Welcome to the first edition of The Word Smith's series of "Answers to Questions Nobody Cared About in the First Place" - basically, an unfaq. I'm thinking of doing one of these during the down time between episodes to comment on things that
I think are interesting (I'm not doing this for any of you, after all) that didn't come up directly during the episode. Think of it like the director's commentary - you know, that stuff on DVDs that nobody really cares about either. Since this is the first unfaq it's actually going to cover the first four episodes in one fell swoop and will thus be longer and more painful than subsequent ones which will only cover the episode at hand.
Lets get started, shall we?
Episode One -
Attack of the g4m3rz
The Street Meet Cafe (the name being a play on street meat, ie, road kill) was, visually, loosely based on a photo of the Water Street Cafe in the Gastown part of Vancouver. I've probably been past there as I've been in Gastown, though I've never eaten there. The menu out front of the Street Meet Cafe is hard to read, but it says "Dead Raccoon, Flat Squirrel, Street Pizza, Rodent Medley, Stunned Bird and Cheese Sandwich" (you know, in keeping with the road kill theme).
One of the g4m3rz (G3, specifically, according to my scripts) gained his mannerisms as a result of random stuff that I did in the thumbnails:
This pose was totally unplanned... it just happened and he just kept doing it.
On
page 3, pay attention to the furniture in the window of the furniture store.
Episode 1 was originally planned to be a one-off thing, though I left an obvious hook at the end in case I ever decided to continue it which I obviously did since we now move onto...
Episode Two -
Clerical Error
This episode was done for a comic workshop I ran a while back. I decided it was best to continue an existing project rather than start a new one. The plot of the episode was based on something that bugs a friend of mine - I don't really care that much, but now I can't hear the phrase "Can I help whose next?" without laughing a bit.
The Pen and her brother (not named at this point - none of the characters acquired real names until episode 3) were not originally related. I didn't decide they were related until I started planning for this episode. And why did I decide to make them siblings? Simple: they both have a bit of hair sticking up at the back.
Yes. It is. Very logical. Very.
The book titles on
page 2 are mostly some sort of grammar/language based jokes. It was a bit annoying coming up with that many of them. People who know me may note that Quasi appears on one of the books.
The Word Smith's first thought bubble on
page 3 contains a reference to Les Miserable. The actual lyrics from the musical are "There is none but me who can intercede in mercy's name, three days is all I need..." (it's when Valjean is pleading with Javert to let him see to it that Fantine's child, Cosette, is properly looked after... see
here for more details).
Page 4 contains a He-man reference. (Yeah, Les Mis to He-Man, classy.) I should possibly also note that the business woman and her daughter reappeared from
episode 1, seems like they'll become a running joke.
Page 5 contains references to Sailor Moon, Star Trek (specifically,
The Borg) and an
internet meme. Oh, for character design, the male clerk's moustache was an artefact of the thumbnails - for the rough sketches, at some point in kind of looked like he had a moustache and I decided to keep it.
Doesn't he look like he's got a moustache?
And we'll close out episode 2 by drawing attention to the
MC Hammer (why am I providing a link? oh well...) reference on
page 6. Also, the last panel was meant to recall the last panel on page 2.
Episode 3 -
Metaphorically Speaking
I decided to try colouring this episode and ended up doing so for the entire episode. I had read a bit about "
flatting" at the time and wanted to try it out. It turns out to be a bit of a pain and is, in part, what has motivated some of my current research. This episode takes place immediately after the end of episode 2 (which, incidentally, takes place on the afternoon of the same day as episode 1, which is sometime in the morning).
The Pen's outfit is based off of my exercise outfit (though my exercise shirt has sleeves). I also debated for a while on what The Pen's real name should be. I was trying to come up with something whose meaning was related to swords (since she fences) but they all seemed too old fashioned to me. Unfortunately, I don't remember what names I had considered or I'd list them here. Oh well.
Battle Scientist Malie C. is a typical "adjective noun name" that one sees semi-frequently in anime/manga. The idea of a Battle Scientist amuses me. In particular, this is meant to be a rather vague reference to a series called Battle Angel Alita (which I've never actually seen, I just know the name for some reason) - Malie C is the same number of sylables as Alita and sounds kinda the same, maybe, if you squint just right. It is also similar to a certain real female scientist's name. If you consider that in Japanese phonetics, L = R, well, you do the science.
The pink-ish haired character (dubbed the "Book Lady" in my scripts so far) was hard to write for since she's supposed to be talking in various mixed/twisted/broken/nonsensical metaphors. Not easy! Also note that her books mostly have
punny titles.
In one of the backgrounds on
page 4 you can see something resembling a
Feynman diagram which is something physicists use to describe particle interactions (I make no claims as to the correctness of it, though what I drew seems to vaguely resemble
this one). Also note that the crowd behind The Pen and The Book Lady consists of the characters from The Word Smith's
internal monologue back in episode 2 along with the recurring business woman and her daughter.
Fun fact: the blue flames appearing above the Book Lady on
pages 5 and
6 are called
hitodama and appear semi-frequently in anime/manga. I did some checking to see if they had a canonical appearance or not; they don't seem to, but checking made me figure out what they were called.
Those blue flame things are hitodama... spirits of the dead or something.
The sort of sinister seeming individual who conveniently has their face obscured on the last panel is the same person as the shadowy guy at the
end of episode 1, if it wasn't already apparent. Spoilars! You'll probably have all forgotten by the time it becomes relevant so whatever. Also, the T-Rex is eating science.
Episode 4 -
Surfing the Weeb
This was a mostly filler episode, as far as the overall plot goes, but I decided I wanted to bring the g4m3rz back, in some capacity and it seemed like it might be a fun diversion. The design for the g4m34z' characters was based on the (very small) versions that appeared on their
laptop screens in episode 1.
As with the book titles in episode 2, among the stuff on The Word Smith's
desk, vigilant viewers may note boxes that hint at Quasi Soft and a certain Final Reality, amongst other things.
I should perhaps note that Final Reality Online is only related indirectly to the Final Fantasy series' online entries as FR Online is based on my long running
FR project which is meant to be a parody of FF as a whole, rather than any one specific entry. In particular, the presence of
cat-girls in FR can, I think, be primarily attributed to
Vision of Escaflowne which I encountered well before FF XI was released.
The
googly-eyed alien on
page 3 was meant to be doing more of a "Hi Mom!" type of thing at the camera, though in retrospect it looks more like it's attempting to hit on Taramir. The statue on the fountain is meant to be a tribute to a certain cape-wearing freak.
Fun fact: the staff that Caelinandrica carries is called "Saturn-on-a-stick" (for real!) though I never found a way to work that into the script, alas.
I picked the colours to be similar to Saturn's. If I were being more meticulous, I'd have used the planet as a texture, or somesuch.
From when the adventuring team is being
introduced: I seem to like having dwarf names start with "kh", in fact I think every dwarf name I've ever made up probably starts with kh. That is probably attributable to the name "
Khazad-dum" from The Lord of the Rings. Also, for some reason, I made Kho's name sound like a camera.
That's a sudoku puzzle on the pedistal on
page 6, also meant to evoke the cloisters from FFX. Visually, the exterior of the tower is a mix of
Orthanc and the
CN Tower. And sentient-ish appliances have a long history in FR.
I think The Pen's character facepalms a lot in this episode. Though I think The Pen facepalms a lot in general.
Better get used to it 'cause it'll probably keep happening...
The Word Smith's character was meant to be some sort of "fire and brimstone" preacher, except with grammar.
Page 10 shows enlarged versions of some of the background characters from
page 8 (which was the only character design they ever received). The female dwarf is wearing a pot helm. I'm not sure if that's the same alien from earlier or if it's a different one.
For the design of the GM on
page 11, I was basically trying to make him look ridiculous. Also note that his outfit is red on the episode's
title page; that is because
GMs in FF XI are red (but otherwise don't really look similar). He's also supposed to be snapping his fingers in a
Q-like manner when he teleports everyone off to jail. All of the background characters in the first panel of the page had appeared at some point previously in the episode.
The sign off message "This ends our broadcast day" on
page 12 was something I always used to use for programs I wrote back in highschool (and probably during undergrad too). The Word Smith's computer was also meant to look a little archaic. The idea of the cat playing for The Pen after she falls asleep amused me, especially since the cat is hunting rats. Also, the whole fiery cow thing is, well, a thing.
And wooo... that was a bit wordy. Next one (when it happens) won't be nearly so long since it'll only be one episode!
Until next time...
Freak Out,
-TFitC
