Commentary: Pages 24-25

Page 024 - Bustin

In the first run around of Home Bound in chapter one I hadn’t paid much attention to backgrounds, and I intended to step that up a little this time round. My approach to backgrounds is to draw as few as I deem necessary to tell the story I want to tell. Phrased like that, it might sound like I’m only drawing them once in a blue moon when my hand is forced, but that’s not quite right. It’s about maximum impact! Backgrounds are an effective way of setting mood, establishing geography, creating dynamic compositions, so I really try not to skimp out on them.

This shot might not be strictly “necessary”, maybe we could cut straight to the car interior, but consider the mood it sets! We get a sense of the kind of town Fairwell is, the kinds of houses you see in this neighbourhood. I’m happy with how I executed the art in this panel, it evokes memories in me of going out west to where things are a little sparser than the Sydney city center… although I can’t say if that’s going to be the case for all our readers worldwide, ehehe.

Peri interjects:

At least speaking as an American, that tracks for me too! It reminds me a lot of driving around the Midwest, those kind of sleepy semi-rural towns that you drive through and never properly remember the name of.

I forgot what model of car I modeled Alma’s car off. Whoops! Sure hope I never have to draw that again!

With all that about mood and setting said, I think I maaay have dropped the ball a bit with this here apartment building. I don’t know if you’d have the kind of population density necessary for these types of apartment building to exist out near, like, Katoomba? This is a pretty inner city type of architecture. Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!

On another note, this is the rare page of Foreach that I fully rewrote! Take a never before seen sneak peek at the first draft of this one:

https://foreach.neocities.org/page/bin/fluff

Why was this cut? Well, rereading this you might notice point one: it sucks. And also point two which is that nothing really happens here! It’s characters talking without saying much of substance. It sets up the next page, and it reiterates that  only Jasper sees ghosts, but otherwise it’s just really unengaging. It’s not even fun!

Fluff can work in a story, slow paced character building, but it’s a skill. Some authors are better at it than others. As for me, I’m dog shit at that sort of thing. My style of writing is very point-to-point. I set up what my goals are for the page and what I need the characters to say, and then I construct dialogue that threads from one point to another. This other method, where one writes a dialogue and sees what the characters say in it, it just does not work out for me. I need to know what my goals are in order to create something engaging.

Peri reports:

When Lum talks about goal-driven writing, they mean that quite literally. Something we started doing quite early in the comic was that whenever Lum sends a script to me, they also include a list of bullet points stating what the “goals” of the page are. These are under spoiler tags, so I typically read the page, go and read Lum’s summary of goals, then go back and reread the page with those in mind. It’s a great way to both make sure that we’re on the same page about what the point of the scene is, and to litmus test whether or not the script is achieving those things effectively.

The final version of the page leans a little more on exposition and recap. 

This dialogue, for example, serves as a quick refresher on where we’re at after chapter one. It’s been a while since we’ve been in this world, and it’s important to make sure everyone’s up to speed! I write with the assumption that readers just are constantly forgetting shit, so it helps to pepper in reminders of the important points when I can, but at the same time I don’t want to be wasting the time of canny readers with sharp memories. Exchanges like this, which remind the reader of existing information while still giving a new angle on it, are a good way to make that happen.

There’s also this here, which is another “hint” at how only Jasper can see ghosts. Kind of a reminder, but also at this point that still hasn’t been explicitly explained! Still have no opportunities to have a good reason to explain it, so I still have to weave dialogue that implies it in where I can. Here, Alma’s asking a question that wouldn’t make much sense to ask if she could talk to Rex herself.

Peri publicizes:

Another major change between the original and final version of this page I want to point out is Alma’s characterization. Though she did appear briefly in Chapter 1, this page essentially serves as her introduction. Readers are going to form their baseline impression of the character based on this page, which means we have to nail her “voice” and personality. Because of this, pages that introduce new characters are often the ones that go through the most go-arounds in the editing phase. (We just had a huge example of this recently with Squarck and Ribrax’s introductions on pg 91–but more on that when we get to Chapter 4!)

Alma’s presentation on the first version of this page is… well, it’s pretty lacking. She comes across as airheaded and ditzy, spending more time teasing Jasper than mothering them. I do like her playfulness about asking Rex to get milk, but I worry she mostly just comes off as annoying.

In contrast, she’s got a lot more going on in the second version of the page. She’s silly got that silly lame mom-joke vibe going on (she did marry Rex after all!) but she seems genuinely interested in Jasper’s social problems and dispenses good advice, even if it falls on predictably deaf teenage ears. We also see a hint at her grief over the death of her husband, but also get the sense that it isn’t a fresh grief, it’s something she’s had time to come to terms with. I want to quote something Lum said on the subject:

To her, her husband is dead. She's happy Jasper can still talk to him and that grants her some closure, but he's still gone. This is a point of pain for her, as it would be for anyone. She misses him dearly.But, she still has a life to live. And she's made some peace with her dead husband [...] and she has Rex's blessing to go find someone new.

Of course, when we put this page up we got a number of readers wondering hey, why doesn’t Rex try to talk to Alma more? When you consider that ghosts can interact with physical objects  and that he has Jasper as a potential go-between, it seems like Rex has plenty of opportunities to stay in touch with his lonely widow. It’s a bit hypocritical of him, given how much he loves to go on and on about how important family is. What gives, mate? 

Page 025 - American Girls

Herein begins the tradition of putting my friends in my webcomic! Or, at least, naming characters in my webcomic after my friends. Basing them off friends? It’s a continuum, really. Anyway, you might recognise the name here: it’s Peri!!

Peri pipes up:

It’s me! :DDDDD

This tradition started when Peri made a joke asking her friends to put her in their webcomics, and I thought it would be fun to do actually. That’s a pretty short backstory now that I think of it. Anyway, designing fursonas for my mates and then integrating them into the comic ended up being a fun way to spice up the various extras I need for the comic. In this scene, I knew I wanted Jasper to interact with two throwaway characters about the stolen ghost here, so I was going to have to come up with two new characters anyway– why not fit in some friendly fun in the process?

The design process was simple enough; Peri likes rats, space, and twirly skirts, so for her character here I gave her all three of those traits. Easy!

Peri peppers in:

Also! The accent color for Foreach!Peri is #6667AB which you may recognize as Very Peri, the 2022 Pantone Color of the Year. I can confirm: it is indeed very, very Peri.

Also present here is Kiki!!! Kiki is a very very good friend of mine as well, she worked on the text captions for chapter one. Kiki in the land of the living here is a real jokester, so I thought she and Peri would make a nice wise guy/straight man routine as the two roommates in this scene. I think she told me ahead of time her friends told her she had a rabbit nature, and her design was otherwise based on various self portraits she’s drawn over the years.

Both these friends are American, for the record: thus the title of this page.

Anyway shout out to this line.

This is a fun one, ‘cause she’s describing Casandra. In fact, Casandra is the only character in the comic who has any piercings at all! But she’s not really the image that gets conjured in your head when you hear “a ton of piercings”. I’m sooo sneaky, hehehehehehe!!!!!

Peri puts forth:

Okay, I have to interject here with my favorite Foreach conspiracy theory. For the record this is NOT canon, but it’s canon in my heart.

The title of this page is “American Girls”, which I initially took to refer to Casandra, the mysterious exorcist, who is notably not an animal person. Later when Cliff crash lands in Homebound, all the characters doggedly (heh) call him “the American” as well. So I’m thinking, to the residents of Fairwell, anyone sufficiently “weird” (i.e. not an animal person) simply has to be an American, ‘cause those Americans are just so strange, you know? Don’t even have proper feathers or scales or fur or whatever! I’m just tickled by the idea that “elf” and “spaceman from the future” would both get put on the same level of weirdness as “from the United States”. 

…of course, the much simpler explanation is just that Kiki and I are both American. Alas!