Comic Sketches: November - December 2020

These have been some of the most dynamic and time-consuming updates in the comic so far, just due to all of the little bits an pieces that go into them. 

Nobody ever told me going into this that trying to tie in a whole visual novel prequel to your already stacked comic would take TIME and EFFORT. They just don't teach you that kind of stuff in funny English writing schools. It's all about poetry and reading contemporary stories about cowboys. Things that don't have any place in a world where Weird Al is one of your main villains.

Not to start the commentary early or anything, but there's a story behind this sketch. 

As you can see here, originally there meant to be cars lining this street. Xam sent it to us like this and we entirely spaced it until it was done on November 1st. 

I spent my entire Halloween night drinking with Heather, and we were sitting in a Denny's to come down that morning when it was sent back in to us. Only then did it hit me that during  '[S] Turnin: Check Social Media' we explicitly said that there's not much reason to own personal vehicles in SH21. 

So we got into a huge debate about the logistics of that system, and we decided in the end that monorails just have drop-off points in the city. Which you can see in the final panel.

This is Dio and Cul, characters created by Heather and Izu. They're both heads of an alchemic task force headed by The Principal, who is basically the Executive's right hand and the leader of the jadeblood caste as a whole. 

They've been mentioned in SBB Vol. 9, as well as earlier in I2S2 when Executive tells Sestro and Hamifi to get with them about finding the whereabouts of the main twelve. We find out here that they've been watching everything go down, including Ellsee's romp in SH21 near EOA2. Clearly they know what's going on.

This is made double clear in the final panel here, where we can see Principal monitoring Ellsee's entry. Where did they get a camera that goes that far? It is a mystery.

What's not a mystery though is the fact that everyone in this comic is always being watched by someone else. Nothing is sacred.

Harbingers always love hiding behind doors to make their sudden reveal. It's basically their thing.

Sabine mentions a holiday called 'Hollownull' on this page when talking about Talald's costume, which is basically the Repitonian version of Halloween. We had a jam session about how this holiday works, and that it's basically cut into two halves: the eve of the holiday (Formidufest), and the holiday itself.

Formidufest is basically just the appetizer, the preparation and waiting for the event. Hollownull itself is all about giving into hedonistic nihilism and for that night, a souls weight is freed from the damning that normally comes with reveling in escapism. 

That's where the costumes come in. Trolls live out deep fantasies and pretend to be something they could never have the chance to be otherwise, following the idea of an "ideal" self.

Talald actually being kind of terrifying shouldn't really surprise anyone.

Unfortunately due to his survival ability, Sabine was basically one of the biggest obstacles for the cult to overcome. He's a loud-mouthed sound manipulating tattletale who figured out what was going on, and the cult knew that he would know. Those probabilities and their constants sure do come in handy sometimes.

There was a decent bit of controversy over this when it happened. To be fair, it's not like VE hasn't killed off younger kids before (see: Taz's backstory), but it holds a pretty different set of implications.

It's a good thing that Talald doesn't actually know what murder is, even though she is fully capable of it, and that Pozzol doesn't pay attention to her special codes. Otherwise, this really might have been more gruesome.

I was going to make Glomer have a jab at Secily here, but I decided that I didn't want to keep calling attention to her and making her more important. We'll figure out what's going on with her soon enough.

This already a big day for The Boys as it is.

The real images Xam uses to manipulate these characters never ceases to make me lose my mind.

Also Weird Al has an official costume change now! He's wearing the outfit he used in his real life album 'Mandatory Fun'.

Pozzol is always very upset when children aren't getting slaughtered, that's his favorite pastime! Along with slaughtering other people and being racist!

Xam didn't know what exactly they should do for Weird Al's map, so I decided to crack open MSPaint and reveal the hidden secrets within my head.

I got a couple of the positions wrong, but the spirit is there.

Combo Modus is very much based on the point and combo system in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Tony Hawk Underground is the best in the series, I am not taking feedback on this.

He pretends to not see it.

I cannot look at this panel without thinking about Hamifi telling Turnin that they're cringe. "YOU'RE CRINGE!" Hamifi yells at them before they crumple into a ball, sobbing on the ground.

Technically they DO get that post-conference show though. It's not GOOD, but it DOES happen. So at least there was no lie in THAT sense.

Talald's boppers work on Mjolnir rules, in the sense that only she can properly wield them and realize their true potential. They work on a comedic logic through a sort of radius effect. Talald isn't currently there, so she can't dictate the comedic value of the situation. Therefore, Raurou can feasibly grab the Lil' Bopper and drag it off.

Any resemblance to the front of Thneedville from 'The Lorax' is entirely coincidental.

This TV caused some issues during development because we didn't know how old to make it. Repiton's oldest technology is far more buggy and Alternian in design, but we also know there are old TV's that are basically human thanks to Murrit's hive. 

The solution we came up with is that this was a Renaissance television in the midst of aesthetic changes, so it's slightly buggy. Murrit's TV's don't have a specific point of origin, but I would say you could assume they're from the Deconstruction and Reconstruction eras.

Originally I wanted to include small bits of text that represented Valtel's intrusive thoughts as he watches the broadcast, but I think his look does all the extra talking necessary here.

He knows something is about to go down here. And he might know just who's about to make it do so.

And there's nothing that can be done about it.

Was Edolon referring to Sestro and Hamifi or Turnin here? Probably all of them.

Little bit of tacit confirmation that The Executive's memories have an effect on Sestro's view on reality. It's not just the vision from earlier, it's actively messing with his thoughts and views of things in the present.

I forget if I mentioned it in an older post or not, but Edolon's PsyOP's allow him to project illusions on those he's made eye contact with. After that's established, he can pretty much just do it to them whenever he wants. Though obviously it doesn't work on Sestro because he's a purpleblood himself.

And the big reveal! This has been set up throughout the entire Intermission, and Edolon lays it pretty bare here. But one thing I would like to mention is that we do have a partial design for Edolon's ancestor here among the merging of memories and illusions.

'The Holistic Blight' is less of his ancestor's legitimate title and more of a derogatory term for what he did to alchemy as a whole, which we see a little bit of at the very beginning of the Intermission. It can only be assumed that by letting Doom overtake himself, that Edolon's ancestor had deep repercussions on how the practice was viewed, and how that eventually led to the creation of Corporate.

Edolon tells us that the name for the base on his palms are called "corpora", or strictly "corpus" non-pural. This title is a double threat, as it's "corporeal" and as in "a collection of texts" meant to invoke universal scripture.

There's also its ties to Corporate, after this update confirms that The Executive has, in-fact, been utilizing his platform to try and secretly revive alchemy, thus leading Edolon to the point he's at now. I suppose for anybody that knows these terms, the title of Corporate would be pretty obvious in hindsight. But Executive made sure that wouldn't be the case.

Hamifi's sabre is not actually Proserpina as some fans have theorized, it's just a sword with a similar look to her estranged guardian. But I'm sure you could argue that it invokes a very similar type of meaning to her.

While we don't know what exactly Edolon intended to do if Hamifi and Sestro didn't follow his orders, the signs of "Entropy" on his palms absolutely suggest he had the intent to kill. And more than likely still does.

The Principal allowed Edolon to go on this long not just for their general curiosity, but because they had a feeling something like this would happen. Now that Edolon has spilled the alchemy beans all over the place, there's no reason left to hide. There's only the mission.

In this shot we can see the alchemists radiating in their aspect colors. Time, Space and Void respectively.

Keen eyes have noticed that this is the same outfit that Edolon wore before sacrificing Seinru! Obviously it holds some sort of significance to him.

Internally I noted this maneuver as Weird Al "Avengers Endgaming" the cults and hommunculi into SH21, which I think is pretty apt. Also, you can see that Turnin still hasn't moved from where Hamifi put them last! They're trying to behave.

Neilna from Taz's flashback makes his return behind Pozzol. Scissors girl is just a random design Xam made and wanted to utilize.

Arthur Fleck Joker troll was not originally intended to be in this shot, but was added at the behest of a few friends. I think this was partially just to spite me, because I really did not care for the movie. Also behind the main troupe you can see some other higher ranking Harbingers, which continue on with a sort of jester theme.

Also Talald's Big Bopper has a particular stain in a particular green shade on it... Hmmmm.

I suppose you guys probably want me to explain these visions of various probabilities, but truthfully, I think that takes away from a lot of their mystique. They're probabilities! Have some fun with it! It's what Edolon would want.

It's about time we have another big anime fight. Alchemy is basically just a shounen battle system utilizing Homestuck aspects anyways.

There are a lot of things I could say about this panel and what it represents, but I think I would much rather focus on what Edolon says here.

He does not say that "this world belongs to us", but rather that "this world belongs to me". 

It's very much meant to signal that this is HIS thing. This is EDOLON'S retribution for what he's been put through. Everything else is just backing him up in his eyes. It was all an avenue to get him where he wanted to be.

And now he's here.

Thanks for reading! Also if you want some more Edolon content, I wrote an essay about how his legitimacy as a character archetype and how it can be used to annoy your friends about characters they like or have made. If you haven't seen that then you can take a look at it here. 

See you after the animation is done. :)

- Austin