Notes: Wayne’s compact communication tablet is of Minshan origin – it was a gift from Bloom. Bloom herself is from Minsha, and moved to Haquel as a teenager with her mother when her parents got a divorce. Due to this circumstance, she has an easier time than most Silnai in traveling back-and-forth from moon to moon, and does so yearly to visit with her father.

The ‘spectacles’ seen on Bloom’s face aren’t just cartooning shorthand for regular glasses, but are actually implants that serve a similar vision-corrective function. Plus, they have added functionality. She can cycle through different vision modes including thermal and night vision, both of which she uses to great effect when sneaking through train yards and other off-limits locales to write graffiti. On the downside, they mark her as a Minshan because this type of technology is not available anywhere on Shinma. Although quite fashionable on Minsha, they are a symbol of the class inequality of the two moons due to the ongoing embargo.

Toast’s robot’s name, Inaara, is an acronym standing for It’s Not Actually A Real Acronym. Although not his first robotic creation, it is one of his first, and by far the most ambitious and successful. He goes into some detail about his inspiration for creating it later in the story.

Notes: Niana is a levitating, orbiting city that serves as a port between Shinma and the other moons and planet. Although it’s not the only way off the moon, it’s the primary one and the only one available to law-abiding citizens. Click on the World link for more information.

Toast’s nebulous hunches about Inaara’s destinations are not entirely unfounded, but it’ll be a while before he learns exactly why and how they are accurate.

Is that a late ’90s model personal computer and webcam that Bloom has at her apartment? Well, not as such… technically it’s a late ’20s model, as this Zoonbats story takes place in the year 3331. Like Wayne’s compact communication tablet, this computer comes from Minsha and would actually be considered quite advanced by Shinma standards of the time… yet, as in our own world, the pace of consumer technology on Minsha is fast, and this machine is indeed rather outdated. It’s difficult and expensive to move items like this legally from Minsha to Shinma, and as one might expect, there are thriving grey and black markets that cater to that sort of thing.

From a creator’s perspective, I chose to represent many aspects of this ‘alien’ world in starkly similar ways to the real world rather than developing completely imaginary and uniquely otherworldly technology and props – many of which would require some sort of exposition to make their functions and workings understandable and believable to the audience. Ultimately it’s a stylistic preference, and I can understand the other side of the coin, of wanting to see a fully realized and very unfamiliar kind of alien world. But something that is lost in that approach is the palette of mundane, everyday details that I personally enjoy. Not to mention an immense amount of time spent arbitrarily designing an alien stop sign, and an alien wastebasket, and an alien doorknob, etc.

Notes: Good thing Bloom has that Ceb Nightlife travel guide. She’s well-traveled indeed, although her usual means of getting around when in Sil is via freight trains. And though most of her information on finding graffiti spots comes via word-of-mouth from other artists, a guide like this still has some handy maps and information.

Eunil, Ceb is the site of the annual Fromage Festival, some billboards and advertisements for which start to become visible in later pages. Initially a rather obscure regional celebration of artisan cheeses, a combination of happenstance and corporate sponsorship has caused the festival to become a huge and increasingly bizarre destination event for people from all over the moon and beyond.

Most of the decor visible in Bloom’s apartment is adapted from items that were at a defunct coffee shop that I was sitting in as I was penciling these pages. In the early years when I was starting out drawing comics, it never even occurred to me that I could refer to real world locations to derive my settings. It was a revelation when I saw recognizable locations woven into a fictional narrative. In retrospect it seems like it should have been obvious that that was not only an option, but a standard practice. But we all learn different techniques at different times, particularly when working in isolation. In more recent years there have been more and more formalized educational structures developed to teach the ins and outs of this literary form, so hopefully more young artists can get up and running faster, without having to reinvent various types of ‘wheels’ through trial, error, and luck.