3-28 Enough
Friday, December 7th, 2007– Commentary –
J.D.: It’s always fun choosing a character’s font of power, so to speak. Because the font has to reveal something about them.
Leon’s font I picked because it seemed both strong and modern and yet hinted at an old world connection.
Craig: Leon’s font reminds me of Lillith’s, but a bit more playful and less formal.
J.D.: I wanted that connection between the fonts. But I also wanted to pick one that was distincly Leon. Azriel’s font, on the other hand, is very precise and almost cold.
Craig: Yes, I noticed that when he was talking to the Maintainer at the end of chapter 1. Azriel’s font is dense but thin, like the edge of a blade.
J.D.: Visually, it also made a becautiful counterpoint to the Maintainer’s curving and almost Gothic font. I like the curvature of the letters because it hints at his tentacles.
Craig: I wanted to communicate the sense of power flooding through Leon in panel two, and I thought that the most effective way would be to show his hair “throwing off” the hairband that kept it tied up.
J.D.: I like the sense of movement and freedom that it created.
Craig: As many of our readers noted, Leon’s color is the same as that of Lillith’s.
J.D.: And it not only floods through him, but also through the sword that is harming him.
Craig: Overcoming it.
J.D.: You see the same effect when Azriel holds the sword. His power also overwhelms the blade and expresses itself outwardly.
Craig: I enjoyed drawing panel 4, as well as writing the dialogue for it. We made the conscious decision to make this a rated “T” comic from the beginning, and that meant no uncensored swearing. I didn’t realize at the time how much of a potty mouth Leon has. 🙂
J.D.: It’s kind of fun. We sit down and figure out what Leon would say without the censors there, and then edit out the appropriate terms. :D However, that means I can consistently — within a given page, anyway — repeat the same symbols for the same word. Those into cryptography could probably go back over a given page and figure out what the swear is, but I didn’t think it mattered that much.
Craig: There was some confusion over Raziel’s comment in panel 5. He isn’t suggesting that if you’re not human, you can do whatever you want. Rather, for a fey to attack a human is a crime regardless of the human’s opinion of the matter. But if a fey attacks another fey, it’s only a crime if the victim chooses to “press charges.”
J.D.: So to speak.
Craig: This is to accomodate the fact that many fey settle their differences by duel rather than court, and fey law respects that. Therefore, since Leon isn’t demanding that his attacker be punished, there’s no crime to punish. This becomes more clear later in the story (note Liron’s comment in the next page), but I thought it worth clarifying.
December 7th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Before anybody reads the comments, I think it would be good to take a bit to think about this one. A lot of stuff just happened, you know.
I think all the magical power needed to drain away from the chains for some reason before Leon could take advantage of the fey heritage of his ancestors from 10 generations ago. I don’t have a clue how the binding power was overwhelmed, maybe it just wasn’t very resistant to magic.
You can see that Leon has his own, new pink/purple magic color. It looks similar to Lilith’s color, for some reason, perhaps because that document splashed with blood was the contract that made Lilith into Leon’s “mother”.
This could be a lot of trouble.
And he actually looks (almost) competent in a fight! How surprising. Maybe some of his ability from the “Ranger” character actually transfered now that the chains are dead?
The Maintainer’s will might have been undone another time! Leon has 1337 hax.
December 7th, 2007 at 5:46 am
I think that “Enough” is not Leon. It is someone else, maybe even Lilith. Or someone else. And I don’t think chains are dead, they are still there. They just are not burning anymore. Last time someone used chains it was Lilith. Leons powers might not even be his. But because he does have fey heritage I want to believe they are.
Leon looks dangerous. Very dangerous.
December 7th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I don’t think thats “Leon” talking. I think its Ignatius talking through Leon.
Ignatius was able to locate his grandson, and I don’t see why he couldn’t have that power to locate Leon even if he was in Mythband. Ignatius might well also have the power to read Leons mind, and perhaps possess or dominate him.
Leon would have said “Poot you, Poot your sword. and Poot the portal you came in on” 😉
That “Enough!” is being spoken by Lilith.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Heart-shaped petals suggest Lilith. And it looks as if the power came from the sword?
December 7th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Not only has Leon’s speech bubble changed, so has his entire coloring. He now has a slightly pink hue instead of the usual green and the sword even had a light pink fire running along the blade when Leon held it. I would bet that this is his fey heritage coming to the fore, not Ignatius. but I could be wrong. I hope it is his fey heritage though, cause that might mean he can start kicking some butt instead of getting the crap kicked out of him every time someone attacks him. Can’t wait to see where they go with this.
December 7th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
First reaction: wtf?
Second: last panel you can see his kinship to Ignatius very very well, they’re almost alarmingly alike!
Third: in the last panel Azriel’s sword looks ugly ;p.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Disproportionate, not ugly. The fire effects are good. The length of the blade in that panel (which is easy to compare to the size of the hilt) just doesn’t look consistent. Unless Leon is already using magic to shorten the blade as he walks towards it, but I don’t expect him to perform that well, really.
And I didn’t think that Ignatius would be possessing Leon, but I can’t think of a good reason why not except that Ignatius is busy watching both Tara and Mr. Rex Caligo.
I don’t understand how Leon and Ignatius both could have fey heritage abilities at the same time, though. Ignatius obviously can use his magic, I figured Ignatius had taken it away by the time he was talking about the scroll to Marcus (which strip was that?). I’m only inclined to think that Lilith is Leon’s adopted mother because of the pink effects, which is Lilith’s colors. Ignatius hasn’t used a color yet, unfortunately.
And we still don’t know exactly what the Judgment Blade does. Shame we didn’t get to see the dog eat it.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
First reaction: YES! Go Leon!
Hahaha. Man he went so quickly from jerk to underdog. He’s becoming someone worth rooting for. I think it’s a pretty fair guess that Lillith is the one saying “Enough!” in frame 6. It does not seem like anyone is controlling Leon. His actions and words definitely seem like ones that would be typical of his character. The real question is, IMHO, what is the origin of Leon’s powers?
I would guess his descent is a fair guess. It would either be because of his relation to Ignatius or the adoption papers. I’m not sure how the transfer of powers works, but his color definitely matches Lillith’s, indicating there is some relation.
The change in the chains has me wondering as well. The two most likely guesses I can think of regarding the green fire is either the flames were indicating magic that suppressed other magic and Leon’s power overcame their power, or the flames had the same purpose and whoever put them there withdrew that power.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
P.S. I love the effect Leon’s hair gives in panel two. The tie popping off and the hair flying up a bit gives the impression of a sudden surge of power coming from Leon.
I alsonotice the chains still have the same green tint Leon used to have even though Leon has become same tint (purple/brown?) as everyone else. I can’t remember exactly which realm each of those tints indicated though.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
@nerdpride: I was especially referring to the guard(?) of the hilt (I’m not a swords expert so i don’t know if that’s the correct term); it seems too long compared to the length of the blade.
I also agree with Maverick’s “It does not seem like anyone is controlling Leon.”. To me it looks more like Azriel’s blade has stirred/awoken some of Leon’s latent powers and he’s not in control as it’s new to him.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Mars, nerdpride:
You’re right, Azriel’s sword is a bit distorted in panel six. It was a case of artistic license – we needed to fit both Leon and Azriel in the same panel, and have them both big enough to see their expressions. Any bigger and we wouldn’t have been able to fit Raziel’S comment in panel five. So I had to draw Azriel’s sword a little shorter. (No pun intended.)
December 8th, 2007 at 8:53 am
But if this is Lilith, this must be at least the next day morning (after the date, see 3-22). Did healing Leon and the archon party take so long?
December 11th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Anybody else noticed what Raziel is saying? He says “…isn’t human so … is not guilty of _ANY_ crime”.
Archons and this realm must have pretty liberate laws. If it is not human, go ahead and cut it. It’s not like it is against any laws.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
In panel 2 Leon looses his hairband AND suddenly gains pink powers and can use the sword. Maybe this hairband suppressed his nonhuman heritage and made him technically a normal human?
And how got the sword from Leon to Azriel?
December 15th, 2007 at 2:01 am
I think Leon hands it back to Azriel in a gesture of defiance.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Apparently he hands it over to Azriel in panel 4.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Just dug back a bit and found previous instances of the “heart-shaped petals” (which are actually cherry blossoms) back in 2-6 and 2-8 (not sure if I can post links, so I’ll just point out the “Archive” link at the top of the page) — it’s definitely Lillith.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Nice call on noticing those ‘petals’! They aren’t around her text in those panels, but they seem to appear when she blinks between worlds, obviously indicating they are tied to her. Are we going to maybe see her true form here?