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kierongillen · 8 years ago

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 28

Spoilers, obv.

I mentioned in the back of the issue that I was thinking that Imperial Phase Part I would just end with no climax. As in, what would be more proggy and self-indulgent than to do that? Just to assume that people would accept a whole year of issues as a single trade, and have that slow build. And if people are expecting a surprise, not having a surprise would be the bigger one?

Except I plotted out the fucker, and realised this issue would end the trade, and that works pretty well as a climax. Not as big as any of the other ones, arguably, but wider and certainly a change of status quo. Plus it's an unexpected answer to the question of “Who's going to die?” undermining the assumption that it has to be one of our core cast.

This is probably a good example of how I talk about knowing everything in WicDiv, but the execution being more flexible. As in, all these beats are there, but working out how to play them came when planning these two arcs.

It's a hard issue for me, to be honest. WicDiv is definitely in a cause of anxiety place for me now, and thematically I can see why. WicDiv is always a juggling act, but I'm aware I'm juggling knives.

Jamie's Cover: The last of the first half of Imperial Phase. The design continues to the second half of Imperial Phase, with variations. I think this one is particularly beautiful, but pointed.

Elsa Charretier's Cover: We met Elsa when we were launching WicDiv in France. Glenat, our French Publisher, had commissioned her to do a WicDiv print. That was beautiful, and we asked her if she'd be up for a cover. And lo, this was born. The commission was glamour and sex – I think I suggested the idea of a sun in a martini glass. Elsa summoned this panorama that I just lose myself in.

It's also one of our rare Alt covers which is actually coloured by Matt Wilson, who took a pretty radical approach to the image. Matt Wilson for Eisner!

Page 1 Last time I talked about having a surplus of material and working out how to present it, and it actually all compressing down worryingly well. I had my list of things I wanted to happen before the party. I realised that some of them – mainly Sakhmet related – I could move into issue 29. Which left this, which I felt as an incredibly low-key mundane scene made a fun thing to hard cut from to the party.

Roehampton chosen due to me doing a seminar at the University there last year. I felt that Blake would be teaching in a place like it.

Jamie had a hefty re-write of this one when drawing it, and we chewed over the execution in chat a little. “The script is the start of a conversation, not the end of it.”

Wall stuff was also done in conversation. I gave Jamie a bunch of suggestions and we unpacked a little more. Shall I go though and say what they all are? I'm not sure if I can recognise them in fragments. That's Girl's Generation, the K-Pop band on the left. They were the primary visual inspiration for the Valkyries. Oh – and Jamie tells me that's Katy Perry on the right.

Page 2 I am very fond of the side-eye of Blake in the second panel. Strong Jamie expression.

Behind Blake is... League of Legends, Ghost in the Machine and Voltron.

And another really strong face in the last panel.

Page 3 Oddly, Cassandra's habit of little encouraging asides to people seems to be a thing now. How will people read them in world? Actually sincerely or patronising? I guess it depends how defensive they were feeling on any given day.

Page 4 A call back to Larkin's This Be The Verse, quoted by Luci in the first issue, recalled by Laura in issue 6.

My first draft title was Pride, drawing a line between Blake's parental pride and Sakmet's pride of lions. And then we remembered it'll also call to mind Pride, which when there's a slaughter at a pansexual orgy, is definitely not a comparison we wanted to make. So we went to this.

I suspect these writer notes are mainly my “here are some of the landmines we nearly stepped on” log.

Page 5 Originally the line was a lift of Lady Vox's in Phonogram, but something more noxious was clearly better. I called for the cocaine-tool, and Jamie out-did himself. The mosquito-like device emerging from the helmet is quite the thing. I suspect this is a left over Iron Man idea.

The visual element of the performance of the colouring-stage added symbols came from Matt. He was playing with various overlapping shapes, which were beautiful, but didn't seem to be anything other than a cute aesthetic. And then we realised that if we made them all Amaterasu symbols it'll integrate into the whole book. And lo, it does.

When plotting this issue, it's very much a “okay, what order CAN they be in.” I suspect I'd have rather taken more time to get to the confrontation, but everything else is more important to be in its place. Space is the interesting one – I suspect given an infinite budget we'd have have played more space to introduce this party/temple, probably with a issue-8 style dance-floor shot. But we don't, so we go completely the other way with this very TIGHT open, and put you in the middle of this slightly disorientating party you build up piecemeal.

Page 6 This involved some consultancy here, as I suspected (and I was right) that the original draft of Cassandra's dialogue let Woden off the hook too easily. We ended up tweaking a bunch to make her angrier to start, and still angry at the end, even after she takes Woden's point. I suspect I'd have gone even further given a chance to do it again.

(I mean, do you believe Woden that he didn't click? Plus that he knows the implicit threat by saying he didn't click – as in, he definitely could click if he wanted to. This is particularly noxious by Woden.)

End of the page is the closest we get to an establishing shot of the club/temple, btw.

Note that Jamie has moved away from a strict eight panel grid here, which suits the material. That panels two and five are these relatively smaller moments means that it would be dead space.

Page 7 And notice the strict eight panel grid here, which Jamie maintains as all these beats are basically of equal narrative weight.

Panel 7 is Jamie redrawing the splash from Brandon Graham's issue. Clearly relevant to what's coming further down the line.

In an issue of fairly bleak jokes, I think Woden's last panel takes the prize.

Page 8 The sequence is the last bit of set-up for the end of the issue. I suspect a re-read of the last couple of issues will see what I considered the necessary Sakhmet beats to get here. Next issue has more, but it's all very morning-after.

Special call out for Clayton for the second panel, which uses a PING! To basically split this panel into two panels in terms of reading. There's Amaterasu's first line... a small delay – and then the next piece of information. This is joined to the left-right movement across the panel from seeing the back of her head (I'm leaving!) to the right side of the panel (Where we then see she's looking at her phone.)

The softest beat of the issue, and probably one that I'd have stressed more if it was only a grace note, would be the reason for Baal's absence. Persephone assumes it's because that she is there, hence the segue in conversation on hurting people.

(In a boring practical way, Baal and Minerva not being here streamlines an issue which all the cast are present at. They don't need to be here, and their absence says more.)

The last three panels on the page are the closest that Sakhmet has come to a speech. Originally, there was about twice as much dialogue, but we worked it over obsessively to get to the core essentials (and try and avoid juxtapositions which we simply didn't want.) C and I shouting various takes and word-switches for about an hour in the living room.

All the WicDiv characters depress me. I think Sakhmet depresses me most of all.

Page 9 Anyway, yes, Sakhmet, that is a very good look.

Sakhmet's entry for the bleak joke competition, evidently.

Page 10 That we cut away from Casssandra means we get to cut back to her after the reasonable stage of an exchange and straight into this.

Hmm. There's something odd about this issue in terms of how pretty it all is, versus the emotions that are flying around. That's Amaterasu all over though.

The third panel was key for us to have Amaterasu's lines juxtaposed by Cassandra's response, so that it couldn't be taken out of context. A character responding to another character's incoherent racism is important context. I considered the archaic spelling “Moslem” but decided that while I'm sure that Amaterasu would use it, it wasn't worth putting in the text. It's offensive enough anyway.

Page 11 Some fascinating character work by Matt and Jamie on Amaterasu's speech to camera. The passive-aggressive nature of her threat is particularly sickly.

Cass' swearing is a delight.

I think I originally did something like “Clawing her eyes out” and tweaked as I) gendered ii) with where the issue goes, sets up all sorts of uncomfortable resonances with both Morrigan and Sakhmet. WicDiv is designed to be viewed as a hologram, so removing data strands that aren't intended is key.

(I mean, I talk about being anxious earlier? That's certainly a reason. There's so many moving parts in this fucker, and for all our efforts we can’t be sure that some of them are going to mesh awkwardly. We can always miss something.)

Anyway – there goes Cass, told to go home, the first of the people to leave the party. Everyone else gradually leaves, until it's just the people who remain. Woden doesn't get an exit, but let's be candid – no-one would have ever assumed Woden would be invited to the orgy.

And Dio takes over as the connective tissue. Hmm. Re-reading this after a few weeks is making me realise how tightly wound it really is. I had a friend write to tell me how many panels the last two issues had. 26 with 127 and 27 with 142. I did a quick count, and this one is (about) 119, so a little down, but when an average mainstream comic would have around 80 panels in (No more than a 5 panel beat, with average panel count lower than due to splashes, action pages, etc) it speaks to how compressed this is running on. No wonder I feel like it's going to explode.

Anyway, Dio. What have you seen?

Page 12 The main worry on this page was not making the storytelling too comic. The “someone leaves” And then “Someone unexpected follows pushing first person out of the way” can definitely come across as slapstick. Jamie doesn't do that, so phew. It's setting up for the destination.

The hyper-distorted close-up-to-reader Amaterasu symbols here are fascinating. Well done, Matt.

Page 13 And out in the street. Matt's glow from the door, into the cold blues of the street is strong. Immediate change of mood.

(Also, has me thinking of the break to darkness in issue 8 before going back to the party, as a structural parallel)

I don't actually use much contemporary slang in WicDiv. I suspect this isn't actually something people have noticed. As such, I had a good hard think before using Ghosting, but it's the right word and sentiment. And – well – Ghosting and Goths is an interesting line.

The goth kids absence from the comic have been notable. As they'd been major players earlier, they were always going to step back so other characters can move closer to the spotlight. I realised pretty early in planning Imperial Phase that the necessary retreat from the spotlight would be a way to explicitly introduce the plot. We could delineate their absence.

Page 14 Yeah, I'm uncomfortable too.

I don't think it's worth talking about this in any more detail now. Probably more later as we continue into the story.

Dionysus is the character who has most often surprised me in WicDiv. When he enters a scene, he goes in an unusual direction. He asks slightly different questions from most of the cast. “She chased him out the building and now he looks like this? Clearly...” seems a fair leap to make.

Page 15 “I love you, but...” is one of the more obvious bits of connective tissue in the issue.

Jamie does an interesting choice in terms of panel 4 and Persephone's response.

Another bit of peak Amaterasu here in the “What happened to my party?” response. Upset of her party not going according to her plans is, of course, how the arc starts for Amy as well.

Matt obviously gets the colouring interesting – all amber here – but Jamie is doing a lot to bridge the gap between two sub-scenes. That fifth panel re-sets it all, and hopefully Amaterasu's voice carries people back inside.

Page 16 The first panel landed very well. There's a lot of emotional weight that this has to carry, and suggesting of other things, and it seems to hold together. I suspect you can patch together all the Persephone Lines To Camera in WicDiv and get an interesting portrait of where she thinks she is.

(I mean, this is Jamie. It's never just about the line. I can't even imagine trying to write this stuff for another artist.)

My favourite person in all of WicDiv may be the guy in the hat in the bottom panel who goes “You know – actually, no, I don't think so. I think I'll have an early night” when presented with this offer. Good call, random person.

Interesting choice of panel breaking by Jamie on the last panel, which gets a sense of the rush of the response.

Page 17 Well, yes.

Page 18 When someone asked me about sex scenes a while back, this was already written and perhaps even being drawn, so I was aware of this in terms of a hypothetical WicDiv scene scene. Let's quote the thing here for reference...

We certainly don’t linger on the sex scenes. There’s an orgy in issue 11. There’s one beat where you see Morrigan and Baphomet in issue 16. There’s the repurposed Sex Criminal pages in 14. There’s very little kissing in terms of what you actually see - there’s one in 20 and one in 24, so far. While at the same time, characters having sex with one another is one of the things which drives the plot.

Speaking generally, I’ve got no moral reservation about sex scenes in stories per se. It always speaks to the effect the story is trying to have. To state the obvious, in erotica it’s very much the point of the thing.

There’s a couple of problems specifically in WicDiv…

1) Seeings someone have sex has a tendency to make the scene about you watching. Our characters are often, in their own way, viewpoint characters. Anything which makes a character perform for the viewer is against our intent there. There’s times we’ve approached it, and Jamie has very much backed away when we approached the page, as it was just extraneous. Why do it if it serves no purpose? 2) Probably more importantly, sex is usually dead pages in terms of drama. The fight scenes WicDiv does are almost always not about fighting. They’re about a change of dramatic states, a visually interesting way to push the plot along. Go through a fight scene and note down what you learn about each character in it. You can certainly do that in a sex scene… but dramatically speaking, the “decision to have sex” and “how you feel afterwards” are the key beats. So we linger on them a LOT.

But there’s certainly sex scenes I’ve written in my notes, and they’re much more character driven things, one way or another. I suspect one will come up sooner rather than later, though watching how we do it will be the interesting one.

That “interesting” sits uncomfortably with me, as it sounds like I'm foreshadowing this awful mess, when I'm talking in terms of craft. How do you do that and stay to our aims? The things I'd point to here is primarily Jamie's choices – how he chooses to frame nakedness, how he chooses to frame sex. Generally speaking, this is an illustrative scene. The neutrality is key – Amaterasu's nakedness in panel 6 would be a key one. There is no pose for the readers' eye's delight. This is a character who happens to be naked. Or at least, that's how we hope it's read.

(There's also other things – we thought that if Sakhmet is the first character to be shown naked just as she turns on a killing range, that has a lot of semiotics in there we'd like to avoid.)

Page 19 You know how life can just shatter in a second? I guess that's what we were going for here. Just one character being thoughtless, and...

(Fill in “That escalated quickly” gif, obviously)

For my money, perhaps Jamie's best art of the issue is the last two panels. The suspended glass, and then that close up – which is not one, but both of the best single expressions in the book.

Page 20-21 Amaterasu runs – I've seen some people think that Sakhmet killed her in this scene, which is one of those “you always must remember your audience is diverse in terms of how much they're aware of things like knowing what a character's power looks like, especially when a larger than normal percentage of your readers are new to comics.” I'm not sure there's much we could have done, except maybe a “come back!” from Sakhmet in the first panel. But that feels too crass for the people who DO get it. Balancing what is too opaque and what is too crass is basically 95% of comics for me.

This spread was budgeted as a single page, in terms of the amount Jamie has drawn. I may have done it anyway, but it is a way to ensure that we have a page turn onto the image on page 22.

(Also visual symmetry with Sakhmet in issue 17, where the black out image is also used.)

Page 22 I like how careful Jamie is here as well. I suspect the page with the most colouring tweaks in it, as Jamie wanted it to have the correct level of horror to it.

I originally had a more on-the-nose element to the image – a message scrawled in blood – but as much as I like a good System Shock homage, it was decided it was just too much. It's a Grand Guignol beat, sure, but not like that. It seems that there is a thing such as “too unsubtle” even for WicDiv.

Page 23 When originally planning the book, I thought this flashback was going to be at the end of Rising Action. After writing it, we realised we didn't need it – Persephone terrible and resplendent, with all the awful potential didn't need anything else. This is probably a good example of what I talk about in terms of when we say “we know all the material – it's just a question of execution.” I find myself thinking of how movies are really made by the editor, cutting scenes around.

(There's certainly things I've wanted to get in this arc which I've lost as something else was always more pressing. You may remember me saying one of my worries about year 3 in WicDiv was it was mainly girls being involved with girls, and there wasn't enough male/male intimacy? That would be an example of something which I'd like to find a place for, but have failed to do so far. Still, onwards.)

As a craft note, I'd point towards “6 months earlier” as a choice worth considering for creators. If you just write dates to control flashbacks rather than stating the relative position, you will lose your reader almost completely. They don't remember what period a story is set in just via numbers. They need either word based hand-holding or something much more visual in the story. Be very careful with this shit.

Page 24 In an issue as compressed as this, a page of Ananke way back in issue 21 me a luxury. But for someone like Ananke, it's so rare I hope it's interesting. Some strong expression work in here.

Clearly the advantage of that mask of hers is that it means it's harder for people to see that she's been crying.

Page 25 A “free” page in terms of budget, though Jamie clearly committed to it with the hand.

In the third year's hardback, we may include our somewhat hilarious lettering trial runs where Chrissy and Katie tried their handwriting. The final one is actually the work of Marguerite Bennett, who as a self-described Supervillain seemed a good person to ask to do it. Also, I've seen enough of her pen when signing issues of Angela, so knew she had a fascinating font. She was enormously ill and bed-ridden, so it was touch or go whether she would be able to do it, but thankfully it all came together. Thanks, M.

Page 26 A complete re-use of the opening of issue 21, with the final panel turned into a (tweaked) repeat of the penultimate panel. Once more we return and all that.

We'll be doing a little tweak to this page in the trade in the penultimate panel, to put a little glow on the machinery.

Page 27 We had to debate whether to put the present date or the flashback date here, but settled on this.

And that's it. Coming up shortly is the 455 AD special, which certainly fits thematically in with this arc and Andre (and Matt) have done wonderful work on. Then the trade in June, and back with Imperial Phase Part II in July.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #elsa charretier #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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operationrainfall · 7 years ago

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Title Runner3 Developer Choice Provisions Publisher Choice Provisions Release Date May 22nd, 2018 Genre Rhythm, Platformer Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco Official Website

Given my appreciation for platformers, it may surprise some of you that my first foray into the realm of Bit. Trip was actually with Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (love that subtitle). I was drawn quickly into that world by the quirky humor, colorful art and solid yet challenging platforming. So once I found out that the sequel, Runner3, was just around the corner for 2018, imagine my excitement! Not only was I anticipating the latest entry by Choice Provisions, I was very excited it was a Switch exclusive. Now that I’ve had a chance to play through the whole game, was Runner3 the game I hoped for? Or should Choice Provisions have quit while they were ahead?

Let’s get one thing out of the way from the get go – as crazy as Runner2 was, Runner3 is even crazier. Not that the series is particularly known for plot or sanity, but this one is as mad as a sack full of angry badgers. It starts with Commander Video and CommandGirl Video on vacation in Foodland, when suddenly they get a missive from a mysterious stranger with a burger for a head. Turns out Timbletot is still at large and causing mischief, so the duo set out to thwart him in the only way they know how – hopping, bouncing, slamming and kicking their way to victory!

The retro stages are hard to unlock, but delightful.

At first I was a bit concerned that Runner3 was smaller than its predecessor, since Runner2 had five worlds to choose from but Runner3 only has three. Thankfully, they alleviated my fears in a couple of ways. First off, each stage in the game has branching paths, so you’ll have to play through more than once to 100% everything. Your first time through a stage is called the Gold Run, and is the easier path to take. The second, more arduous path is called the Gem Run, and they are typically much more challenging, not least of all since you need to collect all the Gems and Gold on them to get a perfect score. Another way this game expands is with a ton of retro levels. While it’s true the other games had these, in this adventure each of the three retro worlds has at least nine different retro levels, including retro boss fights! Better yet, you have total free range of movement in each of them. So in truth, instead of having only three worlds compared to Runner2‘s five, in reality Runner3 has six distinct worlds, making it a much larger package.

These “commercials” will pop up before the start screen and showcase the zany humor of the series quite well.

That’s all well and good, but you’re probably more interested in how the game plays. Thankfully, I can say it’s a very addictive and fun experience. Runner3 has the distinction of being only the second Switch game I would play so long that, more than once, my battery would start flashing red before I knew I had to plug it in (the first being the duo of Bayonetta 1 and 2 on Switch). The reason for this is not only because it’s a fun game, but because it’s a lot more challenging than I remember Runner2 being. I honestly was yelling at my screen in some stages when I screwed up. While that may turn some people away, I would still recommend you give it a shot, even if you’re not super confident in your platforming skills. My logic being, the longer you play a Bit. Trip game, the better you’ll get, making even the most impossible challenges feasible. That, and there’s a special sort of satisfaction you’ll get from doing a perfect run of a particularly difficult stage.

Speaking of difficult, the challenge levels really live up to their name…

A major reason for my enjoyment of the game was how much diversity of gameplay there is. Sure, Runner3 is a platformer, but it’s one never content to rest on its laurels. They’re always throwing new challenges at you, as well as new ways to traverse your environment. There are a bunch of vehicle sections in the game, ranging from riding a carbonated soda can to flying a plane to rolling around in a bowling ball. Not only that, but the camera will sometimes pan from one direction to another as you run, and other times you’ll be running with a first-person camera focus. Many levels have the new Mechiknight foes that fly into your path and try to stop you with shield and sword.

Choice Provisions also added Hero Quests, where your goal is to meet the objectives of a trio of strange citizens of the various lands you’ll traverse. If you can successfully help them, you’ll be rewarded with new playable characters. Much like the rest of the series, the playable characters are a bunch of delightful weirdos, from creepy pickle men to Frankenstein monsters made out of sausage. Better yet, there are a bunch of other playable characters you can unlock from well known indie series, such as Shovel Knight and even the narrator himself, Charles Martinet! But perhaps strangest of all are the puppet shows. By collecting all the scattered puppets hidden in stages, you’ll be rewarded with a jaunty show that will reveal some of the game’s unknown backstory, all delivered in rhyming verse.

One thing I felt was greatly improved in Runner3 were the boss battles. Though Runner2 had some interesting foes, it never really felt like you were actually fighting them, just avoiding them until you won. Whereas in this game, you’ll interact with your foes in many different ways. One boss will fire sausages at you that you must catch in a meat grinder to fire back at him; another will strike at you with massive gavels as you leap over gigantic books. Each of the game’s main bosses is a fun challenge, and the retro bosses, while simpler, also do a good job of providing a meatier experience.

We hope you like sausage, cause that’s the only present this Santa is packing!

Despite my love of the game, there are some small niggling details that kept this from getting a perfect score. While I liked the vehicle sections (they reminded me of Donkey Kong Country), the ones that weren’t on rails and in first-person were very stressful. A smaller complaint is that occasionally the sound effects for collecting Gold or Gems doesn’t noticeably ping, which can be infuriating while trying to 100% a level. Though I like the branching paths, sometimes the game seems to remember to put you on the correct path when doing a Gem Run, and other times you’re forced to manually do so. If the game had a distinct tone that played when you switched paths, this wouldn’t have been an issue.

And lastly, I encountered a couple of weird glitches. One glitch was in a Spookyland stage called Bound By Law on a Gem path. Despite having collected all the Gold prior to the checkpoint, when I died and respawned, two of the Gold bars reappeared behind me, as if I hadn’t collected them. Thankfully, this didn’t affect my collection rate, though I kept restarting after every death ’til I realized that. The other glitch was a spring in a Machineland stage called Girdle Springs Eternal. Sometimes one spring would launch me over a stop sign trap, other times it would launch me into it, forcing me to kick the stop sign instead. Overall these were all pretty minor, and I feel Choice Provisions will easily patch them after the game goes live for everybody.

See that Gold bar behind me? I already collected that.

It wouldn’t be fair not to cover the art design for such a colorful game. Runner3 is just as beautiful and flamboyant as you’ve come to expect, with bright colors and eye-popping visuals. This game has it all, from cantaloupe trees to terrifying living dolls. I was impressed how dynamic many stages were, having various parts of the environment appear and disappear and stages build themselves up in front of your eyes. There’s a lot of visual flair, and it just makes the whole package even more beautiful. But the music is really a treat, full of bumping tunes that perfectly match the tempo of each stage. Each of the three main worlds, Foodland, Spookyland and Machineland, all have a distinct melody and very disparate sound effects, such as a Tarzan yell that comes out of nowhere. Put together, the art and music make a great game fantastic.

Truth be told, I loved Runner3. For $29.99, it’s offering a lot of value (though it’s 15% off for the next 4 days if you pre-order). Much as I enjoyed Runner2, this game provided a lot more incentive to keep on playing, and easily 10 hours of content just for beating the game, with plenty more required to 100% everything. The additional difficulty, though somewhat off-putting, also provides a great reason to keep on trying (especially the brutal Challenge stages). Best of all, there’s a ton of stuff to unlock, from new characters to diabolically well-hidden VHS tapes to snazzy new costumes. Runner3 is a celebration of platforming, and easily the best game I’ve played from Choice Provisions so far. If you want a fun challenge, look no further.

The question is, will we get a Runner4?

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

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REVIEW: Runner3 Title Runner3

#Bit. Trip Runner #Choice Provisions #Commander Video #nintendo switch #runner3

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