellow adventurers and fighters, to stop being used as canon fodder by official governments and secret cabals?
I believe I have seen that somewhere else… Are there any giant mecha touted as the ultimate weapon?
Not until the last few chapters!