This was a bit of a funny page, since there’s literally no light source in the first few panels – I realised I had to either do the complete cop out of pure black (with optional googly eyes) or figure out how on earth one paints the concept of Eigengrau. German has a word for everything, I swear. So I gave the Eigengrau a shot, whether it worked out or not is up for debate… but, I did try.
On a related note, while “researching” this page I sat in the dark in my room for about fifteen minutes to get a proper sense of it, only to be forcefully reminded upon turning the lights back of my ridiculous photic sneeze reflex. I was sneezing on and off for like half an hour. THE THINGS I DO FOR THIS COMIC
0 thoughts on “Page 224”
Kosake
Well, the result was worth it, I dare say…
Besides, German is really good for creating words for stuff since you can add nouns into a chain untill you get an exact description of what exactly you mean.
Moe
Well, that’s not entirely true, because after adding more than two or three words together it starts sounding more and more ridiculous – even for a German. 😉 I always wondered why these compound nouns seem to be such a big deal for non German speakers, except for the cliché, of course *g*. I mean, you can do similar things in English, too. If you are talking about your “football coach” you already went two thirds of the way to join three nouns, just drop the last space. 😉
BTW: I like how the page turned out. The sacrifice you make are worth the result.
Kosake
While the ridiculous part is true, it still provides a crafty tool if you’re into exact determinations. Lawyers and other folks wich work a lot with jurisdiction consider German to be the perfect language for making laws (or making laws completely awfullsounding, complicated horrors, you be the judge). For some reason German can be really precise about a lot of things. Maybe that’s part of the cliche about the acurate, pedantic german.
By the way, after this blueish light Adrianna’s sense of contrast should drop for one or two minutes, so the “black page with googly eyes” is still an option :-p
JefLebowski
Ah, yes. beurocrats german. The german used in lawpapers and so on. There are some examples that are just ridicolous. *Lebensabschnittsgemeinschaft* might be a good example.
U…this *This page is great*-button should be introduced soonish. saves me some typing xD
Andreas
Well… the most significant benefit of german compounded nouns is – to non-germans – that they’re phonetically appealing, but weird-sounding, all the while being almost but not entirely unanalyzable. It’s just the right kind of complexity.
Owngrey just isn’t the same, though Ouhngrei could work 😀
Slamlander
Technically, you can do that to English as well. That’s what hyphenated words are. Modern rules let you drop the hyphens. English *is* a Teutonic based language, after all.
Few people know that Yoda-speak a legal English grammar form is. Strange it sounds, because it most modern forms of style, it violates. Your parser, you have to adjust. Styles, not language rules are. Punctuation, important is. Yoda-speak, a master you will become.
Slamlander
Correction:
Few people know that Yoda-speak a legal English grammar form is. Strange it sounds, because most modern forms of style, it violates. Your parser, adjust, you have to . Styles, not language rules are. Styles, a fashion statement are. Fashion and rules, confuse not! Punctuation, important is. Yoda-speak, a master you will become.
Moe
*g*
Kosake
A shot give it, I shall. Frown upon this my former teachers will, though.
Slamlander
Excellent try, that was. Master, I am not, most certain. Teacher’s opinion, after you have the grade, matters not. Humerous side-track, this is. 😉
Rafun Li
amazing the things you can learn at webcomics. I am German, and I hadn’t even realized we had a word like Eigengrau. But then again, I didn’t know that Yoda speaks a legal English grammar either.
It just shows that ignorance is indeed infinite. I think Einstein said that…
Great page, anyway! I love that blue flame!
Slamlander
Yoda-speak is simply a grammar inversion.
Modern English::=
Yoda-speak ::= {}
It’s an older, more teutonic form and quite legal, since the syntax format isn’t constrained except by modern fashion. This make grammar nazis crazy 😉
BTW: a pox on Tim Berners-Lee for using angle brackets in HTML. It set language development back by multiple decades.
Slamlander
Yoda-speak is simply a grammar inversion.
Modern English::= [noun] [verb] [adverb]
Yoda-speak ::= [noun] [adverb] [verb] | [direct object]
It’s an older, more teutonic form and quite legal, since the syntax format isn’t constrained except by modern fashion. This make grammar nazis crazy 😉
BTW: a pox on Tim Berners-Lee for using angle brackets in HTML. It set language syntax development back by multiple decades.
Andreas
What do you mean by “quite legal”?
Do you imply that there are rules to language?
Dominant word order inversion isn’t about grammar, it’s about dominant word order.
Some languages have fixed word order, so in those you can’t fiddle with it.
Slamlander
Rules to all languages, exist. Define “dominant word order”, you must. English chaotic is, agreed. Yoda-speak, in English, valid syntax be. Natural Language parsers, confused become. Beowulf’s Grindel, listen must. Chaucer’s English, Middle, is.
Slamlander
I just googled it and got the definition. I’m old school but I am no professional linguist. I have two native languages (Dutch and English) and three more incidental ones (German, Spanish, French), in varying degrfeees of fluency. In the 80’s, I did AI work on Natural Language parsers. I also write fiction under a different nom de plume.
Andreas
I’m a linguist by training, but of the Functional disposition (speaking of Dutch, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen totally rocks! They have three of my personal idols working there, Comrie, Tomasello and Levinson). So, language in my view doesn’t have rules per se, just customary versus less customary usages, some of which discern meaning, and some of which do not. Because the language doesn’t exist as an entity, it’s just a gestalt of all the idiolects we use, individually.
Kosake
Grammatik macht frei, Heil Spellcheck!
XD XD XD
Laura
Wait. Not everyone has that sneeze reflex? I always thought so. Apparently it’s only 18-35% of the population. Wikipedia has just educated me. (Fun fact: in addition to bright lights, I always sneeze when plucking my left eyebrow. Rarely happens with the right one, but as soon as I pluck that first hair when doing my left, I sneeze without fail. O.o)
More to the point, I really rather like the colouring (or, well, lack thereof) on the first couple of panels. It worked out quite well!
Cai
I have the same response to eyebrow plucking! Same side, too. Maybe it has something to do with the angle of hair extraction? (Are you right handed? XD)
Ink
Great. All this talk of Yoda, and suddenly Star Wars ads are popping up all over the place. Thanks a lot.
Friday can’t come fast enough.
Razzy Motazz
Photic Sneeze Reflex, eh?
And all this time I just thought I was allergic to the sun.
*sigh* So many wasted childhood afternoons…
Sensenmensch
I, too, am a native speaker of German (as evidenced by my nickname above) and have never ever heard of Eigengrau before.
Well.
About the page, I think you did the “no light” effect very well. If you want to experiment, you may want to add more blotches, I believe when I sit in the dark I imagine patches of greater darkness to be moving. Something like a very grainy TV screen? Still, you found a nice great compromise between the reader seeing what’s going on while understanding that Adrianna’s seeing nothing at all.
V. Solaris
So where is everyone exactly? We see Adrianna and I’m assuming some bad guys but where’s Galak, and Rhea, and Bracken?
Kosake
Probably vaporized by the Large Magic Collider…
seanand
It works!!!! I love it. The graininess makes it.
Noah
Very well done with the lighting. You nailed it. Way to go.
SAR132_4
I’m gonna take a stab in the dark here (hehe, pun) and say the guy holding the glowy blue flame is NOT someone who cleans up the sewers . . .
Well, congrats for your sacrifice for the comic, I think a good sneeze attack once in a while is good for the senses . . . I’ve been sneezing all day too, strange . . . The comic is awesome, as always!
matt
i thought the shading was done nicely.
Andreas
I liked the effect. Blackness with bug eyes would have been very out-of-style, I think… especially as there’s nothing to light up the eyes.
Another thing I like about it is, that it made me simultaneously think “it’s dark now” and “she’s totally fed up – she might just give up”. Which could be a possibility, what with all the being blown up and drowned and blown up and sitting on her ass in sewer water…
But now I fully expect her to have a photic sneeze reflex… which may be detrimental to her stealth… and health.
Ranger
That’s what I like about this comic. You learn cool stuff!
Falli
He looks like the type of guy that never claps his hands in the “Happy and you know it” song. Ever.
…. he probably just kills you before you even get to that part anyways. D:
CapnDinner
This is why you are the best.
kayakninja
Don’t worry, your sacrifice was not in vain. Amazing page is amazing. 🙂 On another note, wondering about the dude with the glowing hand thingy. First thought was that he was the magic supercollider dude, second thought was that I’m not sure he has enough tattoos to be that powerful, third thought was when was the last time I put that much thought into a comic. >.> Awesome work as always.
Kyethn
Thanks! (I am slyly skipping over the mess of language-related comments above and hiding down here with the easily-addressed comments. It’ll be cool, like a sleepover.)
That is actually magic supercollider dude (what a nickname!) – the tattoos aren’t necessarily an indication of power, just of versatility. This guy has the same tattoos as Adrianna, indicating fire and then kinesis, but you can bet he’s quite a bit better at it than her, hence the hotter (blue) flame, and the distance he tossed his fire bolt thing. She’d be lucky to get one to travel a few feet.
But having said all of that, someone with a bunch of tattoos (Danil, Renshou) is normally pretty powerful on top of being able to do a bunch of different things.
kayakninja
Yay! I made a nickname! 😉 Fair enough. So, basically tattoos aren’t a measure of power, being able to throw magic bolts big enough to destroy a continuity in an alternate strip is a measure of power. Makes sense. I like trying to figure out how all this stuff works and the tattoos thing is a pretty cool one. Mind if I borrow that, by the way? That might make a pretty cool part of a story I’m working on.
OddStrange
Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome (ACHOO)
Well, someone on Wikipedia has a sense of humor. Either that or some science person does.
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