The Astonishing Excursions of Helen Narbon & Co, Chapter Five.
January 6, 2008 ~ 9 Comments
Because my handwriting is both distinctive and crappy, I had Andrew do Mell’s writing in the first panel. As it turned out, his handwriting is about as bad as mine, so it wasn’t much of an improvement. In later installments, I used a font. And no, I don’t know how Helen is able to hear Mell’s diary voiceover.
Victorian Madblood has a thing for the slow burn.
That’s “O2 recycling” in the second panel, not “Oz recycling.” Whatever that would be. My lettering really is pretty awful.
I drew this chapter at the very last minute, so there’s some especially crappy art and lettering in here. The lower two tiers of this page were inked by Andrew, a brilliant time-saving measure that unfortunately makes them look completely different from the rest of the comic. That’s why the Hapax Legomenon, in his first appearance, looks nothing like he does in any subsequent appearance. As it turns out, there are only so many Narbonic-related tasks I can reasonably force Andrew to do for me.
I just wanted to stick Dave’s ass in a porthole. Is that so wrong?
This is pretty close to the final design of the Hapax Legomenon, although I got rid of the disturbingly full and luscious lips. I like that his tongue has one of those worm-like protrusions that snapping turtles have to lure fish into their jaws.
At this point, I had already decided that all the Madblood-related storylines in Narbonic would have Indiana Jones/Harry Potter-style “Professor Madblood and the _______” titles (although I never got to use my favorite, “Professor Madblood and the Pompatus of Love”). The Victorian chapter title follows the same formula.
That reminds me: how did Helen solve the problem of O2 recycling? Reverse-respiration gerbils, perhaps?
Goodness! They’ve just encountered aliens! Extra-terrestrial beings! Men from the stars! …Was it too much to hope that this occasion would be slightly more auspicious?
I like the Hapax’s font.
I didn’t even notice the change in inking. I figured the Hapax was just deformed by the process of squeezing through a porthole rather smaller than it’s body.
I read “Oe recycling”, and wondered if it was a Victorian literary reference.
Oz recycling is how you get fourteen books out of the same basic concept! Obviously. But yes, I think we all knew you meant O2. Though chemical formulae like that are probably an anachronism. And, like Leon, I want to know how Helen solved the problem. Or at least how she addressed it.
I concur with Rachel, that is an awesome font – except that it’s hand-lettering probably, since you just told us everything else was at this point, which makes it even more awesome.
I didn’t notice the change in inking either. Color me unobservant. And you can have Andrew do the coloring if you want.
Dan, I hope you like black. 🙂
Fonts can be hand-lettered. 🙂 (cf. The dragons at Ozy and Millie)
From a comment in Language Hat : (http://www.languagehat.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=3312)
A hapax legomenon (pl. hapax legomena, though sometimes called hapaxes for short) is a word which occurs only once in the written record of a language, in the works of an author, or in a single text.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon
Whenever I see the term ‘Hapax Legomena”, I immediately, without fail, am subconciously interperting it as taking after the Shriekback song of the same name. This is mostly because I am a devoted Shriekback fan at this point, but also because that’s one of the first places I encountered the term. Eventually I would discover that the clever lead singer for the band, Barry Andrews, had created a neat video to go along with it. Intriguing little thing, that. I eventually dsicovered it was not his only venture into film, and..
Oh dear this anecdote got a little carried away, didn’t it.