Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio
From the Chronicles of Sa’dish, Historian to Va’namir VII, Emperor of the tir’a People - All could see the madness of the terrachians would never let them listen to reasonable voices. Their ears were filled with blood. Once we began to weep for our own lost children, there were no reasonable voices left to be heard.
So, Cliff, the artwork is gorgeous throughout, and that comes as no surprise. On the other hand no traditional FX sound effects or dialogue balloons? Three silent pages with only the caption above for direction. Are we going down a Prince Valiant road here? Just curious.
No. There will be balloons in the next episode. I am following Valiant rules, though. No sound effects (well, very few anyway), no thought balloons, and very few captions. Also, I have a very taciturn hero, who seldom speaks. So this won’t what you’d call “word-heavy”.
The opening was influenced by the great Howard Hawks western, Rio Bravo. In that, John Wayne, Claude Akins and Dean Martin (among others) are on screen for a good 10-minutes without saying a word.
Cliff
Gotcha. And no better classic to ape than Rio Bravo. You got taste, amigo.
The difference is, and not to sound a pill, Rio Bravo allows you to take in much more information being a motion picture. The nuances of the actors, the location, etc.
As a writer, though, if you don’t take some chances, you end up just doing what everybody else does. That would just be a very, very dull thing.