#contrary to what i say i do love webcomics so fucking much

[shinesurge]

Webcomic rings run by people within the community are cool and you should support them

I've been loudly struggling a little bit with corporate webcomic Stuff lately so I want to mention something positive to balance it out: webrings run by small groups of creators earnestly trying to support each other are slowly making a comeback and I for one am delighted.

If you weren't around for them in the before times, webrings were just some folks who hang out a lot who feature each other on their websites. That's literally it lmao. There's generally no money involved and it only really functions the way it's supposed to if people have control over their own websites AND genuinely want to participate and get excited about other folks' work, which means the practice has pretty well fallen by the wayside over the years in webcomic culture given. Everything. In the rare event someone decides to do something like this it's usually in the form of a link list somewhere on their website; this doesn't usually indicate any sort of mutual support, it's just a list of what the creator is reading themselves.

A webring, though, is an official banner or hub that people gather under intentionally where each member is more or less on equal footing. It's essentially the concept of "a rising tide lifts all boats" put into practice, each creator brings their own audience to the table in a passive, opt-in sort of way that's different from working for a publisher since there isn't necessarily a Top Spot or a paycheck everyone's vying for, and individuals retain autonomy over both their own work and how (if) they promote each other. You're all at your own tables in an artist alley rather than fighting over the table in the front of the book store, essentially.

I have two rings and one collective for you today!

Webcomic Ring was brought to my attention AGES ago by Holly, one of the artists featured there, and I might have brought it up at some point but I'm doing it again lmao. This is exactly the kind of thing you ought to be looking for; a small group of enthusiastic folks having a good time making their weird little comics. You probably haven't heard of much in the catalog, that's PERFECT in the context of webcomics that's where the GOOD SHIT is. Finding something like this is A Gift go dig around in the longboxes for a while.

Then a few people have pointed me in the direction of the KNIFEBEETLE collective and that's neat too! Most of the comics there are already fairly well-known, but the vibes are excellent and I haven't seen a lot of talk about the collective /itself/ outside folks already in the know. I think it's important for this sort of thing to be more visible to folks who aren't terminally steeped in webcomic culture already so here I am telling you about it. You were probably reading several of these before I suggested it, but that's how a webring works! For it to do its job you should take those bigger creators' tacit recommendation of the less popular titles as a sign to go read something new and strange. Wild, I know these are practices held over from the old internet, but I think we should try and bring them back.

Lastly, I want to mention Spiderforest, which is a collective (slightly different from a webring) BUT still a very cool project readers starved for new stuff should pay attention to.

You've probably seen Spiderforest kicking around for a long time already; they're wonderful and have always been an overall positive force in the community in my experience. They really focus on building up a community, and especially welcoming newcomers and helping them get their feet under them. Full disclosure, I've been asked to apply by a few different folks over the years and the only reason I never did is I don't have the ability to participate in their forums and such as frequently as they want their creators to; it's a very good system (from my outside perspective) that might contribute to the community staying mostly healthy in ways that art communities usually don't and I appreciate it a lot!

ANYWAYS that's all I got for now, just trying to balance out some bad feelings I've been having by talking about some good stuff. Please go binge an archive this week.

#long post #contrary to what i say i do love webcomics so fucking much #there are Reasons i'm fucking angry all the time lmao

[raymondshields]

19 through 25? :0

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

Hmmmm.... Honestly, not that I can think of? I mean characters in my head sometimes walk up and inform me they’ve committed incest again, but that doesn’t usually make it to AO3. (Shoutout to Rhada for informing me of a whole lot of shit he did with Sisyphus, who is related to him in Mirrorverse on a fucking technicality, jfc. But also Rhada’s been committing incest by way of sleeping with Gordon, aka Minos’ son, since the bronze age so.) 

I mean, I probably overuse Toby quotes, but tbh I actually can’t think of something I overuse too much. Huh.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I’ve already done this a lot (I’m actually answering this last because I’m trying to think of my favourite here), and. Hmmm. Honestly, I’m gonna go with IKM Minos, because while I have rambled about him before, only in DMs, and I haven’t talked about IKM much yet.

The thing is, I know as much about him as y’all who follow the series do. He’s very quiet in my headspace, and only ever comes out when I sit down and write him. But he’s four things. Four things, completely at odds with each other, and yet completely in harmony. He’s a griffon, he’s a Spectre, he’s noble, he’s feral. And everything he is can be summed up in those four traits.

He’s a griffon, to start. Half cat, half bird. All the casual arrogance of cats, all the flock behaviour of a bird, all the loyalty, all the insistence to guard. That’s what griffons do. They guard. And that’s his fundamental beginning: he’s a griffon, once you strip everything else away from him.

On top of that, he’s a Spectre. He’s casually cruel and vicious, very traumatized (how, I don’t know, he won’t tell me), he’s a strategist, he prioritizes his own survival but looks out for the others in his division, and he’s very very choosy about who he trusts to not hurt him, who he trusts he won’t hurt on purpose.

Then, his demon star, Nobility. This comes from the Age of Myth. He’s at ease with humans, can interact well with them, can slip around their social etiquette with grace, despite being nothing like them. He’s a little bit chivalrous, has honour enough, tries not to get too messy, actually does have a moral compass of sorts.

Lastly, he’s feral. Wild. Untethered and unforgiving and free. This is the opposite of his demon star, yes. But it is what he is, and he has no issues stripping free of his fancy clothes and running naked through the mud with nothing but fur to cover him and howling at the moon as he rips through prey with his teeth. 

Seems contrary, and indeed, he’s a very contrary person. The real joy in how those go together.

A griffon Spectre means he’ll guard his division. He doesn’t need to love them to have no option but to guard and protect them. He’s the leader of the flock, and he’ll do what needs doing. He’s cruel, he’s responsible, and he does what he needs to. This ties in well with Nobility, his star, because he has enough of a moral compass to know when he has to sacrifice someone, and how to feel bad about it, while his Spectreness allows him to not feel as bad about it as he could.

Naturally, most of the time, he’s noble, a bit fussy and imperious, likes his poetry as a way of speaking. But the more he’s hurt, the angrier he is, the more upset he is, that stripes away into his feral nature. His nobility is a mask and a shield for his true nature: simply a wild griffon, untethered by any rules and unforgiving to any that meet him. I’ll explore this part a bit further later on as this is the part of him that Alba really falls in love with, but this is where his personality begins to really shine. That duality between his noble, imperious nature and his honest, wild self.

He’s a hard as fuck character to write. But oh, I love the results. 

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

As answered previously, I Have No Fucking Idea But Probably Anime.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

As also answered previously, yes, because I have no other choice if I want to see my damn rarepairs most of the time, and I enjoy doing so because I like most of my fics. 

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

I answered last time as Rose’s story, but I checked my spreadsheet for what I’d forgotten and gold star me, I forgot about one I really do want to talk about: the TLC version of Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway as a long fic! Harry Potter AUs are out. Wayward Children AUs are in as fuck.

What I know is that Aiolos and Aiolia run a school like Eleanor does. It may be located not far from Sagiverse’s Saint Shion’s University, probably Academia Terrestria. Most of the cast is TLC, Golds and Spectres mostly. It follows the adventures of one young Sasha, kicked out of her world by Hades himself after going mostly all the way through the plot of TLC itself, as she deals with coming back without her brother - a possibility she’d already made peace with - but with him still in Sanctum Greece, out and committing mass murder - the part she isn’t cool with.

She walks in during the first few chapters to meet Aiolia just as Minos - from a high Nonsense, high Wicked world where everything is the theatre and the rules make you think it’s Logic and it’s not - bolts across the room, swings a grappling hook around the chandelier, and scales the wall in the nick of time before Pandora throws her trident at him. They’re roommates. Pandora’s from Prism, Kade’s world, as the Goblin Princess so she is understandably wanting Minos dead here.

Sasha blinks, immediately goes on the defensive because hello, two Spectres, but neither know who the hell she is. Lia takes her with him as he negotiates getting Minos into the tower room with Albafica, from the Moors where he and his dad fend off vampires with a strain of woody rose poison they put into their blood, and then puts Sasha in with Pandora, who helps her figure out that just because she knows all of these faces and names doesn’t make them the same people. (This is after watching her freak out over Minos and Alba sharing a room, because she watched them kill each other.)

And then like two weeks later Alone shows up, immediately throws himself at the Dragon Prince Rhadamanthys, who is sixteen and doesn’t know how to handle a small child without a tail and shares the attic with Aiacos, who lived in a world of fire and brimstone and light and wind, moderate Virtue, moderate Logic. Sasha freaks out, Pandora sits on her, and it is discovered not that long later that Alone brought Hades with him.

I have no idea what the plot is past that point. I figure I’ll be asking Zander or another system how I should best write Alone and Hades, which is a standard possession that I want to be thinly-veiled multiplicity, because really those two things are the damn same from where I’m standing and that would be cool.

I’ll write it when I’ve got a plot. Gah.

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Oh abso-goddamn-lutely. I finally figured out how to show and not tell so much, and how to vaguely fix my biggest problem that I had forever: expanding individual threads so I didn’t rush everything. Now that I’ve figured out how to do that, I’m pretty sure I could redline for another writer struggling with the same thing. One of the bits of advice someone said that really fixed my writing was the idea of one, ‘always name at least two sensory details in every paragraph’, and two, ‘for the next six months never write ‘they saw that’ ‘they felt like’ ‘they wanted to’ etc etc, and find a way to say that without saying that, take no shortcuts and never say it outright’. Once you understand why they’re telling you to do that, you can go do it again and avoid the purple prose, but it teaches you how to expand things.

Instead of just going ‘he was sad’, if you can’t say that, then what ends up happening is that you quietly restate he was sad by referencing it in his every action. Body language. Tone of voice. Show don’t tell is advice that works great with examples. Take out every ‘they were’ ‘they saw’ ‘they felt’ and you have no choice but to show it without telling it. And it makes your writing so much stronger.

Another thing I learned was that a Mary Sue isn’t a level one character, they’re a level twenty in a level-three-recommended story. Their backstory is their plotline. This one I learned from Betsy Lee, with No Evil versus Brother Swan- specifically, Ozma Angeline. Look at her child form. Now look at her adult. Her adult is the perfect idea of an edgy Mary Sue. But it’s clear the moment you see her child form, that her every adornment was gained after she first appeared. She wasn’t born that way. Every mark she has is a part of her story. I first met Angel in NE, and I got to know her. Then I saw her in BS and I was like “is that fucking Angel???” and suddenly everything made sense. That’s a well-written character. Sure, we see fuckall of her arc, but that’s when I finally understood how to write a powerful character without making them a Mary Sue. Because nothing stands in the way of a Mary Sue, they never struggle. You set the Mary Sue as their endgame, twenty years after the series ends, and you’re golden.

The last thing I really learned that helped me so much owes itself to Seanan McGuire, of course the Toby books. Specifically: Luna Torquill. This is where I learned that allies become enemies offscreen if they want to, and how to give your side characters a true arc without ever giving them the spotlight. Toby characters don’t feel like they’re just waiting for Toby herself to check in with them. They go do their own stuff when she’s not there, and actively get more development offscreen without ever feeling out of character. Luna is the most obvious example, but Sylvester, Antigone, Tybalt, and Cass all do it too. Actually, the only one who didn’t was Connor and he died and I didn’t like him anyway. Luna really showed me how to bring my side characters to life, and in that understanding helped me really get how to write a character arc.

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Sneaking in metaphors and foreshadowing and recurring motifs and parallels, and doing so accidentally because I’m just that good. /lh No really, I love having parallels and shit in my writing that make me look smarter than I am, because most all of them are accidental and I only notice after someone points it out. I look like a genius. I’m bullshitting it the entire way. But when I do actively do it, and it works out, I like it even more. I love hiding little things that reinforce the storyline and atmosphere and add a deeper meaning to my work.

Like, for example. In Aeternum, specifically As We Watch The Hourglass, Tsuko pointed out that the state of the boiler room perfectly represents Minos’ mental state. She’s fine, she’s fixing things, and then outside circumstances causes her to fall apart and Alba just attempts to patch it up enough that it’s vaguely safe enough to work with, but still very very fragile and prone to collapsing at any second. Add in that she’s an engineer and this is her specialty and biggest talent, and it seems like a super cool parallel to do, especially since I really like reflecting my characters in the world around them.

It was completely accidental. I wanted to show that her sadism that canon Minos has is in there, that she isn’t totally OOC and just hasn’t yet become more like her canon form (he’s more traumatized and has gone down a path she’s only inching onto at the moment), but I also wanted them to get a damn bath so Alba could bitch about his hair, while showing that Minos is actually surprisingly useful. In order to do that, I needed the boiler room, I needed to show her fragility, and then I needed to show what was underneath that. And then I needed the threat gone so they could do other shit. In order to make that realistic, I forced her to not panic about it even though she really wanted to, and Alba did a shoddy job because we gave him like an hour and he’s running on little food and less sleep. That was it, that was my entire thought process. And on the page, there’s symbolism that makes me look smart.

When I go to rewrite Aeternum, I’ll be showing more of their early relationship, so she actually is useless onscreen for a bit, so the scene has more oomph when surprise, she has talents after all. (Later those talents will prove very important, but I haven’t written that part yet and won’t for a while.)

So yeah. Accidental symbolism. I love doing that shit. 

#asks #anonymous #saint seiya #thank you very much!!! #Anonymous

[hootpoop12]

Candy route thoughts! Obviously spoilers:

Lets start with candy cause I read that first and damn gonna be real. I did NOT like it. 

-I didn’t like the narrative pushing callie aside for John romancing Roxy. At least without an explanation. I’m not a callieroxy shipper but they have more chemistry and history. I am glad even John acknowledged how fast things were moving and poor callie being left behind.

-I really am not a fan of “Harry potter” epilogue style of everyone gets married in mostly het ways and has a bunch of kids. I did not give a rats ass about child Vriska, Tavros, and Harry. Like. Why were we given scenes of just Harry and Vriska flirting. Bizarre. That said this was obviously because Candy was meant to represent this sort of sickly sweet style of writing so no criticism there. Just not what I personally like. 

-DAVEKAT.....JESUS.......Not to fucking sound like Dirk but. Ten years. Ten goddamn years and they STILL have not broached the subject of their feelings for each other? There’s slow burn......and then there’s bad writing. Like.......This has slightly warped my view of Dave which my view of him is sacred cause he’s literally my favorite character of all time PFFT .............like was Dave...............really that much of a wuss to just...........not try? Dave has canonly been in a relationship with Jade and Terezi at this point......did he flip out at those two too or like did they do all the work in starting a relationship? I know that you might think “wow hoot doesn’t care Dave a grown to be a softer dude” but.....come on there’s being soft/emotionally intelligent and then there’s a guy who is in love with his best friend for a decade and says NOTHING despite tons of evidence saying it’s mutual. I know Karkat is equally responsible but Dave is my favorite so shut up lmao 

-Davejadekat: wow. That was some hot garbage, huh? Jade intersecting herself into that makes sense when they said her social skills were lacking but wow. She LITERALLY is the reason they both get married to someone else. Even when John lost it at her and dropped some fat steaming truth on her. She still married Dave leading him to just fucking settle. So dumb. 

-Dirk: Yeah that made me nauseous and when I went to work in the middle of reading I was pathetically in like. A panic/grief state. Don’t worry past me it gets so much worse LMAO 

-Jane......like............did the crown imbue her with condesce fascist ideals??? Where were the two nannas that could have easily shown a more sympathetic SANE side to Jane?? I’m at a complete loss over what happened to her and as I was reading I was like. Pouring one out for all the Jane fans thinking “I cant imagine your favorite character acting like that all of a sudden!” once again past me: You’ll fucking know in a few hours

-They did a good job of making Earth C just......feel wrong. All the subtle things of like how the characters reacted added up to make it seem super fucking ominous. Especially Roxy and Rose, like.....When they were all talking about baby names they seemed so out of it it was kinda creepy. One big complaint was how fucking repetitive John’s angst was? John would be hella depressed then Rose would be like hey this world is fake but that’s fine and he’s be like Huh! then back to the depression and then Jake would be like talk to your family and he’d be like Huh! and then he would talk to Roxy who would be like accept this fake bullshit world like the rest of us and he’d be like Huh! I mainly didn’t like Rose giving that speech though. Rose is one of the most contrary people who shouldnt like any fake reality but here is like welp I’m happy who cares.

-Johnrezi......WOOF. Ok it hurt but this is the one thing I enjoyed from the candy route. I know ya’ll are like Of course you enjoyed it you biased piece of shit but no listen. Amongst this fake garbage candyland.......they were fucking real. John keeping a selfie of her in his wallet was just..........peak angsty romance lmao All their conversation shows...........goddamn they care so much about each other? Even when Terezi ghosted everyone else.............she would respond to john and listen to his issues. I never thought Johnrezi would get this much validation but I am so glad I had one thing out of this route to look forward to. (Him tearing up that photo and finding the car....shit hurted yo.............)

-Finally my main issue which most might find to be my worst argument pfft how fucking STUPID shit god like? In Homestuck there were a lot of strange hi-jinks going on but it was like......Dave makes a bunch of funny weird items or Karkat makes a bunch of terrible time traveling memos.............The only time in the comic shit got like absurdist weird was when Dirk was telling Jake about the betas in their timeline. And that was funny! Just having one bizarre moment in a narration can be fucking hilarious and it was! Having like 50k of that bullshit was EXHAUSTING. Every time Gamzee was mentioned I genuinely recoiled, whenever Jane was being fucking. INSANE I would read a little faster, and the Obama thing with Dave near the end was just too much. I’m sorry but 95% of BOTH routes humor fell fucking short. Homestuck isn’t really funny anymore, sadly. All the economic and xenophobic jokes were ran a mile into the ground. This was kinda shown in that skianet arg that got dropped in January. I was a little annoyed by all the dumb stuff in it but like was willing to accept it cause it wasn’t in the actual webcomic. That shit was still sacred lmao

#Homestuck #Homestuck epilogue #upd8 #personal #Homestuck spoilers

[clownkiwi]

4 5 6 9 10 11

4: Do you like the rain?

heckin yea!!!!! everytime it rains nobody likes it but im the only one who does lol

5: Favourite flower?

look at my name. jk, i actually love roses

6: Do you like stargazing?

i love space!!!!! nd i love stargazing!!!!!! :DDDDD

9: Who is your favourite author?

dang, thats p hard. ig id have to say jrr tolkien, andrew hussie (hes a webcomic creator responsible for homestuck but hes also a really good writer for his comics nd other comics he worked on), nd id have to say @sofestivemuchpotato. not only is he my funching best friend, but hes also a really good writer who cares about the words and world and stories and characters he writes!!!! he also really cares about all the emotional sappy sorta stuff id love to put into my writing nd even my webcomic!!!!! (not saying that @officialsuperlove wont have any of that; in fact, quite the contrary) hes a writer i look up to and aspire to, nd jordan; the time we had last semester was sm fun!!!! it was really so much fun, words could not describe my experience there with you!!!!! i do wish you came back for the 2nd creative writing fiction class this semester, but i know u got ur schedule full already nd u got stuff to do. i do hope we still get to hang out with each other even after we graduate (sorry that was really long, i just wanted to love my friends ok)

10: What are the happiest colours?

id say pink and light blue. reminds me of the trans flag.

trans rights

11: Favourite baby animals?

hmmmmm, id say any baby animal is good but. i love baby crocodiles. theyre so fucking cute im ngl. also kittens and puppies!!!!! id wanna hug every kitten and puppy in the world til i die!!!!!

#ruby answers sapphic shit #sapphic-kiwi #anon #hey this was p fun!!!! thanks for the questions anon!!!!! <3<3<3 #i feel so much more better than i did like 2 hours ago srsly thank u so much #*to the tune of where in the world is carmen sandiago* how in the world could i ever thank you enough #send in some more guys!!!!! #id love to answer some more

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to The Old Guard

She Is Not In Any Way Playing

The Setup: It’s our first Reaction to a comic book! And it’s not from the Big Two! Written by Greg Rucka (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central, Black Magick) and drawn by Leandro Fernandez (Punisher MAX, The Incredible Hulk, Deadpool & Cable) -- a duo who previously collaborated on Wolverine and Queen & Country -- The Old Guard is about (mostly) immortal warriors who can trace their lives back through Napoleon’s attempted invasion of Russia, the Crusades, and the conquests of Alexander the Great. They’re led by Andromache of Scythia, but you can call her Andy.

Andy’s fought and fucked, loved and loathed her way across thousands of years and at least six continents, and she is tired. So when a seemingly routine rescue mission goes way off the rails, and just a few hours later her team learns that -- contrary to what they’ve believed for a century or two -- they’re not the last immortals left after all, Andy has to find out if she can still surprise a world that she didn’t realize could still surprise her.

Kris, who briefly studied ancient military history in college, really liked Rucka’s Batwoman: Elegy and his webcomic Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, so when he learned about The Old Guard he asked Marchae -- a BIG fan of Rucka’s Lazarus -- if she’d want to react to it.

Two spoiler notices below, but until the jump it’s just first-issue stuff.

KRIS: So we’ve both read some Greg Rucka before

I don’t think I’m an expert, but I’m fairly aware of at least the range of his work

MARCHAE: I am a HUGE fan of at least one of his comics!!!

KRIS: And he seems to be One of the Good Ones re: male feminist writers

MARCHAE: YES I absolutely agree and spent even more time thinking about that as I read The Old Guard

and this notion that I have about “super heros”

but also I like some of the things he examines in his works, at least what I’ve read

KRIS: Oh good I think we’ve all wanted to hear more from you about your theory of superheroes, so definitely feel free to get into that when it’s relevant

MARCHAE: LOL

I definitely will talk more that’s for sure - and especially since I’m reading Jessica Jones at the moment

KRIS: Also I really like how distinctive most of the faces in this are, just wanted to say that upfront although I am not super qualified to discuss the art

MARCHAE: So I’ve spent some time making connections between what I’m currently reading , a traditional comic, versus the indie books

Neither am I - but the art is gorgeous

KRIS: OH and for our readers who may not be super into comics (yet), maybe we should say how we’re reading

I’m using the Comixology reader on their website, in Guided View mode

MARCHAE: And I use an app from my public library called Hoopla

I also use  a guided view mode - however I definitely prefer hardcopies

KRIS: I like Guided View a lot, although occasionally you lose some of the impact of splash pages, and there are very rarely (but especially with older comics) sequencing errors

ANYWAY sorry tangent

MARCHAE: I am reading newer ones mostly, it definitely feels more cinematic to me reading it electronically.

I like it a lot especially for fast paced ones like The Old Guard

like an action film

KRIS: But I wanted to just get it out there that there are good accessible digital ways to read comics, which is often more affordable, and also for some reason Amazon is selling a bunch of Marvel comics at massive discounts

Yes! Thank you for getting us back on track -- the action layouts here are great

MARCHAE: Affordable and FREE!

and you’re welcome!

I am a newbie to comics- I’ve only been reading them for a year maybe less - and I am obsessed with how much I can relate to them from a screenwriting perspective in terms of sequencing and layout. In this weird abstract way. This was one of the best one’s I’ve read in a while in terms of the pacing with layout - and I love it. I actually started re-reading the book just to gawk at the art etc

KRIS: Oh you should check out Rucka’s web comic Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether [see above] -- it was like the equivalent of a page or so twice a week, and Rucka’s script for each entry was included

MARCHAE: **GASPS**

KRIS: I always mean to really break down and study a comic book or two but just like with studying TV, I end up being too lazy, and just hoping I’ll absorb lessons through sheer osmosis

MARCHAE: LOL -

I have studied the dialogue

I think more closely than anything

although I really need to study their structure

KRIS: That’s interesting

I would not guess that most comics writers do dialogue as well as Rucka

MARCHAE: It’s something about these short bursts of dialogue that kind of flow with the quick images we get that makes sense to me… I’ve read a couple that I really prefer

KRIS: I’m interested in how comics people obviously think in “shots”

MARCHAE: Revival is good and so is Alex and Ada … it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are super character driven

KRIS: and I think a lot of screenwriters don’t

MARCHAE: YEAH

KRIS: or aren’t necessarily really well trained to

MARCHAE: It is fascinating when you think about because there are SO MANY correlations between the two

because as screenwriters and movie makers we end up having to think like comic writers when we get to the storyboarding portion of the work

which i guess is more of a production function

but

KRIS: Right, it should be super obvious, and we do get TOLD to think in shots but there’s still such a division (at least in our film school experience) between learning to write and learning to tell stories visually

MARCHAE: I feel like with comics the action - even  in some of the not as good ones I’ve read is all about taking you to that next shot

EXACTLY!!!

KRIS: Honestly this is one of my very favorite parts in the whole book, just as a visual storytelling beat:

MARCHAE: I was grateful that I had the experience of reading comics at least near the end of my time in school… i did take a lot of lessons from the comics

OHHH

tell me why

KRIS: I think a lot of the impact for me was in the guided view

The panel before this is Booker trying to talk Andy into the mission: “He says there are kids involved, Andy. Kids.”

Then in GV you get everyone looking at Booker, and you can linger on that panel

MARCHAE: The guided view makes a tremendous difference!

it feels like a moving image

KRIS: Then the next panel makes you sort of realize that it’s not really “everyone” looking at one person, but Joe and Nico looking back and forth between the new guy and the boss

although I guess you don’t get the “new guy” information until later

MARCHAE: Exactly

KRIS: Yes! The movement is there, and can have this weird interaction with how long you can linger in a single shot

But I guess what I like about this page is how the visuals help establish the relationships even without Andy’s exposition

MARCHAE: And i feel like you should be able to tell the story without the words

some of my favorites were the panels without words period

I especially love the first few pages

KRIS: Yeah, and in a nutshell that’s what comics writers are trained to do and what a lot of screenwriters (including me!) are often too precious about their own dialogue to internalize

MARCHAE: its just a few bits of inner dialogue

(side note your dialogue is beautiful!!!)

KRIS: Yeah but I didn’t become a playwright

MARCHAE: YESSSSSS

KRIS: ^That spread is so amazing and efficient

MARCHAE: YESSS  and YESSS

those were my favorites

oh my word and its just pretty

KRIS: It’s not even a really dense two-page spread by any means and there are only like 30 words on it

But it tells us so much about Andy

MARCHAE: I’m looking at it now on my device and its in guided view - so it shows up as each individual panel

YES!

KRIS: Right

MARCHAE: and I’m hooked from the beginning and that’s what I think makes this story effective and invests you in it

Rucka does this with my favorite comic - Lazarus

also

KRIS: She’s a warrior, she’s been around forever, she’s bi, she’s tired, she doesn’t have a lot of meaningful human connection in her life

MARCHAE: And we get that quickly

and efficiently

KRIS: and obviously the sense of repetition

in her day-to-day (century-to-century)

MARCHAE: thats been going on for centuries

[SPOILERS throughout below]

KRIS: Oh sorry did you want to say more about Lazarus

MARCHAE: It’s okay -

I was just going to say that there are some definite similarties between the two books

Specifically just the idea of strong female protagonists who are capable and leaders

and also the notion of these women dodging death

All. the. time!

I thought it was interesting to have read and to be a HUGE fan of both books now

and think critically about what he means to demonstrate and also why i consider the woman he portrays more heroic than other “heroes”

that was a long rant LOL

sorry

KRIS: And there’s a quietly great line in chapter 2 about how everyone just defaulted to Andy being the leader because she was the oldest, so it was obvious

MARCHAE: Yes I remember that

KRIS: And I haven’t really thought about this, but it’s interesting and I’m assuming very deliberate that the oldest and the youngest leads are the women

But so matter-of-factly

MARCHAE: Yes - I did note that and remember being worried for Andy and what it meant later on in the series

and also the conflicts that we could expect to see in the future books

I think it’s smart  honestly and kind of this mentorship that also gets to happen between the two women

we know that historically women have a difficult time finding mentors so I guess it is great to see it demonstrated in this medium

I think we’ll eventually see some bickering between the two , but ultimately a respect which is also not often depicted in other medium as much as I feel like it should be

KRIS: I’ll save it for a little later but I did screenshot that great (affectionate) bickering toward the end

MARCHAE: YES!

KRIS: We often write these in a way that sort of assumes the reader knows at least generally what we’re talking about but maybe we should try explaining a little about at least the main character relationships here

MARCHAE: That’s true - especially considering this is our first time reacting to a comic book

KRIS: Oh my god wait I just want to show this page transition I didn’t pick up on in Guided View

MARCHAE: I was trying to find a good article that listed the main concept with characters (mostly because I need to know how to spell andy’s real name)

KRIS: The color palette!

MARCHAE: It’s beautiful I liked these panels

KRIS: They only say Andy’s whole name twice but it’s not the same both times!

MARCHAE: I have this weird way that I read them… 1. for story. 2. art with story 3. only with art

KRIS: Oh interesting

MARCHAE: even the layout is nice

KRIS: I’m not much of a re-reader (or re-watcher) but I should be

MARCHAE: I don’t generally - but because I am so used to reading “regular books” I have to almost get the story then go back so I can appreciate the art with the story

then just the art cause #pretty

KRIS: Oh man I sidetracked us again

OK so

Andy!

MARCHAE: its okay really theres is a lot here to talk about actually!!!

Yes, Andy short for Andromeda?

I think

KRIS: I THINK Andromache is what her name is supposed to be, since that’s what the Comixology store “logline” uses

MARCHAE: YES

KRIS: and that’s what Booker calls her

MARCHAE: I was all off LOL

KRIS: but when she tells Nile an issue or two earlier, she says Andronika

which I’m assuming is just a continuity mistake on someone’s part

MARCHAE: I am now curious if it changes with the time

KRIS: and maybe a reprint will correct it

MARCHAE: like each century she modifies it?

yes but she’s centuries old

and most important

KRIS: But I got the sense that we were given everyone’s “true” name at least once

MARCHAE: Immortal - she can’t die - at least she’s not able to right now

KRIS: So “Andy” is her modern day shorthand and maybe in the 1800s it was something else, but Andromache is her birth name

MARCHAE: yeah! that’s my deduction at least

KRIS: So Andromache means “battle of a man”

(I think Andronika would mean something like victory of a man?)

MARCHAE: I love your to the minute, on the spot research!

KRIS: Well Andromache I knew because I briefly studied Greek in undergrad and have always been a little bit of an Ancient Greek Stuff nerd

What I’m not sure of is in what sense “battle” is being used

MARCHAE: are the names from the same era?

I guess it could be two fold

KRIS: Like, is it a battle as in an event, or is it in the sense of “she’s got fight like a man”

MARCHAE: Oh i was going in a different direction!!!

wow

yours is probably more appropriate LOL

KRIS: Andromache is at least as old as the Odyssey

MARCHAE: I was thinking more of “battle of a man” - as in battle against one’s self

KRIS: Oh interesting

MARCHAE: like man against man conflict which i suppose is fitting considering that she’s somewhat immortal

KRIS: oh I meant the Iliad -- Andromache is the wife of Hektor

MARCHAE: OH YEAH

Also thinking of “battle of a man” to mean battle of time and life

we always want to live longer, better, never die

KRIS: I don’t know much at all about Arabic so I don’t know how old Joe’s real name is, etymologically speaking

MARCHAE: and here Andy is wanting to be done

I loved that scene where introducing himself

KRIS: Yeah, that’s pretty classic

MARCHAE: and we get to Joe!

So I am checking an article and [the Newsarama interviewer] says Andy’s real name is Andronika

https://www.newsarama.com/33272-rucka-joins-the-old-guard-with-queen-country-artist-fernandez.html

(also side note I feel redeemed and a bit smart that he mentions some of the themes I pointed out and made similar comparisons! )

KRIS: OK skimming now

“John Wick meets Highlander”

That’s pretty great

MARCHAE: Truth!!

KRIS: Oh Black Magick I should link to that [see above]

MARCHAE: I haven’t read that one

KRIS: Anyway where were we?

MARCHAE: Ok we have digressed again! I guess a brief synopsis of the main characters

KRIS: Right right

So we have this 4-person mercenary team

MARCHAE: Right and they’ve been connected FOREVER it seems like

KRIS: Led by [Andronika/Andromache?] Andy, who is literally biblically old

MARCHAE: Well it doesn’t seem like - they have been together for ever

KRIS: Then Nico and Joe (Nicolo and Yusuf) who met during the First Crusade, so 1090s

And presumably they linked up with Andy sometime between the Crusades and the Napoleonic Wars, when we get Booker

MARCHAE: There is a lot of history here

KRIS: And there’s this stuff about how when a new immortal dies for the first time, other immortals (maybe within a certain range?) start having dreams about them

MARCHAE: and that’s how they are introduced or at least made aware that they will be meeting someone new? did I read that correctly

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: HA - I misread your text LOL

I literally rephrased what you said LOL

KRIS: Andy had to figure it out the first time it happened, like the dream doesn’t spell anything out for them

MARCHAE: They are often killed or incredibly injured during their battles and they heal themselves which is how they discover ultimately that they are immortal

for a spell at least

KRIS: Oh there are some GREAT “match cuts” in this

There’s a really good one in the Nico/Joe origin story

MARCHAE: OH YEAHHHHHH

KRIS: 

But that whole sequence is great

MARCHAE: I loved the twist there

KRIS: So yeah sorry for our readers my mental leap isn’t obvious, but this is preceded by a couple pages of Joe and Nico during the Crusades repeatedly killing each other

MARCHAE: I sent over a few screen shots hopefully they will come through…

The book definitely has a distinct aesthetic that’s for sure

KRIS: It’s mostly serious but lightly comic, like they just don’t question it, like okay yeah I guess I’ll just kill you again

Oh getting your screenshots now

Yes the faces (again)! You can see the modern Nico and Joe even under all the facial hair

MARCHAE: you mentioned my idea of hero

KRIS: Yes

MARCHAE: and your point “it’s mostly serious but lightly comic”

that’s the thing… saving lives/the world is a serious thing

these people have real problems that are connected usually to slightly dystopia ideas of our current world

I feel like with more mainstream comics we are in some alternate reality all together and the people are trying to be funny and trying to save the world and trying to be cool…

I feel like in Rucka’s books (and also a few other’s I read) it’s rooted in something that i can grasp and their problems are real

so in this text it’s when does my suffering end

in a book like lazarus it’s why won’t my family love me

and it’s not in this over the top let me fly all over the place and shoot missiles out of my hands kind of way

it’s serious

it’s business

KRIS: But I think tonal variation is a good thing

for the genre and the industry

Like a lot of the recent DC movies are SUPER SERIOUS on a surface level, but they’re not necessarily handling ideas in an intellectually rigorous way

MARCHAE: I absolutely agree I guess in a world I could see myself being saved by someone who is more similar to Andy than say Captain America

I think that’s the thing I like is that it is this exploration of more complex ideas in these types of comics and I feel more connected to the work

it’s more accessible

KRIS: And even though the Marvel movies are lighter, and not SUPER thematically driven, they’re relatively smart about the thematics they do include

See I think most people would say Marvel’s tone is more accessible

But I think you might mean accessible in a different way

MARCHAE: LOL hence the mega fafillion dollar industry

KRIS: Like you’re looking for something concrete to latch onto

MARCHAE: I think I agree with you there - I want a take-away

KRIS: And I think the Iron Man tone is more “here is a world that speaks the language you speak with your friends” in a generalized sense

MARCHAE: I can give you that…

the more mainstream comics make the business of saving the world seem less serious

I also am a lover of drama and heavy topics so I think there is also the attraction - these people don’t always feel like they have be “on” to me

they are trying to make it

and that I can relate to!

KRIS: I think that’s because “saving the world” isn’t REALLY what they’re about, though, to the extent that they’re about something

I think at some point, maybe with all four of us, I do want to talk more about the difficulty you have with comedy

MARCHAE: It’s like an intervention LOL

KRIS: No! Well maybe a little. But it’s so ingrained for you that I think I also just want to understand

Maybe when we eventually return to Sweet/Vicious, which I still really want to do

MARCHAE: comedy is truly a challenge for me with the exception of a few - but even those make a larger statement in my opinion!

we do need to finish S/V

KRIS: I’d also like to see you and Keely talk about comedy

ANYWAY

We should talk about Nile

MARCHAE: that might be fun - Keely and I have talked about why I like her brand of comedy best…

OK NILE

KRIS: So Nile is an American Marine

in a Female Engagement Team in Afghanistan

MARCHAE: I absolutely adore her

she’s the “youngest” immortal

KRIS: So at first I didn’t realize she didn’t know she was immortal

For some reason I assumed she had abandoned the team at some point

MARCHAE: OHHHH

KRIS: But then she becomes our (great) audience surrogate

MARCHAE: Which is why I like her - she’s new- but it’s clear she’s competent

and is legit just trying to understand “what the heck is going on here”

KRIS: Yeah, and she gets to push back a lot when Andy is like “don’t worry about it”

But never in a way that sells out either of their characters

I feel like so often the “new one” is obnoxious

or the “old one” is a tired “Asshole with a Heart of Gold” trope

MARCHAE: Agreed! it is very organic and you can believe in them… but also it establishes what the relationship can be

I also think that because we know that eventually these people run out of “changes” to live - I almost felt like we are operating on a clock

ticking clock*

it ramped up the tension for me when reading  - my mind was legit going a mile a min.

KRIS: And it’s this female friendship that never really leans on “the women! they are alike and get along because they are women!” but also doesn’t completely pretend gender doesn’t matter

Oh man that freaked me out when Andy shot herself to convince Nile

I was like “WHAT IF THIS IS THE ONE, ANDY WHAT ARE YOU DOING”

MARCHAE: YESSS

Because she doesn’t know when the one will be

that’s what makes me nervous about this entire series …

KRIS: The moment when they find Booker [temporarily] dead was amazing to me

MARCHAE: like antsy and I like the characters so it’s worse LOL

KRIS: Andy’s narration is like “he’s the youngest, if he’s really dead it would be so unfair”

And we’re trained to THINK that means “unfair because he was so young”

But then there’s the reversal of “unfair to ME (Andy)”

MARCHAE: Right! But he isn’t young at all - none of them are except for Nile

it kind of plays with your mind when you put into context that one of them is 5000 years old? did I read that or am I making that up - either way it’s insane

But there is also this entertainment of how in real life we all want to live forever, Andy is ready to kick the can

KRIS: Yeah in the last issue Andy says she’s over 6000

so the others are ALL babies compared to her

MARCHAE: yet they don’t ACTUALLY live forever at all

geesh i was off by 1000 years

good googley-moogley

KRIS: haha

So we get what becomes, by a little bit, our central relationship between the oldest woman in the world and the youngest woman on the team

MARCHAE: I love that! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

KRIS: although the book really does manage to make all the relationships pretty robust

Nico and Joe are our romance, and where a lot of our humor comes from

MARCHAE: The majority of it actually… and they are some deep relationships

KRIS: Andy and Booker obviously have a lot going on because of her dependence on his tech savvy and then The Twist

MARCHAE: (but this isn’t unusual for Rucka which is why I’m #obsessed and why he was my entrance into comics)

KRIS: I loved how the running joke of Andy’s inability to learn new tech ends up becoming a totally serious, really important story detail

MARCHAE: It actually does and it runs through the entire story

it’s smart and well thought out and incredibly problematic in our current world

KRIS: Only tangentially related but I really like how well the body language is rendered in this panel:

MARCHAE: and intentional on the writers part and what I’d imagine- if I were a 6000 years old hero - a real real problem

KRIS: Here’s a better one for the “joke” aspect

MARCHAE: LOL

KRIS: If you had that panel out of context it would be totally relatable for a lot of people

MARCHAE: she is so clueless - and it’s funny

KRIS: Although maybe with relatives who don’t look as young as Andy does

MARCHAE: Oh god I know all too well!!!

It’s also funny because she’s so on top of it in every other area of the job

I want more of her backstory too - I am so curious - I’ve already downloaded the other book

KRIS: which other book?

I love her

MARCHAE: I misread - I just looked and it doesn’t exist LOL

😟 sad face

I was curious about what your thought were about the exploration of being immortal

or mostly immortal

KRIS: I mean personally I still find the idea of death terrifying, maybe because I’ve never really dealt with it yet

So I’m kind of in the “yes we should try to become immortal” camp most days

And I tend to feel that the idea that immortality would ultimately be boring or soul-crushing is kind of a self-serving one, to make us feel better about mortality

BUT

I think this is a really good exploration of it

MARCHAE: interesting!

KRIS: The speech Booker gives to Nile about why she shouldn’t contact her family is really really good

MARCHAE: and kind of sad I loved it (not because it was sad, but because it was good)

KRIS: And Andy’s ultimate epiphany -- she doesn’t want to die, she wants something to live for again -- is really simple in the best way

And it’s also really sad, and I think mostly unremarked upon, that it takes Booker betraying the team for Andy to realize that the team is what she has to live for

MARCHAE: yeah…. she’s incredibly melancholy to me and I like that she’s wanting to push again

they are her family

KRIS: And it’s great that part of how Nile pushes the change in Andy’s mindset is very specifically “millennial” -- she’s always hustled, she’s worked a bunch of jobs briefly and picked up a bunch of random skills

in a way that’s convenient to the plot but doesn’t feel TOO Convenient

MARCHAE: Exactly - I could believe and buy into each and every single character

KRIS: Everything about Nile is like, That’s So Real

MARCHAE: I wanted to be on the team by the end of it

even the emotions that Andy experiences

there is a lot of hurt …maybe that imitates from the page

A lot of it is in her inner dialogue, the panel placement and the colors

but you feel for her

and you want her to win and win hard

KRIS: So hard

It was amazing to me that they actually fit a Booker redemption arc into this

and it works because of Andy’s feelings

MARCHAE: they do! A lot rides on the protagonist here - And what I think is amazing is that she carries so much of the tone for what we experience over the story - because of her we are able to buy the rest of them

I think if we had been led by anyone else it might not have been as effective

KRIS: It’s very successful at being clearly led by one character but still having a really strong “ensemble” feel

And that first issue and a half have to do so much heavy lifting to establish the team relationships so we buy the motivations when they spend most of the rest of the story separated

MARCHAE: It really is amazing from a storytelling standpoint

I could see the movie adaptation as I was reading it

Its so well crafted

KRIS: I think this arc could actually work as a feature

MARCHAE: (have you read lazarus?)

KRIS: and not lose much detail

Not yet

MARCHAE: (KRIS!!!!!! THAT IS A FEATURE WAITING TO BE MADE)

(BUT KRIS READ IT STAT!!!)

And it would be beautiful to shoot those period scenes

KRIS: It would

(I just love the face drawing so much in this book)

MARCHAE: they are much more expressive than others  - I feel like other books Ive read are more sketch like

?

KRIS: This sequence was VERY cinematic too

Not in a spectacle way but just in a general visual storytelling way

with the elevator door

I feel like a lot of superhero books don’t bother making faces distinctive

MARCHAE: That bugs me too - I think it’s why i started reading them three times

KRIS: It can get especially ridiculous when people don’t bother drawing Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne differently from each other

The one issue I can think of in The Old Guard is that in the first issue, it wasn’t super clear to me that Joe was a man of color

And I feel like Andy’s skin tone was also a little variable, but it’s more or less obvious that she’s supposed to be from Somewhere In the Mediterranean

MARCHAE: I  didn’t entirely register that either until he said his name

I can agree with that too

I also get the impression that Nile is also likely a POC as well

KRIS: Nile for sure read to me as a black (or possibly multiracial) woman, I guess the color was just off in the first chapter

MARCHAE: it was refreshing to see a more diverse group of characters that’s for sure

KRIS: Oh shit my mistake I guess the Scythians (Andy) are of Iranian/Central Asian descent

Yes! Which was why I was so glad Joe turned out not to be white -- at first I was like “hmmm this is an oddly white book for someone as woke as Greg Rucka”

MARCHAE: OH NO WAY!! (Re Andy)

KRIS: I really should have known that from like freshman year classics courses

MARCHAE: You are much more well versed than I am in historical references  and I definitely don’t have a tremendous breath of the classics

KRIS: I guess we should talk about the action

It’s almost funny that we haven’t, much

This is very much an action story

MARCHAE: There is so much action that’s for certain and I LOVE IT

KRIS: And all of the set pieces are distinct

MARCHAE: I love seeing it on the page, the pacing of it, how the panels are set up and YES the set pieces!!!!

KRIS: Which is definitely something superhero comics struggle with

Guided View is GREAT for these layouts

MARCHAE: It works beautifully and makes the work fly

KRIS: There have to be some good interviews out there with comic artists about how that’s influenced their approach in the last several years

MARCHAE: like the action legitimately in this comic soared off the page in my opinion I wanted to be in it

that’s really interesting I’ll have to take a gander

KRIS: I do have to say, I wished Andy’s axe had come back

MARCHAE: YES! She’s fierce!

theres a cover where she’s flailing that axe

She’s powerful

the look on her face

even and her posture

I LOVE THIS IMAGE

KRIS: For our readers, that variant cover is by Nicola Scott, Greg Rucka’s collaborator on Wonder Woman: Year One

Yeah even though I’ll tag this as a spoiler post I won’t include the axe sequence, everyone should have to go read the book to see it

It’s short but awesome

MARCHAE: Its so unapologetic and that makes me happy as a woman!

(re the axe photo)

but to talk about action

I really liked this and how it looked!

KRIS: so good

The other standout for me was the Crusade battle -- the use of silhouettes in the night scene

MARCHAE: it reminded me of the old school batman TV show but also has this frantic feel to it like if you are in the room - the images move almost

KRIS: And the use of the BANGs in the background instead of within most of the panels is really interesting

MARCHAE: OHHHHH that’s a great one too

KRIS: literal background noise

MARCHAE: it reminds me of sound

AHHHH YESSSS!!!!

visual cacaphony

which i suppose is a bizarre pairing of words but the best i could come up with

KRIS: It conveys the chaos but also leaves the actual action layouts clear

MARCHAE: nothing is left to confuse the reader - which when I was a newer reader of comics was always confusing

KRIS: Oh here’s that great banter scene:

MARCHAE: these comics are new user friendly

KRIS: Definitely an advantage of indie books

MARCHAE: I like that one - laughed a few time reading this book like legit noise came out which doesn’t happen terribly often

KRIS: I mean I get it, if you’re writing Big Two characters, you want to reference the stuff you grew up with, it can’t be an easy balance to make it accessible to new readers and rich for longtime readers, but still, you can’t blame people for having trouble getting into most recent Marvel or DC stuff

Yeah I guess a way to describe how humor works best for you is that in a scene like this it’s like, cathartic?

Or it’s a release valve

You like it as punctuation, not as the baseline

MARCHAE: I can read it now but I tried starting with Hellboy and was like ABSOLUTELY NOT!

KRIS: Oh that’s interesting because isn’t Hellboy indie? Was it that you jumped into a late story arc?

MARCHAE: I am not sure… if it is… All i know is that it was a challenged to follow on the page

I think I started at the beginning?

Also YES! in regards to humor!!! It’s kind of like a sigh 😊

KRIS: I only know the movies but I’d believe it’s just a weird-ass book as a first comic

MARCHAE: I do not love humor as a baseline - ever generally

LOLOl

it was not a good first jaunt I didn’t finish it and sold it back and the comic book store owner was like what do you like - we chatted and he handled me Lazarus

and I’ve been hooked on the comics since and they all have the same tone save one that I like called Alex and Ada

We’ve digressed again

KRIS: yep

I’m just grabbing a link for Alex and Ada to put into the post [see above]

MARCHAE: yeah its drastically different in tone from what I generally read - but the characters and story were pretty good!

Also an Image comic if I’m not mistaking

KRIS: Yes

MARCHAE: Yup!

KRIS: (For readers: Image is a publishing house like DC and Marvel, but all of its books are creator-owned and independent of each other, rather than company-owned characters in a shared universe)

MARCHAE: Correct! The ones I’ve read seem incredibly character driven to me and tend to be more focused on themes and ideas

What else are we missing - I feel like we’ve covered so much with this one trade!

?

KRIS: I was just gonna ask you that

We haven’t really talked about the villain but I think that’s okay

Don’t want to spoil everything

We really want you to read it yourselves, everyone!

MARCHAE: I really hope people read this one!

Along with the others we’ve recommended!

KRIS: It’s very accessible if you’re new to comics, the art is clean and you won’t have trouble following it, and Greg Rucka is arguably one of the most acclaimed writers in comics right now so I promise it’s not a risky buy

although MM did you get it from the library, you said?

MARCHAE: I did using the Hoopla App but I will probably eventually buy it for my collection (I do have a comic collection and I keep them in plastic!)

KRIS: Should we talk about the ending? I can add another FOR REAL MAJOR SPOILERS warning around here

[the VERY END is briefly discussed below]

MARCHAE: Can i just say I was absolutely sad when it ended

I was mad indeed

but yes let’s

KRIS: I really liked it

MARCHAE: I think I just wanted the book to keep going LOL

KRIS: Oh for sure

But there’s just a lot of great storytelling in those few pages

Even just that first page in Malta

MARCHAE: And it really is a hero saves the day type deal and shows Nile and Andy working collaboratively

again the art is beautiful (I just sent another image let me know if you get it)

KRIS: Just got it

Yeah it’s such a hero shot

MARCHAE: The entire team really comes together!

KRIS: And the use of light is great

MARCHAE: (sent over another one)

KRIS: Yeah I don’t think I’ll include that in the post for spoilers’ sake but it’s a great page

I think the “zoom out” makes it

MARCHAE: but even the quote at the end is amazing: “ Soldiers live and wonder why”

and it perfectly encapsulates what this story is about thematically

why do they - survivors guilt

the desire to move forward and be better

the desire to end something peacefully and in your own time

KRIS: Glen Cook is a fantasy author you might like -- maybe check out The Black Company

MARCHAE: but you do want this story to keep going and be with these characters for much longer than the trade allows

I WILL!!!

KRIS: Someone’s adapting that series for TV, I forget who but I think for one of the premium cable channels

More great body language:

MARCHAE: http://deadline.com/2017/04/eliza-dushku-star-the-black-company-series-adaptation-david-goyer-im-global-1202076367/

There are so many interpersonal nuances in this book it was fun to look at

KRIS: I like that Nico is very clearly ignoring Joe here -- no word balloons, but it’s obvious that this is heated

and classic Andy not wanting to deal

MARCHAE: he’s turned away from him entirely

KRIS: (I love that I can say “classic Andy” after just five issues)

MARCHAE: LOLOLOL

she’s so unimpressed by the entire situation

probably mentally sighing

KRIS: So what do you think of the punishment?

MARCHAE: its kind of devastating I think for Booker - It also makes me curious about what time feels like for these people

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: What does 100 years feel like when you’ve lived a fafillion years already

KRIS: They have no friends besides each other

You don’t even really get the sense that Booker sleeps around the way Andy does because the team is a liiiiittle bit judgey about it in #1

MARCHAE: LOL they kind of are!

and it would just be complicated - we see that with Andy and her relationship

it reminds me of the first book of a series i like called the discovery of witches

just that idea of engaging in a relationship with someone who is mortal you’re constantly reminded that you are too much - and that the person you are with will never be enough for you because they will perish

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8667848-a-discovery-of-witches

(the text is now being turned into a major television show)

KRIS: I really love that the last two pages have no dialogue

It’s not a long epilogue at all but it also doesn’t feel too abrupt because those last two pages are a really well done kind of fade-out

MARCHAE: it’s incredibly effective - just as much as the opening which had very little dialogue

KRIS: I mean, just to really drive this home for everyone, not that I think anyone missed this, but THE LAST LINE OF THE BOOK IS “you’re alone”

And it’s so simple, it’s not a Dramatic! scene at all, it’s so understated, and that’s why it lands so hard

Andy’s not a Dramatic! person

MARCHAE: and you absolutely know she means it and is not in any way playing with this man

KRIS: ANDY DOES NOT PLAY

MARCHAE: Almost like I’ve worked to hard to get us here  - I’m disappointed and i hate to do this but it has to be done

KRIS: It’s so good

This will probably not be our last comic Reaction. Marchae really hopes you read not just this but other Rucka work. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter!

#The Old Guard #Greg Rucka #Leandro Fernandez #Opening Fire #Andromache of Scythia #reaction #comics #Image Comics #Kris #Marchae #Literally Strong Female Characters