Baron Mistycorn Thumbnail
Shaenon: In the interests of sharing every step of a random page from the bonus story in Skin Horse 5, here’s the initial thumbnail. I tweaked a bunch of dialogue between this and the final, as I tend to do with shockingly little consideration for Jeff’s scripts. Sorry, Jeff.
Channing: “Oh, I make your scripts better and funnier so that people have the mistaken impression that you’re a better writer than you actually are, SO SORRY ABOUT THAT.”
If that counts as abuse, then keep piling it on, says I.
(TUNE: “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan)
How many times can you fill Sunday strips
With dif-fer-ent forms of one page?
How many ways can you point out the quirks
Of each de-vel-op-ment stage?
How many times can you diddle the script
Until Jeff breaks out in a rage?
The answer is plain:
Again, and then again …
Again, and again, and yet again!
The nuances of the revision indicate its a give and take partnership – and shows that they are not just throwing whatever over the wall to us. I imagine a lot of email and Skype as part of the routine exchanges.
Revision is both a boon and a hazard – It is an opportunity to smooth and refine, but over-thought can make things too simple or too complex, and everything must still fit into the overarching story outline without any contradictions.
That’s right Shaenon and Jeff – “…without ANY contradictions.”
You can almost read what’s on the other side of the paper. Maybe if I print it out and hold it up to a mirror…
The bit in all caps says Animatronic Space Demons.
Space Demons – That probably explains the skulls comment.
Flipped it paint – talks about something usually being pretty weak, then introducing him to the single rider line, and the animatronic space demons.
Overall – looks like a draft of the prior page, since the 12/14/14 inking of the above draft already has them clearly in the single rider line.
This is why I envision Shaenon and Channing collaborating via Skype – easier to work on the fly – more content bandwidth than conversing via email. I call or visit people at work for that very reason – even when it is something that can be solved over IM or E-mail.
Why not? I thik she has a Sunday strip in narbonic that shows them working over the phone
Channing communicates with Shaenon almost exclusively via email; it’s only been fairly recently that we’ve gotten high-ish speed internet in our rural area. Now, we have a limited plan, I guess Skype would blow through the data pretty quick?
Context bandwidth. Sometimes info can be conveyed faster face to face. Talking and sketching at the same time for instance.
Lag is involved in IM or email communications.