In the early days of internet webcomics, I feel like getting to page 50 and other such numbers might be worth a celebration or omake illustration. Sometimes, I miss those days… There was a level of sincerity and lack of self-awareness that I don’t think a lot of webcomics, or really even people, have anymore. The concept of “cringe” was non-existent. Sometimes it led to some wildly questionable stories, but there was a high level of creativity and experimentation. Sometimes I feel the internet has become too sanitized and self-aware these days. You can’t really be your most creative when you’re too self-conscious or feel like you need to self-censor to appeal to website terms of services and the like.

Anyway, this is just ramblings akin to “back in MY day” so feel free to ignore me.

Continuing on with more questionable story decisions that I find bewildering in retrospect – who just sits down on the sofa with a bleeding wound on their shoulder? Why wouldn’t you go to the bathroom to clean it up before hand? And ripping your clothes for a bandage? Gross and unsanitary. Surely Remi has a first aid kit? It’s a trope, but usually it happens when you aren’t safe and at home so I have a hard time excusing it. That being said, Thanatos doesn’t really need to worry about silly mortal concerns like infections so maybe it slipped his mind.

I hope whoever is reading this doesn’t get put off by my nitpicking my own story… It’s probably not going to be the last time I wonder what I was thinking in retrospect. Hopefully the artist insight makes up for any bad vibes.

For those who remember the original, a certain someone has gone missing. I decided it would give me a bit more leeway with the story if she doesn’t know exactly where he lives right away… Partially because of this and partially because the original cabin just sucked, I took extra care with first panel. Since there’s less panels overall, I wanted to make sure it had something interesting to look at.

That being said, it was a pain in the ass. I understand perspective in theory but whenever I try do it, it ends up way too exaggerated and skewed, I guess because I put the vanishing points too close together? I end up having to break it down into parts to really grasp how the various pieces fit together and I still kinda messed it up a bit… I’ll show what I mean down below, and while I’m at it I’ll include a picture of the cottage without the ever present purple overlay, since I spent so much time on it.

This was one of the pages I was dreading colouring because the background is such a pain. If I thought I could get away with just solid coloured backgrounds, I definitely would, but in the end doing so lacks a certain impact and so I can’t bring myself to avoid it.

I mirrored a bunch of panels to keep some consistency over which side the injury was and which hand had blood on it. Looking back, I don’t know what kind of person just offers the blood-covered hand to someone… At least wipe it on your pants first, come on!

Finally we get to see Thanatos in his proper appearance…! He spends so much time as a blonde in the early chapters, it makes me miss his proper colour scheme.

I tried to fix the foreshortening of Remi’s arm, but I think I just ended up making it wrong in new and different ways instead.