The centerpiece of Perpetual Motion is the conversation between Bud and the inventor on pages 4 and 5 and the first part of page 6. I decided this morning to lay it out all at once to make sure it flowed decently. So I have three pages on the boards at various stages of completion and they should be coming off fairly quickly. Here’s page 4:
I feel sort of like I’m cheating here with the big blank subpanel in panel 3. But when you’re a great believer in typesetting as a special effect in comics, you get to leave the appropriate space blank in the pencils with a clean conscience. There are quite a few changes in this panel, both to the dialog and the art. Normally I am not keen on rewriting dialog specifically so it fits better on the page, but if you can make a line both better and better fitting, then that’s a good thing. Bud’s new line is both. On the other hand, the Inventor’s rant is pretty compartmentalized and jumps from idea to idea, so flipping the “engraved on a plate” line and the “hunk of junk” line doesn’t really change much. Plus not having “engraved on a plate” right above the image of the engraved plate seems less pushy.
Since I put the barista in an apron, I changed the Inventor’s costume to bib overalls so they wouldn’t look too much the same. Bud continues to rock the conductor’s uniform.
a cartoonist in Kekionga 