And that wraps up Chapter 3! Good grief, that was a long one. And you know what else? That also wraps up the first book! I really really REALLY hope I’m going to have a new graphic novel available to purchase by May. Of this year. Crossing fingers!
BONUS STUFF! Varethane of the lovely fantasy comic Chirault sent me this wonderful sketch of Fusella! *happy dance* Thank you so much!
Lastly, I have a request to all of you readers who have been so helpful playing editor for me… if you go back to the last page, does the transition to this page work? It’s a jump in time, right, and I’m skipping straight to the action with the Survey Contact Team down on the planet (although the dialogue box is a continuation of the previous scene). The idea was that Scavina was about to reveal to the rest of the people around the table the visual of the Hiawatha, but now that I look at it again I’m not sure if the last panel on that page is somehow misleading. What do you think? Does it work OK?
Well, the transition is quite fast, but, I don’t think its misleading. (Evereyone that has read this far knows that they couldn’t just beam down…)
But if you want to make it more clear, you could probably insert a line like “look at these pictures from our reconnaissance drone/satellite/telescope” to the last panel on p.92
But, like I said, from the layout of the page and the shape and placement of the textbox on p.93 it seems clear (at least to me) that there is a jump in time.
Hope this was helpful…
I think the effect is quite “movie-like”. Not bad
It’s pointless to draw a sequence just to prepare them to fly down and reach the point if there’s no real info to stuff in there. The only way I would change it is to introduce some close-up of the group reaching the cliff (from other point of view) and then introducing this scene, but no extra dialogues…
Oh, I forgot it. For extra cliffhanger I would have moved the “I have a very good reason” to the close-up, as “voice in off”. But I still like it this way
Yes, it worked for me. In particular, because some of the characters are hurrying in the picture, that implies a seamless transition in which the words in the textbox (plus visuals) were enough to convince everyone, and they hurried to the surface with minimal incident.
Works for me. I don’t think anything needs to be made “more clear”, personally.
And, damn! The Hiawatha’s really buried in there… I really don’t to be the one filling out the insurance claim on it.
Eagerly awaiting chapter 4… (and congrats on the good review!)
Andrew
I went throguh the loop, too–the link to the previous page is ambiguous and it is not clear how they expedition got planetside one frame after arguing about whether tog o or not.
If her face was looming over the iomage of the Hiawatha so you could deduce the image was a hologamic presentation slide, it would be easier to track.
hey, I think that transition worked perfectly. Although that might partly be because it’s at 1024×768, and I saw only the dialog box in a blank sky. . .but really I think it works great. Even though it’s been a few days since I read the last page, it still made sense to me.
I think it worked fine, I was right with you on the transition, although I didn’t know exactly why she pressed the button until I read your comment. Wasn’t sure if she was bringing up an image, opening a comm link, or “opening the pod bay doors”. Your explanation help, but I don’t think it would have caused anyone continuity issues.
I did *not* see that coming, what a good surprise!
even though people can follow the transition, I think the transition does not work. This is an action scene that should hold great suspense because it answers some questions and shows the motivation behind the Admiral’s actions. I would suggest adding one or two pages showing the uncertainty of the landing crew and maybe their preparations. Anticipating what they might find. Showing the grim determination of the Admiral through silent action in contrast to the chatty interaction between the rest of landing crew.
by keeping the transition short, you take some of the impact out of the punchline. Finding the Hiawatha should be, while expected from your foreshadowing, a shock to the landing crew. This makes me think that maybe they should encounter some man-made debris in orbit. On investigation, they find its something from the Hiawatha (but not clearly to us but it is to them) but when someone tries to point it out, the admiral shushes them leaving a question in the reader’s mind.
that I think of it, if you include dissent the planet and hiking through the forest as a way of filling in detail of the planet (just how earthlike is it?) you probably have enough material to stretch the tension out for three pages although that’s the furthest I would think of going.
Thanks for all the feedback, everybody! This is very helpful!
@critical: oh dear, I have to laugh at this! In the earlier version I had a whole chapter– well, issue– of the team hiking through forest and the like! Some of that stuff was fun, but in the end I decided I the plot was better served if I moved it along a little. And don’t worry, we’ll be learning more about General Nelson’s motivations in this upcoming chapter– a lot more, in fact! Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts, and would love to know, down the line, if you think Chapter 4 addresses your concerns or not.
Transition works great for me – love it. It was pretty obvious that something like this was in the works (you don’t have a spooky build up about a lost starship and a lost husband without it going somewhere…Chekhov’s phaser and all).
So for me, it’s nice that the story doesn’t drag out the ‘obvious’ revelation and just goes ‘right, you guessed it, now let’s jump straight to the fun part’.
some plot pacing hints. granted it’s for writing but the same technique applies.
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ezine/2009/AFW_Ezine_2009-03-03.pdf
I love the landscape <3
I like it. I too only saw the text box in an empty sky and then had to pan down to see the wreck. My suggestion for the next page is to leave it silent.
One thing that may be interesting is go with 2 silent pages. You could use dark black inks as current time, dark grey inks as flashback and show us both the initial approach to/entrance to the wreck (black) and their prep/how they got to her (grey) as well as their reaction to this revelation before the splash page that begins chapter 4.
Oh yeah. And I noticed a possible goof.
Patty’s on the planet surface… but she’s not wearing a hat.
Seems to have been a fairly controlled landing. Which I suppose is the point. A massive crater would probably have meant the ship was fragments, instead of a somewhat-intact hull there.
It was fairly obvious to me that they were going to find the Hiawatha, but I’ve also been a long-time fan of the genre, so I’m a bit used to some of the story traditions. I do wonder how they could have ended up in the precise universe with the precise crew that was lost… but then, my own science fiction storyline ideas utilized a massive number of alternative universes, and I did contemplate the difficulty with finding your way “home” once you’ve gone to another universe.
As for the transition… it was rather theatrical. You don’t even need to start the next chapter on that page; you could go back one or two pages to show the descent or on hiking to the site of the Hiawatha (though considering the clearing, I do wonder why not setting down with a shuttle at the crash site). Probably the only other way you could have handled this is to show a satellite image of the crash site from above.
The advantage to this method is we know they’re going there, and indeed could just start right at the crash site itself to continue the story. Naturally, other traditions will be followed (such as some of the crew of the Hiawatha not being there, possibly captured by the indigenous population, and requiring a rescue of said crew… or the crew not being there at all and trying to figure out where they went.
So… it works. From what you’ve said, you’ve tried the alternative (and I’m tempted, when I have the money, to tracking down and buying the old print comics to see that alternative descent) and felt the plot should be advanced quicker. And considering the time it takes to tell the story online, you’re correct in this.
Rob H.
Tara, I really, really like that transition. It feels very theatrical, as Rob/Tangent mentioned, and actually reminds me a lot of Watchmen in that (I’ve been on a real Watchmen kick since about two weeks before the movie came out, so pretty much everything in my world is being filtered through that right now). I’m not the kind of guy who does a lot of speculation about the plot, generally trusting the writer to lead me where she likes. That being said, when something is blindingly obvious, it jumps out at me and I don’t like that. This wasn’t blindingly obvious. It wasn’t as amazing a twist as “I did it thirty-five minutes ago”, but if I had been reading this on the printed page, it would have been enough to get me hooked.
I missed this page somehow and am only now seeing it, [i]after[/i] page 94. Still, no trouble with the transition that I can see. However, I think you should put “We found the Hiawatha.” in quotes to make it clear that the box is a continuation of her speech on board ship, as opposed to a narrated surprise as they arrive in the valley after landing. Also, I realize that you like the placement of the text box or you wouldn’t have put it there, but I think it should be higher to give a bit more distance between what she says, up in space, and where they are now, on the planet (maybe as much as half the distance from it’s current placement to the top). My impression is [b]critical[/b] believed they are surprised to find the downed ship as they enter the valley, while my feeling is that this was not your intent, so that change might help alleviate any confusion.
I really like AJ‘s idea of a holo with the generals face looming over it (I think that would integrate the button pushed in the previous panel a bit better – right now the button is almost mis-leading), but that would require a complete redraw, and isn’t really necessary.
I too understood it, but for sheer impact to make us all twitch with excitement I think the last couple of lines of dialogue could have been dealt with from a more distant perspective with say a curtain in the background going up to reveal an image of the Hiawatha on a big screen etc. then maybe use the existing last frame (this page) as an opener for next chapter?
Ps I have just read your whole cartoon today from the very begginning and It is truly enjoyable. Well crafted storytelling with interesting, but efficient drawings. you have mixed in perfect proportions romance, action, personality interactions and believable but novel engineering.
Originally I was a little dubious that this would be too much of a ‘chick flick’ cartoon but it isn’t.
Well done, I’m really enjoying your fantastic talents – Thankyou so much for such an entertaining read.
Just started reading this earlier this evening, obviously you’ve got me hooked. Just want to say that this transition was chilling. I wasn’t horribly surprised by the Earth-like planet with evidence of nuclear war bit. You played that off well, a strong bait and switch. This makes me horribly curious about the “jump engine,” just what is really going on here.
Thank you for the wonderful story and the beautiful art