Annotated 23-25
I asked John to look at later Will Eisner work and replicate his “borderless” approach for the fight scene. I just thought it would look nice. I’m glad it gives me the excuse to share the image to the right (a thinly veiled autobiography about the days Eisner was working alongside Jack Kirby) because it is one of my favorite pages of comics, period.
But this page is good too. In fact, to my massive relief, PHIL LIKED THIS PAGE.
Basically, this was resolution for Byron and Sundar’s conflict, critical foreshadowing for the next chapter, and a hopeful metaphor for Phil’s and my working relationship.
I’d love to leave you with that, with the image of me and Phil starting to smile through our Muay Thai fight as we remembered our common goals and mutual respect. But (sigh) I’ve still got tomorrow’s installment to talk about.
I swear this was the same way with a guy I fought with until we both lost a tooth. He was my best man at my wedding and is truly my brother.
Diplomacy through fisticuffs! Even extending olive branches across the face…
This is kind of like that trope where one of the main characters meets an old acquaintance and the other MCs think they’re going to kill each other, and then they start performing a ridiculous and elaborate dance that ends with a hearty laugh, and it turns out that’s just how they greet each other in lieu of a handshake and it’s never explained why. ^_^
Sometimes this trope is perfect, others it really turns me off. I was reading this book once, and these two guys were meeting up before some grand expedition, and one of the guys comes flying into the grand hall of this palace, which is full of people giving a send off to the prince, and he’s like doing cartwheels with his scimitar out, and he flips up into the air and lands on a table with his sword slashing down and stopping an inch from the prince’s face. He is of course the prince’s childhood friend, and they both start laughing. But it was just too much, it felt like suddenly everything in the book was a Saturday morning cartoon. All I could think was “What if he tripped, or like slipped on the ale on the table?” and it kind of made me lose faith in the characters (all of which were revealed to be real dumb, which the book kept refusing to acknowledge.)
I have had arguments like that. Just as aggressive if less punchy, and there is a strange and surreal quality to figuring out that your rage was so powerfully misplaced as to become a joke. Literally shouting “Well I fucking love you too! We should spend more time together!” is one of the highlights of the many stupid arguments I’ve engaged in.
That Kirby story is adorable.
I really liked the parallel of this page to the Braggadocio barfight page. It was also pulled off really well, both dialogue and art I really enjoyed. (Though I have never experienced an argument/agreement like this one myself, so I didn’t know that things like this could actually *happen*)
I’ve had (and still sometimes have) conversations like this. No Physical violence, but essentially two people talking and being increasingly annoyed with each other, but not actually disagreeing, just trying and failing to get the other to realize that they had the same idea in a better way or something, or just plain talking past each other.
I still don’t understand how it happens and why but it is a thing.