Chapter Five: Pages 34 - 38

Last week, Vignelli received a pummelling… not that it accomplished anything, as everyone was startled to see shells raining from the sky, each carried by a crow, each containing a small message. You might assume the messages were from the pirates, about the declining health of the bald flagbearer / first mate. You might recall the pirate captain's threat that if his first mate dies, he will crush the town. With that reminder, we continue this week, Vignelli slapping those little messages out of everyone's hands, and poor Sophia and Nikos unable to capitalize on their attack on Vignelli.

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NOTES

• In that panel where Katerina lays her head on Mama Nichols' shoulder, I originally drew her… basically without a neck. I fixed it in the computer, and I was about to post a before and after but it's so embarrassing I chickened out.

• Wait a minute, what are you here for if not the embarrassing goofs? Here, look! "Before" on the left, "after" on the right. What was I thinking when I drew that? Maybe that the pose would cause her to shrug her shoulder up and make her neck disappear, but in the final image, it did not read that way. [If you're playing the spot-the-differences game, in the "after" image, I just noticed that I forgot to enable one of my revision layers next to Mama Nichols' head.]

• Once again, Katerina was never in any of my plans until I needed some background kids in Chapter One. The Midshipman wasn't in any of my plans until I needed someone to be snotty at Alexandra. I really like what has become of them, though. The semi-improvised nature of this project has given me one great headache (it's so long!) but it's also given me a few treasures, like these two. Wait til you see what else they get to do!

• I like that owl-landing-on-the-branch panel. It was very simple to colour, too. That's when it feels like this whole "art" thing is really working out, when you get a good visual idea and use the medium well (the tree stuff is all blocked in with ink and ink washes). A lot of the time, with a lot of these images, I feel like the end result looks like it took exactly as much effort as it did. Every now and then, though, something comes together easily and I get a panel or a page that's more than the sum of its parts (if I do say so myself). That's the good feelings.

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Kiddo will be going into kindergarten in September with a few kids from his preschool. One of those moms messaged to say, "some kindergarten parents have started a WhatsApp group, do you want me to add you?" and I thought, nooooo. I do not use WhatsApp, I do not want to use WhatsApp, and more importantly, I already refused to join a WhatsApp group that my actual real friends started (those dopes can use text messages like adults), so I would feel bad for crumbling in favour of some people I barely know. Plus, the school year hasn't even started yet.

Still, I'm over here wondering, "if I don't join WhatsApp, will I be left out of the in-group?" Which feels like a victory for Facebook, without my even installing their dumb thing. All at a time when WhatsApp is introducing ads (and there I'm linking to Daring Fireball because I very much agree that if there's ads in one part of the app, eventually there will be ads in all parts of the app).

On the exact same day, Gale Galligan (hi Gale!) posts, "petition to move all parent group texts to Discord" and I sure wouldn't mind that, even though A) it would be silly to even try(1), and B) I'd run the risk of confusing the parent group server with the other server where I complain about the parents. But at least it wouldn't be Facebook(2).

(1) …because while I think Discord is great once you get used to it, the learning curve is probably pretty steep for anyone who isn't comfortable with computery-looking things. Plus, I suggested Discord to a smart friend once and he said "eww isn't that where all the nazis and crypto bros hang out?" so Discord may have an image problem with at least some slice of the population.

(2) I refuse to call it "Meta," because I'm a dork who holds a grudge. ("Grudge against what," you ask? "Everything they do," I answer.)

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Dear Reader, aside from all the mild pre-school preschool school drama, it's exciting times around here, and I wish I could be more specific but I can't and I apologize for vague-posting.

In the next update: will Alexandra keep riding, like her father has asked her to do? Seems like a big ask.

Until then,
I remain,
basically without a neck,

TC