Volume 20 Page 60
This chapter is running a bit longer than most. Of course, the last chapter of Broken Space ran long, and I’m not losing my mind with a desire to end things like I was with my last comic.
For the curious, the size of WPK chapters–about 40 pages, with a tendency to run conspicuously long because I do not have an editor–comes from Alan Moore’s Writing For Comics, Volume 1, a slim volume with more about comics craft packed into it than any ten other books. (There is no volume 2–volume 2 is presumably “write a damn comic.”) The numerous faults in WPK’s pacing are mine, not Moore’s, and with a talent as prodigious as Alan Moore it’s hard to know where to start in addressing matters of inspiration. 1963 is astounding and, like WPK, is a reaction to early Marvel work, though outside WPK’s genre. Tom Strong‘s collision of countless ideas definitely inspired WPK, which occasionally suffers from too many ideas at once. A lot of WPK derives from Promethea, though WPK is more interested in plot and Promethea is focused more on…whatever the hell magic whatweird influences Alan Moore. Then there’s From Hell–I wish I could link WPK to that deranged and wonderful thing, but From Hell is above my pay grade. You should probably read it.
“Here are blind idiot children playing with a magic that hates them.”
Not much has changed, eh?
Looking at Shreyas in the 3rd panel without her arm reminds me of something I noticed on the last binge read through, that I wrote down and then forgot to mention. After she lost the arm back in Vol. 17 page 42 you’ve been very careful to depict the one hand as different except for Vol. 19 page 4 where her hands mysteriously match. Dunno if it’s something you want to go back and alter or not.
Oh shit, you’re right!
I’ll go ahead and fix that over the weekend.
There, a somewhat unambitious palette-swap with a bit of detail added.
Drawing a comic as complicated as WPK really makes me appreciate the idea of a good editor. I try to imagine a tiny Jim Shooter on my desk next to my stylus holder, screaming his little head off. It helps!