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Bloom Banks

« "Thirsty Coin" Grady‹ BizaJisounCedzik ›Wayne Molly »

Page 2

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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.

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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time… yet, as in our own world, the pace of consumer technology on Minsha is fast, and this machine is indeed rather outdated.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.

 

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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.

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Notes: Are the streets of Haquel really this curvy, or is it just because of the lens that I draw everything through? Well, a little of both, I guess. Here we get to catch a glimpse not only of the city and Bloom’s place of employment, but also her method of rationalizing laying an entire week’s worth of work shifts on an unsuspecting co-worker. At least she’s thoughtful enough to sweeten the raw deal with the promise of bringing back some mixtapes.

The marquee and outer entrance area to the Belladonna Theatre are based on the State Theater in Olympia, Washington, although that theater has been dedicated to live stage plays for many years now. When I first arrived in Olympia, it was a 99c second-run movie theater with three screens. Judging by the Belladonna’s marquee, it might have either three or six screens.

The actual factuals of working in a movie theater, as well as the name Belladonna Theatre, are based on my experiences as a 16-year-old, with my second job ever. I worked at the Belle Meade Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee, which was a magnificent single-screen art deco theater. At the time I came along, it was on its last legs, as it had been managed with great disinterest by a regional movie theater company that I suppose isn’t worth naming here. One of the main problems was that movies were booked into the theater for far too long, especially considering it had only a single screen (gigantic and beautiful though it was, with an occasionally-used 70mm projector). As a result, I saw movies like The Godfather Part III and Rocky V as many times as probably anyone has seen them, and almost certainly more than most would want to.

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Looks like another example of Shinma being stuck with the old tech, as Toast selects some tunes via the ride’s cassette deck. On the other hand, in our present-day world the cassette has proven itself to have some resilient cultural cachet among the hip. For one thing, among regular folks who don’t have specialized equipment, it’s a real-time operation to copy and make mixtapes, leading to a bit more intimate, handmade feeling than arranging a playlist on a computer screen. It’s also got an undeniably distinct sound, which ever so gradually gets softer with each play. Personally, I prefer the clarity of other formats, but there’s definitely a strong sentimental feeling to cassette tapes.

We get our first glimpse inside the concession area of the Belladonna Theatre, which is pretty much identical to the same area of the theater I worked in as a 16-year-old, the historic Belle Meade Theatre. I mainly remember it as an immensely quiet place – primarily because of the lack of crowds due to prolonged mismanagement by the parent company – yet it was enlivened by the odd and funny crew who’d been assembled to operate it. Definitely lots of stories to tell from that era, but it’ll be a while before I can get to any of them, as this is just the beginning of a road trip.

In the same era from which these setting details spring, I was driving that old Corolla I mentioned previously. It had a tape deck, but due to some haphazard wiring, the playback speed was somewhat variable depending on the speed of the car itself. This phenomenon seemed to be particularly noticeable in cold weather.

Page 55

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A pit stop at the 4 Moons for fuel (and relief in the – pardon me – W.C.). Looks like Bloom has not been swayed by the ad for the 96 oz. soda.

For reference for this gas station, I just walked over to the gas station near my parents’ house one summer morning, sat down and sketched it out. What a blazingly hot, humid summer morning in Nashville that was. I remember it taking me about ten minutes to sketch it, and by the time I was mid-way through that, sweat was running in rivulets down my torso. Man, that was fun! Ain’t nothing like the real thing. I’m in favor of any kind of reference material for backgrounds, and these days there are more and more easily accessible ways to find it, but drawing from life is the most fun, no doubt.

Page 56

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Toast references “the robots they’ve got on Minsha” – no doubt Bloom is familiar with them as well, considering her Minshan roots (more on that in Chapter 5, approximately 100 pages from this one) – but generally speaking, Minshan technology is decades ahead of what’s available on Shinma, due in no small part to the embargo.

Looking back at this page as I type this up (I’m currently working on Chapter 5, like I mentioned above), I’m reflecting on the differences between drawing with ink on paper, as I did then, and on the computer tablet, as I’ve been doing for the past six months. For me, there are pros and cons to both. But in particular, on this page, it was so time-consuming to draw a chainlink fence in negative space as I did in the second panel, and the treeline and interstate lights in the third panel. With the tablet, it’s so easy to draw in white on black… not to mention how much easier it is to erase the “ink” if a line goes stray.  Nowadays I spend a lot less time penciling, too, because I can just as easily “undo” and keep re-drawing until a line is perfect. Of course, there are drawbacks as well, and nothing can really match the look of ink on paper, at least not in the eyes of people who have worked extensively with ink on paper.

Page 57

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Well, what can I say, other than – everything should include Dragon Mode. Our toasters, our footstools and coffee mugs, our jello molds, everything. Another thing that occurs to me is that Toast is crazy, and must be very well-organized and persistent to build this thing. I just wish I didn’t draw him so badly, so often – especially in this chapter. I’m not going to say too much more about that, because I could pretty much criticize my own drawings on every page of this story. But anyway, back to the page at hand, and Dragon Mode… Bloom doesn’t have any recollection of this. Can we surmise that this might be a case of feature creep? Hopefully Toast really planned this out well… not to mention assembling the thing to the highest quality specifications. Maybe we’ll find out many millions of pages from now…

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I guess I’m not above putting in a tried-and-true schematic-folding gag in here and there. And who wouldn’t want to pore over someone else’s logic flow charts while cruising down the highway in the middle of the night?

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