Oo my this commits me to an honest critique.wecrosscreek wrote:Sorry you didn't like my comic Phlip.
Work that is On-On-On all the time wears out the reader. We have all seen drawings where every gesture is pinched and stretched, every dialog is camp, every color is bright, every posture is arched.
Things should be Off-Off-On; most of the time characters and events are relaxed and lazy. This will contrast when they become sharp. Here's an example:
<img width="700" height="267" src="http://www.sluggy.com/images/comics/010407a.gif"/>
[The ball-point-pen-on-typing-paper draftsmanship sucks, of course, but] in 4 panels the characters are relaxed and only mildly concerned. In only one panel is someone running wildly.
Here's a preview of next week's denoument:
<img width="767" height="1184" src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/ZeekLand0214.png"/>
We have already seen Rat and Tuyen dodging falling dead battlebots, beating each other up, comforting each other, food-fighting, and plotting against each other ( <a href="http://www.greencheese.org/ElaborateArtOfPlay">EAP</a> ). So in this scene, essentially the most critical one in the plot, they are just relaxing and considering Rat's map. Both of them are Off, and slack, in most of the panels. Only in the last one are they On, and this is shown indirectly via Rat's departing sneaker.
(Running with one shoelace untied builds tension among those who keep subconsciously thinking Rat's going to trip over it.)
We already know what Rat and Tuyen look like when they are On, so showing them Off in every panel, and implying they are On in the last panel but not actually showing them, is "metonymy". (See Neil Cohn's essay: <a href="http://www.comixpedia.com/modules.php?o ... d=2938">In place of another</a>.)
Allowing the user to imagine this last On effect is more powerful than just inking it. The point of the scene is not just that Tuyen accepts Rat's plan. She doesn't know the plan (because Rat can't say it because the Hostile might overhear it). So Tuyen also accepts Rat.
(The first panel is also metonymy, because the PenBird has just chiselled a map into a solid marble floor with the tip of his beak, so showing the completed map will imply all that effort.)