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Dark Lord Rising 6.01 - Alternate version by tapewolf

Dark Lord Rising 6.01 - Alternate version

tapewolf

Ugh, what a mess. Dark Lord Rising had to be cancelled last night because someone spotted a critical error with the page that could not be worked around by editing the dialogue and required a partial redraw.

This page has had more than its fair share of redraws, so here's the page in its original state (more-or-less: Jason's clan mark was added by me).

The final version with dialogue can be seen here: http://projectfuturecomic.com/darklord.php?strip=06-01

So. First up was redrawing the opening panel because I wanted a close-up of Jason doing what dogs do in cars. That wasn't a major problem because we were still in sketch phase at the time, and what are sketches for if not approval and revisions?
Even so, I liked the original layout so I've included that at the top of the page.

Problem the first

Having got the coloured version of the page, I realised that Yvonne was watching TV. It wasn't clear which way she was facing in the sketch so I missed it and didn't fully see the implications of this until captioning - then it became a problem.
To recap, having showered, the dye concealing Jason's clan mark has come out. Normally his pauldron covers it anyway, but he forgot to bring it into the shower and left the thing on the bed. The marking indicates that he's a dangerous creature that Yvonne has been constantly slagging off and warning against so if she sees it, he's in trouble. Jason steps out of the shower and runs headlong into Yvonne who notices the mark.

Except he doesn't, because although that's how the page was storyboarded, she's actually sitting on the bed. Worse, she's looking the other way so Jason can quietly reach over, grab the armour and slip back into the shower to dress up, knowing that he can renew the dye after breakfast or something. Disaster averted, the comic is about two pages shorter and my life becomes more awkward a chapter or two down the line.

Even that could be made to work since Yvonne can suddenly turn around on the next page. But Jason is left there with an appalled expression on his face like a moron, and besides it spoils the end-of-page cliffhanger. Still, we had plenty of time so I asked Merlin if she could fix it, which she kindly did.
In the published version of the comic, Yvonne's head has been redrawn so she's turned to see Jason. She has a startled expression, neatly balancing Jason's own look of terror at being revealed. All is right with the world... or so I thought.

Problem the second

There was another problem, which I've only just recalled. I didn't spot this at all, Merlin did... Yvonne's catsuit was flat-coloured and missing the latex shine which is her trademark. Easy enough to fix. It has to be ready to go now, right...?

Problem the third

This page was completed a whole week before it was due to be run so I spent many days waiting eagerly to foist Jason's doggy antics upon the world. Which I did. Then Puyon said that there was a typo in the mid-right panel, because Reeves quite clearly said "FINE. I'LL room with Sven and the Black Rider - Jason, Yvonne and Reeves can take the other room."
So not only is Reeves talking about himself in the third person, he's in two rooms at once and Keller is left to sleep in the streets. The huffy tone of the line is also jarringly out-of-character for Reeves who expresses emotion approximately twice in the entire story. But it wasn't jarring enough.

"Oh dear," I thought. "How did that happen?" I changed the text so that Reeves said 'Keller' instead. I exported the page, ran my scripts for resizing and compressing the page for web consumption. And then, because I was in a hurry to fix the mistake, copied DarkLord06-01.png over DarkLord01-06.png and spent several minutes wondering why the change didn't show up on the site.

Having redone all this and recovered the original master for 01-06 from a backup disk, I was about to upload the corrected page when I realised that this was going to make things worse, not better. Jason and Yvonne room with Reeves, for reasons which will become apparent later. Keller HAS to room with Sven and the Black Rider, because that also becomes plot-critical. It was unrecoverable so I had to pull the page - after it had been published. I apologise if I was caustic to anyone after that, it was a real kick in the teeth.

Anyway, Merlin managed to redraw the affected panel overnight so Keller was speaking instead of Reeves. I quickly re-spun the page before heading off to work, and all finally was well with the world (as far as I know).

Artwork by merlin_the_bruce, writing by me

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