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Inside Number 452

Inside Number 452

Format change. Probably for good, there’s things I’m just not enjoying about the endless scroll of largely same-sized panels. It might be better for a world where most people read everything on phones but I just fundamentally like composing a full page. It took me a while to get the designs working for the foreground and background, but once I did it was a real pleasure to lay out a series of differently-sized panels and think about how the word balloons helped to guide the reader’s eye through the page.

It didn’t take too much fooling around to get character designs I was happy with for this sequence.

But the background took a while. Kin had certain stylistic vibes that I just was not really finding the vibe for.

I struggled with a few painterly looks based on the reference images they provided before finally going with my desire for a really minimalist look, and finding something we both liked.

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Also I need to edit the styles for individual pages, right now the actual comic is kind of missing from the single-page view of this! Go look at the full chapter view to see it in context.

The Expected Consequences

This action and dialogue may look a little familiar.

 

Leavetakings

Resolute

Surely this is a very safe and sensible thing Alba is about to do. Lunarians are nothing but sensible and pragmatic.

Epiphany

Sorry for the gap there for a while. I’ve been busy and there’s been some technical issues with the files for this project that’s been making it hard t really get in the groove on it. I’ve got these somewhat handled now.

A Short Course In Clownbinding

Alba has absolutely no idea what Zaffo just did to the Jobclown.

Lottery Tickets

1c: Breath

And here we go with the last part of Alba’s first job on Earth! Time for her to show why the Clowns thought she’d be good at this sort of thing.

Are they seriously flirting now

Yes, yes they are.

This is it for this chapter, next up is chapter 1-c: BREATH, in which Alba’s clever plan to defeat the soda collective will surely never fail.

Another Exciting Costume Change

Hey I actually stuck this one in a queue for once, it’s like I’m a professional webcomicker or something. Will this continue? Will I actually build one of those mythical things called “a buffer”? WHO KNOWS.

If I’m about to do that then maybe I should get this thing hooked up to the Fediverse somehow…

An Exciting Costume Change

TMI From Zaffo

Cue the dance mix of the show’s theme, here comes the costume transformation scene!

Bailey’s Horizontal Promotion

Yummy Fizzy Drink

I was thinking of a couple of things for this sequence:

The reactions to Asterix’s evil soup in Asterix and the Laurel Wreath (Goscinny and Uderzo, 1971)

and the goofy expressions in the freakout scene in Haredevil Hare (Chuck Jones et al, 1948)

and the drug reactions in Hare Remover (Frank Tashlin et al, 1946)

I may be stealing the “etc…” gag from Asterix and the Laurel Wreath when this happens again later on in this story. We will see. It was a lot of fun doing these goofy little paintings of Bailey!

Let’s All Sing The Alba Song

It’s Bailey!

Surely Bailey has this situation completely under control.

Meet Bailey

Meet Bailey! She’s normally pretty good at her job but it will become quite apparent that she has not been trained for this. Really nobody is.

3-1

This has been such a slow month. I was hoping to get this up several days ago. Edits and polish on this took a while though.

As usual, if you wanna punch Newsclown after reading his dialogue, we’re doing something right.

If you’re on my Patreon then you can see the roughs for this page and the next few pages over here. If you’re not on my Patreon and you have more surplus income than you know what to do with then maybe you want to help me pay my bills? Keep yourself and your loved ones afloat first though, some trans lady who posts weird comics on the Internet should not be your highest financial priority.

1-4

If this were an animated cartoon, there would be music suitable for the introduction of a boss enemy in a video game about tiny spaceships shooting other spaceships when Alba shakes Jobclown’s hand.

Like, say, this one from R-Type Delta:

Anyway! If this is the last page then hello, you’re reading this comic on the day I finally got it properly set up on my website. Thanks for checking it out! There’s one more page to finish in this chapter and then we’ll be starting on the next one.

Lemme know the best way for you get updates on this – do you still use an RSS reader? (There’s a feed at the bottom of the page.) Should I make a Mastodon account specifically for this? Are you fine following my main Mastodon account and getting all the other nonsense I do? Should I be posting this on some corporate hellsite? Lemme know in the comments.

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1-2

1-1

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