I’m neutral on chapter breaks – they’re not necessary, but they can help give a little extra shape to a story (and a place to put a bookmark). Text novels aren’t normal serialized anymore but still have chapters. I’d definitely drop the 24-page requirement, though, if you’re not printing single issues. You can still keep them all around the same length if you want to.

Costume-wise, I didn’t deliberately mean to nod to any particular Hoth outfits, but I think the problem with growing up on Star Wars is that those designs become so iconic in your mind over the years, that you actually start to lose track of what’s “normal” and what’s Star Wars-influenced. For instance, I always planned for Sky to always wear predominantly white outfits, so Leia’s outfit wasn’t an influence there as far as color goes. But when I came to designing her snow outfit, I thought the quilted patch look was a fairly standard snow look. Honestly though, I have no idea if that comes from the quilted look ACTUALLY being pretty normal (for parkas and whatnot) or if I THINK it’s normal because I’m so used to thinking of Leia in her Hoth outfit! So I guess it wasn’t a deliberate homage, but could very well have been influenced subconsciously.

As for Bocce, the design was actually just an extrapolation, fashion-wise, of his regular day-to-day outfit (BTW, I’ll be talking about the outfit designs a bit more in future posts). The only intentional element I worked into his snow outfit is actually from Star Trek. I LOVE the away coats that Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik wear in Star Trek II when checking out the space station Regula 1. So I incorporated the look of the coat collar into Bocce’s design.

Deliberate or accidental/coincidence?

To answer your question above, Sean, I would encourage you to continue with chapter breaks (I mean, most graphic novels have them), but there is no need to adhere to a predetermined chapter page length. Like you wrote, since you’re not writing for the single issue anymore, you can pace each chapter as you see fit.

Oh, and put me down for a pre-order of “The Big Snow Job” TPB.