Woo! First post of the year!
I’m interested in seeing in how folks react to this page, MLaW includes a lot of talky/discussion sequences and we’re trying to find ways to make them more visually interesting. After all, comics are a primarily visual medium.
The Lesson Is: It doesn’t matter how amazing the dialogue is, if all your comics panels are just the same people’s faces on brown backgrounds then reading it will make you want to slam your own head in a car door. Our party sequence in Chapter 2 is guilty of that in places.
So we’ve tried to vary that up in this page. Is it working?
Thanks for reading,
- Luther out
I’d say it is. Gorgeous piece of artwork.
I’m wondering how many Utils Mega-Foods has tied up in this place. What they’ve proposed won’t be cheap in anyway.
Two questions, if I may be so bold: 1) If they’re still on land held by MFF, how big is this plot of dirt? About Nebraska-size?
And 2) How has no one stamped Treadhaven off the map yet? This nation seems as though its practices are rather unpopular, and its staying power in a fight appears to be minimal. So how come no nation has taken it upon themselves to remove this tiny, weak, rich speck off the globe?
Looking forward to what 2013 holds.
* any way
Well, it’s in the middle of a swamp, it’s filled with guys with guns, and I bet a lot of people in power make money off it elsewhere in the world. That makes it inconvenient to take, and would cut profits to those in charge of the places with the power to do it. Not really a worthy target.
True, but Venice was in a swamp, and Napoleon still conquered the city. As for cutting into their profits, Treadhaven seems to be the one profiting the most; on the “about” page, it sounds like their companies basically beat others out of existence wherever they go.
By the time of Napoleon, Venice’s heyday was centuries in the past. It was no longer a significant power able to stand up to the massive armies fielded by the 18th century big powers.
Good point Grudge! You’re correct in observing that the Free Market wouldn’t be able to win a conventional war against most nations, while they’re productive and a generally well-armed populace, they’re not organized or numerous enough to be a military powerhouse. Besides, most Free Marketeers would immediately defect to the invaders just to try to sell them victory souvenirs.
The best example I can think of is modern Singapore. Singapore is one of the main economics lynchpins of the Pacific because of their well-run banks and ports. While they may be small and relatively undefended, they’re just too useful to have around.
Wars of conquest barely happen anymore because they threaten the general global order. Contemporary conflicts between nations are usually retaliatory or punitive in nature (Afghanistan) or to preserve stability (NATO’s intervention in various revolutions or civil wars across the globe). If if the actual intent of the conflict doesn’t fall into one of these categories, leaders usually have to couch it in one of these in order to not look like bad guys (America’s rapidly evolving reasons as to why we actually invaded Iraq).
The corporations of the Free Market occasionally cause problems in other countries by being too competitive and doing things other groups aren’t willing to do. At the same time, this can come as a benefit to the consumer.
Example: Mega-Fun-Foods may have damaged the livelihoods of farmers in your region by undercutting them at every opportunity, but the average consumer loves access to tasty and shockingly cheap foodstuffs (nutritional issues notwithstanding). While your nation can impose tarifs to level the playing field, you can’t invade Treadhaven just because you have a problem with one corporation. Not only would that cost a lot of money, your citizens would be angry about the sudden price increase in food (when in reality, it would just be returning to its pre-Free Marketeer prices).
That make sense?
It does. Kind of reminds me of the Calderi from Eve, a nation made up of various corporations. Seems to be common practice for them to have companies that operate in other states that, upon becoming rather unpopular, are withdrawn into the corporate whole, making it rather difficult to pin anything on either the state or a specific corp.
” While your nation can impose tarifs to level the playing field, you can’t invade Treadhaven just because you have a problem with one corporation. Not only would that cost a lot of money, your citizens would be angry about the sudden price increase in food (when in reality, it would just be returning to its pre-Free Marketeer prices).”
If the global political scene is similar than today, which abhors wars of conquest, the invading country probably get a huge political/economical backlash from the rest of the world too. Which will cost way more than the whole endeavor worth.
I have to ask…who is Theroux?
nevermind >.< answered my own…
The art sure worked for me, but I’m a bit ‘utilitarian’ when it comes to comics: I like the images to show what images show best, while extensive dialogue might as well be in plain prose as far as I’m concerned. If people are mainly talking and the art doesn’t have anything important to show, I tend to gloss over the art, which seems like a waste of effort.
And while mixing prose with comic pages just isn’t ‘how it’s done’, I feel that The Kingfisher gets a lot of story told by doing exactly that. Plain prose is great for letting characters have internal monologues, while thought balloons seem to have gone completely out of style in comics. Prose is similarly useful for ‘setting the scene’ the way a caption might, but is a lot less stodgy since it doesn’t have to be stunted so it can fit inside a little box.
I think the art in this page complements and supports the dialogue well. Yes, as Gillsing said, dialogue can (strongly) distract from art, especially when the dialogue is centrally important in given particular scene. But here, this page? Art + Dialogue => Win.