Panel 2 is something I don’t do much but only because it doesn’t occur to me. This panel could easily have just been another “talking head” of Roka, recounting his story to the others, and a lot of times, I will default to just staying in the scene when characters are talking. In this case, it works so much better cutting to narration over a flashback panel. Again, since Grissom hasn’t appeared in a while, I thought it would be great to visually remind readers of her story (which also happens to still be one of my favorite RUNNERS sequences, art-wise, due to the blue tint and all the rain and puddle effects).
Anyway, to break things up, I do think it’s nice to go to narration over scenes occurring elsewhere or even over a close-up of some random object in a room, instead of always focusing on the characters themselves in the scene. So I’m trying to keep that in mind more.
I also like Bennesaud’s line about Cember. It’s just a short joke for levity, but it’s also a little reminder that they have a long history of working together (as pirates, before joining Roka’s crew). I think with a multi-person crew, readers can start to just see everyone as just one monolithic group. But I like having the backstory of Bennesaud and Cember having their own specific buddy relationship within the larger crew relationship.
The good story telling continues.
I do think one color set for all flashbacks should be considered.
The blue tint worked great with the black pages, but here I had to look twice: oh, it’s a flashback panel.
We can all agree it was tough for Grissom, but what about Koally Wally?
How come nobody is guilt tripping Roka over that?
Hmm. Good point about Koally Wally. I guess no one liked him enough to care. Also, I never named him in the series, but now I kinda like “Koala Wally.” Ha ha.