Whew, that was a long chapter... but yes, indeed, Chapter 4 of Strawberry Syrup is finally complete! At... 54 pages... yeesh.
If I'm being completely honest here, the chapter should have ended about twenty pages back, when Hunter was first turned into a chipmunk. However, at the time, I hadn't thumbnailed ahead and thought there would only be a few more pages after that.
... I don't remember WHY, exactly, I thought that, but I do remember that I did.
All this boils down to, basically, is that thumbnailing chapters in their entirety before even starting the final pages is a good thing, while just winging it is not exactly ideal.
Now, normally I'd be taking a break after the chapter end, but due to the hiatus, there's no way I'm taking any time off now. And fortunately, I don't have to! I'll admit, I haven't planned out all of Chapter 5 yet, but I have got a good chunk of it down, and I'll be working on the thumbnails long before I finish what I've currently got done.
Way better than winging it. ^_^;;
(And for those of you wondering what the heck I'm talking about, a "thumbnail" is a small, usually quick sketch of the comic page. They're generally much smaller than the finished page, and may consist entirely of stick figures. They're just meant to give the artist a good idea of layout and story flow. Personally, I prefer slightly more detailed thumbnails so I can make sure everything works well before I'm left stumped by a sudden issue on Tuesday night.)
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Effect of Anime on the Brain
I am starting to come to the conclusion that anime affects the brain. Not in a bad way, mind you (although of course, that depends entirely on the anime in question), but in a way that makes strange things make sense.
Prime Example: Firefly.
Firefly was an amazing series. We're talking the Wild West with space ships. For those of you unfamiliar with this little piece of awesomeness, it was a short-lived Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire fame) creation that aired on Fox in 2002, starring Nathan Fillion (now in Castle), Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, and Summer Glau (among others). While it was cancelled before it even finished airing all 14 episodes, it garnered enough fan support to make the follow-up movie Serenity a reality in 2005. It recently aired on The Science Channel as one of the best science fiction series ever.
Its early demise remained a mystery to me until I read the early critical reviews of it. They lead me to believe that general reactions went something like this:
Yeah. Apparently, the mad mix of sci-fi-Western-comedy-action-drama didn't sit well with some people, who felt they were an unholy concoction forced together via Whedon's insane genre alchemy. And yet, I never once gave it a second thought. The world of Firefly felt complete and whole to me, with nothing out of place and nothing forced or strained. I didn't care about some cliche metaphor about the final frontier and the Wild West. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
You see, by the time Firefly came along, I'd had a good five years of anime like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Trigun and Gundam Wing to acclimate me to the idea of the space cowboys, rough-and-tumble frontier planets, and complex interplanetary politics. As for mixing genres, well, that's practically par for the course in anime and manga. Just ask Rumiko Takahashi or the CLAMP team. Mixing comedy, drama, romance, and political intrigue is pretty much commonplace, so I don't think anything of it when an American TV show gives it a try.
Anyway. This is what I get for watching old TV series and checking out their Wiki pages afterwards. But it does beg the question: DOES mixing genres like that still bother a lot of people, or has that changed in the past ten years?
Judging by some of the shows slated to air this fall, I may have an answer soon...
Prime Example: Firefly.
Firefly was an amazing series. We're talking the Wild West with space ships. For those of you unfamiliar with this little piece of awesomeness, it was a short-lived Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire fame) creation that aired on Fox in 2002, starring Nathan Fillion (now in Castle), Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, and Summer Glau (among others). While it was cancelled before it even finished airing all 14 episodes, it garnered enough fan support to make the follow-up movie Serenity a reality in 2005. It recently aired on The Science Channel as one of the best science fiction series ever.
Its early demise remained a mystery to me until I read the early critical reviews of it. They lead me to believe that general reactions went something like this:
Yeah. Apparently, the mad mix of sci-fi-Western-comedy-action-drama didn't sit well with some people, who felt they were an unholy concoction forced together via Whedon's insane genre alchemy. And yet, I never once gave it a second thought. The world of Firefly felt complete and whole to me, with nothing out of place and nothing forced or strained. I didn't care about some cliche metaphor about the final frontier and the Wild West. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
You see, by the time Firefly came along, I'd had a good five years of anime like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Trigun and Gundam Wing to acclimate me to the idea of the space cowboys, rough-and-tumble frontier planets, and complex interplanetary politics. As for mixing genres, well, that's practically par for the course in anime and manga. Just ask Rumiko Takahashi or the CLAMP team. Mixing comedy, drama, romance, and political intrigue is pretty much commonplace, so I don't think anything of it when an American TV show gives it a try.
Anyway. This is what I get for watching old TV series and checking out their Wiki pages afterwards. But it does beg the question: DOES mixing genres like that still bother a lot of people, or has that changed in the past ten years?
Judging by some of the shows slated to air this fall, I may have an answer soon...
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