Pages 6-10 (wait, wut?)

I had to make some exposition pages that explained what Ace and Meta are and what their purpose is supposed to be, since I couldn't really do that with dialogue. The thing is, the chapter flows much better if the exposition comes before the flashback, since it solves the pacing issues I noted before. So basically, pages six, seven, and eight are the new pages.

The last panel gets better when you realize that the two are expies of Dan and Rorschach.
This is a crossover between my old characters (or just old designs) and Adam Elbahtimy's. It was kinda rough deciding which of my characters I wanted to include since I didn't want to use multiple characters from one comic, and unlike Adam, I've just recycled the old characters over and over again. The rabbit thing in the center is supposed to be Karu Kari, from a comic that only lasted four pages. I couldn't remember what she looked like, so I just went with "ax-crazy cartoon bunny." Kinda jarring compared to the others on the page.
I'm trying to find smart ways to use screentones. I've never really liked them, but I need to realize that you're not looking at a piece of paper- you're looking at a lightbulb with lines all over it. I don't think I'll be coloring the comic after all, so this is the next best way to control the light and dark values. Right now I'm just using tones to do what I can't with regular ink.

And I must admit, the writing up there isn't great. I should really formally script out exposition at the very least. If you're having trouble following what's being said in the last page, let me put it this way. During the Infinite Crisis event in DC comics, Superboy Prime infamously punched the fabric of time and space, and after the event, writers used that as an excuse to screw around with the continuity. Why was Jason Todd brought back to life? Because Superboy Prime punched reality! All kinds of screwy stuff are happening! Ace and Meta basically exist to punch reality as many times as it's needed.

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And just so there's less confusion, I'll finish up the sequence.
I really hope I can get my site working soon, so I can organize this stuff better.

I Know, I Know. Here's Pages 4-7.

I've been keeping busy (or trying to, at least) on a few things. Notably, I'm working on launching a new web site. The layout's all done, and it's looking pretty nice, but there's one problem- the damn thing doesn't work. But that's neither here nor there: let's post some comics!

I had to totally redo this page for one particular reason- in the first take (which you can see at the bottom of this post), Meta just kinda layed back and whined for the entire page. First impressions are everything, and I knew that she'd be pretty damn unlikeable if the first impression of her was a whiny bitch who got drunk all the time (getting drunk some of the time is A-OK, though!). Plus, now you have shirtless, overly-muscled Ace, which hasn't been seen since Author/Draft!
Crazy Ace on the other hand, hasn't been seen enough since then. This page brings up an important point- EVERYTHING IS CANON. If I've put it in a comic, it's canon to Meta-Fiction. This Ace is the same Ace that fought Richter with Keefe and Machete by his side, threw rocks at Kinji, and made Colleen's life a living hell. It makes things both more simple, AND more complicated, but you'll see why it's necessary later in this chapter.
I thought that the "pull away" thing would be enough to signify that this is a flashback, but looking at it now, I guess not. Originally, the comic was in chronological order (before I redid page 4 and added page 5) so I hadn't thought of it. The business guy's name is Abe White, and when I heard it in my head, I didn't realize it that "Abe" would look a whole lot like "Ace" when typed out. But I liked the name more than anything else I had come up with, so in the end I ran with it.
INFODUMPING! I did alright with this page, but 4 and 5 still sound too stiff to me. In this page, the character has a good reason to sound like he's just expositing- the other characters don't know about the buyout. Pages 4 and 5 are examples of the hardest thing about writing dialogue- having two people talking about things they both already know just for the audience's benefit, without actually having it sound like they're just providing exposition. They need to actually sound like they're having a conversation. That is hard as hell. I did my best here, but damn.

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Here's the original version of page four.
It's a shame I had to replace it, since the artwork is a lot more interesting here than in the replacement pages. But you can see where I'm coming from, right? Meta is just an unbelievable cunt on this page, and now that I'm seeing it again, the dialogue sounds even more like info dumping, and the page ends on a flat note. Web comics really need to be paced page-by-page because of the way they're read, and there needs to be some kind of reaction from the reader by the final panel, whether they laugh, get intrigued, feel sad, or go "FUCK YEAH!" If there's no reaction at all, it's a failure as far as the pacing went.

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One last thing. I've been working on something. DO YOU RIKE IT!?
The line art in this comic has always been begging for some color, but I've always been so bad at it that it just looked better in black and white. The problem, as you can see, isn't the figures themselves (any idiot can cell shade presentably well), but in the backgrounds. Every damn background I've tried to color has always looked so flat that it really brought the rest of the page down. Here, I took a page from Frank Miller's book and made it just stylish enough that it gets people to think I'm sucking on purpose. Then, it's not shitty. It's subversive.

Actually, I am kinda surprised how that panel turned out. I'm still not sure if I'm gonna do this for every page. If I do, it'll be done after the black and white version goes up- coloring can easily take as long as every other step combined.

And that's (finally) all from me today! I plan on working on the comic more exclusively for now, so expect more updates soon.