Shadowgirls

As I was reading through this quality comic, I couldn't help but notice an irksome detail in the farm scenes: That Is Not Corn.

Forgive me if this has been brought up before (I was unable to find any mention in the forums or page-comments), but I could not help but comment.

The "Corn" plants' physical structure resembles some unholy union of Tobacco and Bamboo.
-The Leaves are short, have veining branching off from the center, and are dense and bushy. Thus, the foliage resembles tobacco.
-You've got the vertical stalks right, but the positioning and clustering of the leaves resembles much more that of bamboo than of Corn.
-Corn is a member of the monocot grass family. It grows up from a central stalk with long arching leaves (with parallel veining structures) coming off of it at regular intervals.
-At its peak, it has a (straw colored) flowering tassled structure sticking up, fluffy with little pollen-pod thingies.
-The Ears of corn point upwards, not outwards, or hanging down. They are situated at the "armpit" of where the leaves come away from the stem.
-Biggest issue: The corn kernels ARE NOT EXPOSED. Ears of corn, no matter what stage of development, stay inside their husk, which is composed of long (corn)leaf-like structures growing from its base and wrap around it. Not short bushy frills around the bottom. The only thing that ever sticks out of the husk is the corn silk (which is what catches the pollen to fertilize the kernels).

Whew, [wipes froth from mouth], that's basicly it. Again, apologies if you have had to face this criticism before. I also recognize that at this point in the comic, it is likely impossible to fix, without a break in artistic continuity.

I have to wonder though, did the artist (hi there! great work otherwise.) simply...not know what a corn plant looks like? There are plenty of reference photos on the web, to see the anatomy, but I suppose he simply didn't look at any. Did he have some sort of strong pre-conceived notion of what they ought to look like, and hence "no need" to look it up? (I personally grew up with corn in my backyard, and so am intimately familiar with it, but not all are so fortunate.)

But, this being a different parallel universe and all, it's probably some exotic variety of "shadow-corn" or "cornacco", or some other semi-plausible internally consistent excuse. After all, it's the only logical explanation.

The thing to remember, and you wouldn't know this as it's not stated anywhere in the text of the books, but the cornfield that the barn rave is being held at is actually a uninhabited barn, not being used, farmed or plowed for at least thirty years or more. Thus the surrounding crops (one of which is tobacco) and foliage from the nearby forest has grown and intermingled within the field over the last three or four decades. Now of course, I wasn't 100% how that would look, so I admit I had to use some artistic licensing and fake it a bit. However, I have to admit, the bit about the ears pointing upwards and not outwards and not being exposed, I didn't know about that.

I will also admit, that as a joke, I also made some of the plants look like cannabis. :p

Unfortunately, at present time, all the scenes with the "cornacco" has been drawn. Actually... I finished drawing the last scene of it last night. But if we get back into the field again, I'll remember these. Thanks.

Ah, I never thought to take into account fields "gone wild".

There's still a little niggling detail that can be ignored for the sake of story, which is that domesticated corn is completely incapable of reproduction on its own. The seeds are tightly bound to the cob (and so can't come loose to plant themselves), and remain stay inside the dry husk until a hungry rodent comes along and eats them. So, after the first season of abandonment, there'd be no more corn.

Except that obviously, a few of the original corn-plants had a mutation which gave them looser seeds and husks, so that they could engage in limited self-propagation (possibly assisted by wise squirrels, as directed by their squirrely council of elders, and thus sparking the creation of squirrel agriculture), and over the ensuing decades, the corn went feral(or squirrel), and, with a little bit of magical pixie-dust it formed a symbiotic relationship with the tobacco plants, resulting in the dominant species, we see today, neatly contained within its original rows.

It's the only thing that makes sense. (if you look closely, you might catch glimpses of the squirrels harvesting their corn and putting the kernels into baskets strapped on their backs)

Mach Sabre wrote:Unfortunately, at present time, all the scenes with the "cornacco" has been drawn. Actually... I finished drawing the last scene of it last night. But if we get back into the field again, I'll remember these. Thanks.

Great, then we can bash you for inconsistencies.

...I love my job...

I love your job too

We all love your job!

I try to make it a point to only give constructive criticism, especially when the person's artistic skills far outstrip mine.
(If you make sure to call it constructive criticism, nobody can get angry. It's all in the framing. )

How long does a page take you, from start to finish? How big is the original canvas?

How long does the page take from start to finish:

It varies actually. Sometimes I can get a page done in about five hours. Sometimes, it takes a few days. (This isn't counting the various breaks taken, such as stopping to eat, surfing the web, television, ect.) I've had some pages that looked daunting and has taken actually less than a few hours total. And I had a couple that I thought were gonna be quick jobs that ended up taking up to a week. And then there's that whole Artistic Pride thing, where sometimes I don't think I've done enough to a page and will spend more time on it, even if it's good enough and done. This is one of the reasons we usually take that two week break between issues if not a little more.

Now, the pages themselves are drawn on an 11X17 Smooth Vellum Bristol. Now thats just the pages. Some of the art, like issue #4's Cover, the Halloween Picture or the BFF Poster was drawn on a smaller size page, at 11x14 Bristol. Occasionally in the comic itself, I might try the occasional experiment, but for the most part, I also ink them at that size too. Some have suggested I try digitally inking for me, but honestly... I prefer the old analog rapidograph pens. Was I was raised I suppose.

From there, scanning and coloring into photoshop. Which these days, is actually 50% of the work.