Episode 5 - Spam in the Place Where I Work
Alternate title I considered: You've got Spam! But I went with the Weird Al reference because Weird Al is awesome.
The Word Cave (page 1) - we'll see the inside of the Word Cave in episode 6 (please look forward to it!) and this is also the end of the meeting referred to back in episode 3. (I'd personally never want to work in a place with early morning Monday meetings.)
The most exciting thing on page 2 is probably that it reveals the Word Smith's real name - Gord Smith (on the nameplate in panel 2.) While figuring out The Pen's real name was somewhat agonizing, figuring out the Word Smith's was much easier (it's obviously "Gord Smith") plus the idea that his real name is almost the same as his secret identity amused me. I briefly considered making him Ward Smith or something like that, but stuck with Gord.
Page 3 - the first panel is supposed to be a (probably rather obscure) reference to Phantom of the Opera. "Track down this murderer he must be found...", "Down to the dungeon of my deep despair..."; also note that he has his hand at the level of his eyes. The perhaps more obvious reference on this page is the VR helmet in the last panel which is meant to be siilar to Mega Man's helmet.
Page 4 is chock full of references, most of which are probably fairly obvious. Top right is Tron (which I've never actually seen), bottom left is ReBoot (which was the last panel I came up with - honestly can't believe it took me that long to think of ReBoot when trying to come up with references), bottom right is The Matrix. The reference that might be least obvious is the one in the centre which references an anime called Sword Art Online.
Nothing much to note for Page 5 except that The Pen facepalms on panel 4 (she also sort of did on page 1 as well). I should probably keep a running tally.
Also not much to comment on for Page 6, though the Word Smith delivers the first of two cheesy speaches in this episode, both of which are cut off.
The villian of the day is introduced on Page 7 - the Homophone! Note the various "phone" imagery in his outfit. He's wearing the receiver of a telephone as a headband as well as using a rotary phone dial as a belt buckle. His weapon of choice is a megaphone. And, of course, he speaks using homophones. The second last panel is meant to imply that the Word Smith can actually hear the difference between homophones and, thus, can tell that the wrong word is being used and that the language is being butchered.
Not too much to say about page 8, though in panel 2, The Pen says "What are you doing?" for the third time this episode.
Page 9 - those ribbon-like things on The Pen's sidekick outfit aren't just decorative, they're filled with ink and can be used (as in this case) as ink squirters. It amused me that the Homophone would be weak against puns. I hope that my puns here were sufficiently bad.
Page 10 - the two guards are wearing earthworm costumes (neither of them are named Jim). The reasons for this should become apparant later on, though these character might just be one offs. We'll have to see about that. Also note that in panel 3, the hooded figure is watching recent events unfold via a book (you can see pages 8 and 9). And sitting on a pile of books may not be as intimidating as a pile of skulls, it is more thematically appropriate for the character.
And that is all for this edition of the unfaq! I'm going to aim to get something up for the comic next week, if only just an interlude. In the meantime, here's some concept sketches for the episode 6 title page:
Freak Out,
-TFitC
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