Wednesday 3 March 2010

Cloud 109 - Episode 20

Well, Gina, Cary and Rabby's meanderings around their favorite form of on-line opiate, the weird and wonderful world of Cloud 109, have thus far, not been a resounding success. Their attempts to gain much needed credits via Cary's techie friend Matt have been well and truly thwarted and worse still it looks like Cloud 109 itself might be down for a long time.

What are the alternatives - perhaps more time in the real world?

But then when you see what Gina, Cary and Rabby's real world is all about the cybernetic chaos of Cloud 109 doesn't seem like such a bad deal after all.

If only Matt and his programming buddies can get the thing back on line...

Note to readers:

As you will see I've had a bit of a rethink about page 19; in terms of the book's dynamics it has to spell "WEIRD" and although I wasn't unhappy with the way the page had come out as a standalone piece of work, I didn't think it jarred the flow of the pages as much as required. There's always a catalyst to these kind of decisions and in my case, it was checking out new costume ideas for Gina, Cary and Rabby's next visit to the cyber lounge, whereupon I stumbled across a fantastic photo of a cyber Goth girl with those out there contact lenses, which I know all you Goth girls love to wear for special occasions, such as important job interviews etc, etc.

Anyway the lenses were the catalyst as was the lovely work that Jame's Corcoran has been creating on his own blog where he has got this monochrome plus one color vibe going on, which immediately creates it's own particular retro zeitgeist, so it's compare and contrast time as I run past both the options for you gentle readers.

The earlier pages from this ongoing epic can be found here.

7 comments:

  1. I've heard it said that genius is the art of doing a lot with very little, and it does seem that with that deft touch of the Goth contacts you have earned your genius award for this week, Peter! I wouldn't have noticed what was missing, but you are right - the effect now is much more powerfully jarring and weird.

    I just wanted to say too how much I like these characters. Enjoying the time you spend with characters is the key to a great comic, and they are like my mates. I recognize Cary's lifestyle in the latest episode only too well from my student days - which many people say continued well into my 40s :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. So glad you like the new look Dave, as you know only too well I expect, when you're the creator it's really difficult to be able to make an objective judgment. It's a bit like a chef never enjoying their own cooking.

    Cary's gaffe is a bit of a woman free zone, he does have a dad, but the dad's even more hopeless on the domestic front - as you will see later.

    Hmmmmm ... bit like me too I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Actually, I suppose if I'm going to be nit-picky then I'd say that Madge's eyes in the first version are creepier for my money because there's less humanity there. The pale green makes a chilling contrast to the blazing red-black of Gina's ensemble. But maybe you soecifically want to make a subliminal connection between them? (Already I'm thinking as much about what's going on as I do with Lost...)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Er... I meant specifically :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hmmmmm ... I think you might have something there Dave.

    Back to the drawing board for a couple of twiddles.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Now that new new version, I reckon that's spot on. But Leo would be the first to tell you not to listen to me, I'm only a writer!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Many thanks Dave,

    I'll happily go with your authorial judgment, we illustrators can tend to get swayed by pictorial considerations and it's really the dynamic of the book that most concerns me with this page.

    ReplyDelete