Slow Beginnings & Changes
on June 16, 2011 at 2:00 pmHey guys. I know it’s a been a while since I’ve blogged anything on here, but I felt it was of note.
Firstly: Starting with this coming update, Sarah will be switching to cell shading. Please don’t be alarmed. It’s for the sheer sake of speed (well, that, and it still looks pretty).
Secondly: We know the opening is slow. We know it’s “jarring” to go from Prologue to Chapter 1–and it was intentional. I’m going to give a bit of a hint for everyone (it’ll be easier to see later down the track, but meh).
The past has been forgotten.
Not entirely but enough. People move on from things that tore their lives apart thousands of years ago bit by bit. The Crusades still have an impact on our world as a whole but most don’t think of it day-to-day…and that’s kind of where the world is when we meet Aila. Truth be told, I want you to feel like it’s a little slow and “normal” because when things vastly change–and they will–the blissful ‘ignorance’ of innocence lost will hit a lot harder. The world of Nox is also vastly different from many worlds akin to it.
But I promise you, the slow opening will be well-worth it. Just like the cell-shading! 
The cell-shading switch is so we can get to the really good stuff much faster. (Hint: Page 38 will be a sweet opener).
Chapter 1 does pick up, and the slow opening serves two purposes: One, to get you visually used to the town of Verona and its denizens; and two, to get familiar with Aila and how hum-drum her magical life seems to be. It is a long exposition, it’s true, and I’m one for jumping into the action quickly, but without this it just wouldn’t make sense.
I promise I’m not doing a total history dump of Aila’s life but certain elements of mystery would not come across correctly.
(And yes, I do know names like “shadow” or “raven” or overdone, but in this case, it’s due to her family. Last names like Ravencroft, Hallow, Spectre, Sacred, etc. are well-known in the Phantasmal and Banshee communities. Some names are common while others are more noble in their respective niches. But don’t let Aila’s surname fool you; look up some of the meanings for Aila’s first name and then laugh and think about it–honest!)
It can be a lot to take in, hence the long exposition. Otherwise it’s “sparkle puke” (to quote Sarah) with no back-up. There are plenty of mysteries to explore and many more fights and things returning–and I promise the war has not been forgotten. I want you to feel jarred and wonder, “Well, what the fuck, Stas? Where do these two things fit together?”
Subtext is just as much a bitch to write. But don’t you remember being seventeen and it seemed like everyone was keeping something from you?
Yeah, it’s starting off as something like that.
We get through this, we get some niftiness in chapter 2 and, I don’t know. We’ll go out for ice cream or a con* or something. Whatever.
<3
~Stasia
*depends on what funds we have and if Sarah and I ever get an invite, haha.
Heh. I half get the feeling this is in response to some earlier comments I made in a recent review…
Surprisingly we actually didn’t see your review ’til after! Shocked us a bit since we had just been talking about these things the day before Stasia wrote this.
Then we saw your review and were like… HO SNAP, we explained without reading this review first. XD
It was a very odd, but happy day.
Thank you for that review though, we didn’t see it until we were checking our analytics and saw that we were getting hits from it
Nobody told us that we had a review from you! XD
We did find the review fair and were quite flattered, so again, thank you very much
Oh that is fun!
I suppose some of my early comments in the review were no brainers, but I often search for some hook to start the review from. After a dozen or so incarnations, that’s the angle that worked without sounding inadequate on a dozen levels. (I suppose my perfectionism for starting the review is probably amusing when you look at the number of errors that sneak in afterward such as grammatical impreciseness and open-ended parenthesis.)
I’m very glad you enjoyed the review. I’ve had instances of cartoonists taking criticism poorly; one poor girl was in tears until I pointed out to her the things I said worked well in her comic and that I thought she should focus on. (And I’m not even that harsh of a critic, all things considered! ^^;; Ah well…)
I look forward to seeing what happens next in the comic; that’s one of the important things, and that you have pulled off in spades. Having interesting characters and delicious art is just icing on the cake.
Haha, we’re very glad.
We had been hearing some of the same things you addressed in your review and we’d been feeling the slow cadence ourselves. I’m with you on the perfectionism; I constantly trim pages or panels if I can. Dialogue? Pish. Characters change it on me because of what was said on another page or how Sarah’s art looks in the final product so I’m constantly kept on my toes. 
It was a hilarious coincidence to see the review. I actually was the one who saw it when I went through Google Analytics (I think Sarah said that–so sleepy-eyed this afternoon). I clicked on the link, went “OMG”, read it, went “OMG” again, then called Sarah and talked about a million miles per hour in her ear for a solid five minutes. XD
We work hard to tell a great story and we want to tell a story we would want to read. Definitely loved the review and hopefully a year from now our archives will be much chubbier and we’ll have more of a tale for our readers (and ourselves) to enjoy.
Thanks again so, so much!
<3
~Stasia