Sorry about the missed week. Last week was murder…
Ah ha! So it is a new character! :O
Well…technically no. Mr Nicolas has actually been unofficially introduced before, just very briefly. Extra points to anyone who actually knows where he showed up before (but seriously, he looked a lot different and it really was brief so I doubt if anyone can point him out…) :\
So for this page, I just got bored drawing rectangles and squares for my panels, so I resorted to several slanted trapezoids xD
…I actually kinda like ’em.
Maybe I’ll use ’em more…
Fridays sure seem like they’re gonna take on the duty of page updates…
Which is weird because my Fridays are actually normally packed :\
So now we’ve switched back to Janice and Sam. Scene changes almost always make me stop and think how to get it to work. Switching mid-page is pretty cool in my opinion, but is occasionally tricky to properly achieve. Changing settings between pages probably feels the most natural, but it’s often one of my biggest problems with webcomics. When a webcomic changes scenes between pages, I almost always go back a page to make sure I didn’t miss a page. Because of the usual “once-a-week” update schedule of a webcomic, it can cause a reader to forget stuff. A sudden redirection can cause even the most attentive readers to fill like they missed something. Ideally you would want to signal an approaching scene change by doing something (like a fade-away shot) on the previous page to help the reader guess what is coming on the next page (which I’m not entirely sure is something I did with page 131…)
If I was to start this page with Sam and Janice immediately talking outside the carpentry and then follow them inside, I feel like it would have been jarring. That’s primarily the reason there’s the top, silent, “establishing-shot” panel, followed by a panel without them. Only their voices are heard at the end of an almost finished conversation. I’m not saying this is a perfect scene change example, nor am I saying that my previous scene changes are flawless, but I do believe the way I try to structure most of them do some things right. Of course you’re the reader and the only worthy one to actually judge whether they’re successful or not…
Also normally a shot like the top panel would have the stone/cobble road that I normally draw my roads with, but considering the size of everything in that panel, I felt that it would just get too crowded and hard to read. The word bubbles were a little frustrating on this page as well. I had a rough time finding room for them or where to appropriately place them so they read fluidly >.<
What kind of person only knocks once as one large “KNOCK”???
...an unskilled artist who only leaves room for a single “knock” onomatopoeia word...stacked vertically -.-
Wow. I sure had enough commentary for this page. This was for all of you fans out there who just couldn’t live without my rambling!! >:D
(A whole 0% of the readers is my guess)
And finally, is there a new character approaching?!?!
Sigh…maybe I should just go ahead and announce Fridays as the new update day…
And scene end! This chapter’s nearing it’s end (just a few more pages to go I swear!). This scene was a lot of fun, working with trees and outdoor settings as well as small wooden cabins again. Also really glad I finally got to show off Charlie…er, Caleb…uh no, I mean Coy, or Chance (GAH!!)
Also dang, Coy is short in those bottom three panels. If you’ve been reading MitM for awhile, then you probably have realized that consistent character heights and proportions are not one of my strong points (the key word there being “consistent”). They’re not awful by any means, but I’ve never really made a strong effort to record each character’s size and their height in relation to others. I just have these general rules of “he’s shorter than her,” “she’s got long arms,” etc. Maybe I should put some more work into that stuff…
Just started a new job and it looks like picking something else than Thursday might work better. But then again I just started, so I don’t really have a solid answer on what day will be better. Sorry, the next few weeks might be kind sporadic on updates ^^;
More testing on the shading side of things for this page. I actually really like the more subtle shading in the first three panels. The idea was to contrast the subtle shading with the over-the-top shading of the bottom panels, but I’m afraid the last two just became too complex…
The first panel used to have different dialogue, but I changed it at the last moment. Originally it was gonna be something more serious like Dayton saying, “I could have sworn I saw it glow,” followed by Chance mockingly answering “Sure, whatever.” But instead I came up with the what you see on the page, which made me chuckle. It was just so ridiculously cringe worthy with how hard it was trying to obviously foreshadow something that I thought it was amazing. I apologize ahead of time for my terrible sense of humor xD
Alright. This is it. My record player really has kicked the bucket by the sound of it.
R.I.P. Mr. Record Player 🙁
Just listening to these recordings kinda hurts my ears. I tried my best to sprinkle some editing magic on them, but to very little reward. I’m posting these as a kind of final note and partial example of how it’s fallen. Trust me, you really don’t wanna hear what these sound like before I did what little bit of editing I did do o_ONOTE: I have rerecorded these songs on a new record player.
The sounds these two recordings desperately try to imitate is that from the album Live at Carnegie Hall (1976), by the band Renaissance. Please, I would heavily encourage you to go hear these songs elsewhere like Spotify or YouTube in their full glory.
Renaissance was yet another band to come out of the English powerhouse that was The Yardbirds. Both the lead singer and drummer behind The Yardbirds founded the initially unsuccessful group and they would actually leave the band shortly after its incarnation. This all took place before what is known as the “classic” lineup was established, which would see Annie Haslam take on the role as the main lead singer with her iconic 5-octave vocal range. Renaissance’s sound from this period would often be compared to Yes or Emerson, Palmer, and Lake, but would contain notable differences (a female lead singer and significant bass parts for starters).
This album, recorded in concert in 1975, was during the height of their success as the “classic” lineup. It featured songs from their previous three albums, plus one track from their newest (as of then) unreleased album (which would actually hit stores before this live album was available). Frankly my favorite tune off of this album is “Ashes are Burning” which is a long, but gorgeous tune with a large amount of musical improv during this particular performance (especially from Jon Camp, the bass player!). Considering the shape my record player is in though, I decided not to ruin my favorite tune (well that and the fact that the song is around the 24 minute mark also factored in I suppose).
The songs I did choose are still extremely excellent in their own right though. The first one is “Can You Understand” which is one of their more popular tunes. It excellently weaves around the different “rock” instruments as they reveal a much more classical approach to their music. The other song is “Carpet of the Sun” which is a nice sweeping piece that makes full use of the accompanying orchestra. Lyrically it focuses on the beauty of the world around us and encouraging you to look closer at its majestic nature. Both are very mystical in their sound and lyrics, which would characterize most of Renaissance’s work over the years.
Well…this is Monday LPs calling it quits…
…or at least until I get a new record player >.<
Could Coy’s “crystal” hold any actual importance??? We will never know…
…well, until the next page comes along I suppose…or the next…or the next…or…
So I actually wasn’t impressed with my backgrounds on this page. Yeah, honestly I felt they were pretty bad, so I tried to use more texture in my pencil shading process to help things out.
I may have an unhealthy relationship with symmetrical page layouts. Last page was possibly the most symmetrical page I had made so far, and this one ain’t too far off either. I’m gonna have to do something really lopsided and asymmetrical before too long. Also for someone who likes to do different panel layouts, I sure seem to do the whole small-characters-panel-less panel on the bottom of the page a lot. Whether it’s the very first page, or only ten pages ago -.-;
Shut Down Volume 2 (1964), The Beach Boys. This was a no brainer. Sunday I got the amazing opportunity to see Brian Wilson live and I’ve been hooked on Beach Boys for the past week. Sadly apart from a live album, this is the only album I have on vinyl by them…but still, what an album!
The Beach Boys got their start mostly as a family band. It consisted of the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, their father as their manager, their cousin Mike Love, and their close friend Al Jardine. The lineup would slightly change over the years, but most of their music consisted of tunes created by Brian with lyrics written by Mike. Brian would also produce a large portion of The Beach Boys records for several years. Their early music would come to shape and define surf rock by fusing the rock and roll of Chuck Berry and the multi-part harmonies of bands like the Four Freshmen. Their later works would dive into more avant-garde fields and complex arrangements that would really push the envelope in the music industry.
This particular album came right at the beginning of Beatlemania, and would end up holding its ground during the rush of the British Invasion. The record hit before the Beach Boys and The Beatles rivalry became a thing; a friendly competitive spirit that would drive both bands to really strive to release some of their best work. It followed their previous record Little Deuce Coup, another album arguably ahead of its time, which is sometimes pointed to as the “first” concept album (and I’ve already said plenty about concept albums before). Shut Down Volume 2 is oddly named because the album Shut Down already existed, but it was not exactly a Beach Boys album. It is a compilation album that featured several different “hot rod” tunes. The biggest name on the record happened to be the Beach Boys, so they used the name of their song on the album as the album title, which was “Shut Down”
Alright, so maybe I didn’t get too creative with my song choices off this album (since I chose the two really famous tracks), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth while! The first one is “Fun, Fun, Fun” which was originally titled “Run, Run, Run” and if you know the tune you can see how it would still work. The lead vocals on this one are handled by Mike, which was more characteristic of their faster tunes or the lower base parts. The second one is “Don’t Worry Baby” with the lead part done in Brian’s recognizable falsetto voice. The song provides an interesting contrast against “I Get Around” (which it was fittingly released with as a single), which presents a carefree depiction of a teen “living the life.” Whereas “Don’t Worry Baby” is more sad in tone and hints at danger as the singer must reluctantly take place in a race because he bragged too much about his car.
On a side note, my record player is practically dead. It is considerably worse than last week and I really don’t even listen to records anymore because it’s gotten so bad. This week’s Monday LP needed to be heavily edited to be listenable, which isn’t a terrible thing, but I feel you can hear it a little more in my poor editing skills. So not sure if I’m gonna be taking a break from these for awhile. We’re just gonna have to take it week by week o_oNOTE: I have rerecorded these songs on a new record player.
What would you have done in if you were in Dayton’s position??
Another great fun fact, the “raging bear” was originally supposed to make an appearance in the story. I previously mentioned that when I started MitM I almost began roughly at the beginning of this chapter. It would have introduced Dayton as a character on the way to go fix Coy’s door, but would diverge as Coy is introduced to the reader by being chased by a bear. It definitely would have been much more livelier than what Chapter 1 turned out as, but I decided to focus on some more world and character building. Honestly if I went back I’d probably write it like that to help prevent the boring information overload that I feel the chapter became.
Wow. There have been a few times that I’ve made mention about the symmetry of a page before, but this one probably takes the cake as the most symmetric for sure. Also since the last page had so many “panel-less” panels, there are none this time around! >:D
This week’s Monday LP is…HEY! Today’s Tuesday!! >:O
So my record player has been slowly dying over the past few weeks. If you have a sharp ear, you might have noticed that some of the songs have been a little slower than they are supposed to be and occasionally slow down even more during certain segments of the track. Well now my record player just straight up plays everything slow, noticeably slow. At first my reaction was to put the Monday LPs on the back-burner till I get a new record player, but I came up with an alternative. Since I have GarageBand on my Mac, I thought I could learn a few skills with it to do some minor edits on the songs. All I really needed to do was speed up the songs, so that wasn’t a major project anyways. The result may not be perfect, but I feel that it’s at least satisfactory.NOTE: I have rerecorded these songs on a new record player.
Now on the music!
There’s A Kind Of Hush All Over The World (1967), The Herman’s Hermits. And now we’re back to British invasion bands 😀
The Herman’s Hermits were another one of those (fairly short-lived) British Invasion bands. The band had a very clean-cut image, which was much different than say The Kinks or The Rolling Stones. They had an interesting band career with little success in the UK in the mid-60s, but a solid fan base in the US. Come late 60s though and the popularity flipped; not selling well in the US, but doing well in the UK. While they didn’t really record any new material after the 70s, most of the band still tours to this day doing small shows all over.
The songs listed here include “No Milk Today” which is a clever little “love-lost” song. The title and main hook refer to a sign that the main singer leaves to the milkman for less milk after his lover has moved and left him. There’s this cool relation between the somber verses in a minor key and the more hopeful, upbeat chorus wrote in the complementing major key. Also cool fact that this is one of the songs produced by John Paul Jones before he joined Led Zeppelin. The other song is “East West” (sometimes written “East-West”). This is a song quite simply about a young boy band that’s found success and is touring the world, but can’t help thinking and longing for home.
I was really torn about what songs to choose off this record because there are so many good ones. The song that came in a solid third place though was their cover of The Kinks song “Dandy” which I might enjoy just a little more than the original. Both songs I did choose though are written by the same songwriter, Graham Gouldman. Gouldman would write several songs for the Herman’s Hermits and other British bands of the British Invasion era before joining the art pop band 10cc in the 70s (there’s another unique band I would highly recommend and hope to feature sometime).
