The staging on this page was a bit worrisome for me. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was clear that in panel 1, they’re targeting the house, and then in panel 3, they’ve turned their attention to the stables. I was worried that panel 3 might just look like another angle of them continuing to shoot up the house. Ultimately, I figured the bottom panel of Bocce would get it across that it is indeed the stables that are being shot up.
This was one of those pages where I still wonder: sound effects or no sound effects? I still kinda feel like I should have them every now and then, but at the same time, I sometimes feel like they’re intrusive. Ugh. Can’t decide. In the end, I decided that since this is a flashback scene anyway, the lack of sound effects could lend it that cool muffled sound of a past memory, so I left them out.
I got that it was the stables in panel three because of the open “windows” while the house is more enclosed.
I am a bit iffy on that they appear to be projectile (not energy) weapons and that a moment earlier they were throwing flames from the same barrel (and the connections for both systems would be way back near the foregrip). Just that the valve work and configuration would probably be more trouble than it is worth. But then again, they probably chose them not for their simplicity, but to maximize terror potential.
As for Bocce’s arm. All these flashback scenes have given me a new theory on how he lost it. He was trying to show off to impress some farmgirl and it got chewed off in a space combine. Either that or he touched his father’s space rake and the power of it was so extreme it literally blew his arm off.
… or the space cole slaw was *nova hot* the day Bocce stumbled on his gallivanting space puppy and fell arm first into the stove & pot.
So cole slaw a spiced salad, I remember now. Strike stove and go for the hot space spice, it will bite ya’.
I think the inclusion of sound effect (text) would have made the scene less dramatic. Good choice and a well drawn page!
I totally thought they were still shooting the house, but the final panel basically cleared it up. The 2 kinds of gunfire confused me, too.
Yeah, the gunfire thing is an issue for me. I planned the aliens to have double-barreled weapons that are part blaster rifle and part flamethrower. But the artwork never really shows the weapons up close and the characters don’t mention anything about them, so I can definitely see how it would be confusing in the artwork. For the graphic novel, I may feel the need to revisit the sequence and find a way to clarify.
And I agree, Exxos, they’re probably not the most realistic weapon as far as combining the two, but then I figure in a sci-fi world, maybe they’ve figured out how to do it effectively given the different types of technology available to them. As for the “terror potential,” that’s exactly what I’m going for. Some of them even have bayonet-type blades on them, so it’s three weapons in one. Basically, I wanted a weapon that just screamed, “You do not want to mess with me.”
Although for me personally, it would be screaming, “I am very heavy.”