Wednesday, June 16, 2010

What is this I don't even

The other night I suggested to Peter that we add a Q&A thread to the forums, in case you folk had some burning questions about how or why we do what we do. There's only one question so far, but let's have a look, shall we?

I don't understand anything about Little Worlds. I read to like comic 6 and had absolutely no idea about what was happening. Any advice? Am I just stupid?

In the infamous words of some illiterate, meme-making intertroll,
"what is this i dont even"

- TurtleMidget


Oh....oh my. Well, here I go.

Dear TurtleMidget,

You're not stupid. The confusion is half inevitable, and half intentional. I'll explain in order: we're a fairly new strip, one that's only just surpassed 30 pages uploaded. If this were a gag strip you'd probably have a handle on it by now; we'd have established that A crushes on B who is emotionally unavailable so he complains about it to drinking partner C. Little Worlds being far more narrative in nature will naturally take a little more time to get started. On the second note, I think that Little Worlds wouldn't be quite the same if we had an omniscient narrator to clear everything up. That said, I don't think we're guilty of witholding much information: at this juncture you understand the Duke and the Accountant about as well as Derby could hope to.

I had initially considered trying to break the strip down to explain it bit by bit, but it's not that easy. If you've seen the back-and-forth our in-character posters have been having with forumgoer Snarkalicious, you'll see that we're trying not to make Little Worlds a simple allegory. If there's symbolism worth paying attention to it's in the environment; so far we've been tending to set LW in places that are at least mildly evocative of urban decay. We shoot at night a lot (again, that's been partially a necessity, but it works). Places and times when "normal" people tend not to be found wandering about. In that sense I think it might not be unlike Vampire: The Masquerade, where unsuspecting people go about their daily lives ignorant of the glistening fangs which lurk in shadow. Derby has accidentally wandered into such a hidden world, and as it stands your confusion mirrors his.

In short, we have you right where we want you. Please, continue reading.

So about Tuesday's strip, these shots are from the same photo shoot as the last two comics, just across the road from where we were before. Lev is a rather...precise person (I think that's the word Peter and Dani used), and so here he seeks sanctuary among machines...well, ok some apartment building's Gas or Water meter. I think Peter and I together must have taken pictures of Dani from almost every angle possible while she knelt near that tangle of pipes. You've likely seen the chapter title page and the promotional shots, so you have an idea of where Lev may be going, and we're trying as best we can to segue into that world of Clang, Boom, and Steam.

The original image for panel 5 of Little Worlds 2010-06-15

Ninja Dani/Lev in the top corner panel really does look like that in the original photo. Peter did have to re-draw one of the arms in order to remove a tree from the image, but that's about it.

The original image for panel 2 of Little Worlds 2010-06-15

I'm dead tired now, but come back soon because I intend to expand on some old posts in addition to writing new ones (I'll be trying to synchronise my update schedule as much as possible to that of the comic)

1 comment:

  1. I at first read that as 'furmonger', and was unable to suss out how or why you came to the conclusion that I pimp out spots in yiff-piles. Literacy becomes difficult by the time Friday rolls around.

    In other news, I find this series to be absolutely fascinating both in terms of imagery and theme. A barely curdled cream pastiche of Gaiman and Gibson shot through with tones of poison-heavy LSD = :). More please.

    Smewchez
    Snarkalicious

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