catharsis, page 3

this page is definitely a rough one in terms of pacing. i ended up sloughing off the 2 extra panels for a maximum of 8 to smooth over the pacing of the next page, due to the fact that the next row of panels was a 3-panel sequence with a visual structure that prevented me from splitting them up.

--let me back up: maybe you noticed that these pages are pretty short compared to my old pages -- some of drop-out's pages were over 40 panels long! fresh meat's hypothetical maximum was supposed to be 20 panels, but i went over that a few times as well.
when i screwed up my hand, my dog also got sick, and i moved out on my own, which i knew would take up a lot more of my time that was originally spent on drawing. so, i knew that i needed to restructure the update schedule to fit that. i decided to split updates into more frequent, smaller updates, with a minimum of 6 panels, and a maximum of 8 iirc. 2 weekly updates at their maximum would yield a little over the old minimum panel count, but the minimum would be a little under.
sorry to people who've already seen me explain this, haha. why i bring it up again, though, is because i've been very unhappy with my art for a while now. at the same time, when i mentioned the panel structure here, i was reminded that i've been putting a lot more effort into the technical aspects of making comics here -- like, the actual "wire frame" under a comic's art constructed in a specific way to yield a specific order of closure when someone reads the comic.
in some panels, it makes me feel really accomplished because i came up with something cool to resolve an issue with pacing, but for most of the legwork, this doesn't actually contribute in a way that visually manifests in an impressive way. i can accept that i'm using a lot of my limited energy and motivation on figuring out things that will make the engine run, but won't fix the dent in the bumper right now, at least. it's a skill i never really needed to cultivate, since i would simply add more panels if i felt the pacing would be better with more panels (most of the time). i'm hoping with more time it'll be more intuitive and less mentally draining. there will be some awkward pages like this that don't give much of an "update" in them in the meantime as well.

to me, the most important thing to preserve in this sequence, and this page in particular, was making sure that felix DIDN'T start his speech in the same way he started it in the previous scene. so... mission accomplished there.
in the script, norm was supposed to give felix a trusting look to perhaps indicate that felix calling out wasn't his norm (no pun intended). due to the pacing issues, he ended up just looking surprised. i knew that when felix said "i know this is short notice" norm would have to intuit what was coming quickly, but he would probably also be surprised by the interruption in the first place. at the same time, i wanted the shot in between norm's 2 headshots of felix to be there, because i feel that it's important to show felix losing confidence and focused purpose when he has to actually face a possible negative reaction from someone. a pause any longer from felix would be strange, so there were just a lot of confounding factors that made me get rid of this small detail in characterization.
when there are a lot of little conflicting goals in a sequence and something has to give, i usually have to lay out everything in my head and decide what the priorities are for the scene. anything that "adds up" to something later is usually more important, and then anything that would be beneficial to a reader's immediate reaction while reading the page. the trusting look was a subtle detail that could allow a reader to extrapolate metadiegetic paratext, which can be pretty gratifying -- but it's functionally unnecessary unless you add too much of it, causing the story to start depending very vague, but repeated implications. more importantly... most readers won't notice it anyway, ever, lmao. higher risk, lower reward.