Page 1678…
Happy Monday, All!
Hope you had a fantastic weekend! And a happy belated mother’s day to all of you mommies out there.
I’m going to talk about the pages below. So if you don’t want any SPOILERS… don’t read before you read the comic…okay?
So… I was originally going to do the “spear-thing” for the FIRST time “died” but felt it would have been too much.
In all honesty… it’s quite difficult to show what I had written. Nastajia being killed over and over again in front of Alex.
I think by now, most of you realize this is just an illusion. A nightmare, if you will. To take Alex out of his game. To bring him to despair. To make him question reality.
How do I do this (there’s more in the next page or two) without being gruesome or gratuitous?
I think it looks fine the way it is. You don’t need blood or gore.
I agree. Blood and gore have become so commonplace it’s sadly not emotionally impacting, just stomach churning. Not the effect that you’re going for here, I’m sure. And glad to see it is an illusion, but I can imagine it’s not easy to depict a character’s death, especially repeatedly.
Hey…wait a minute….”Abaddon is a master of illusion, dont let him deceive you…”
Does this mean that Nastajia’s parents in Earth are Abaddon’s illusions?
Wow!!!
Oh dear. I’m confused.
Interestingly, Abaddon allowed Nastajia to continue communicating with Alex through his illusions… or is he that eager to mimic Nastajia that he’s willing to explain everything to Alex and thus take *some* of the sting away simply ‘cuz he knew that’s what the real Nastajia would say?
Anyway, I think the effect has been achieved quite well so far. Looking forward to the rest of the sequence and Alex’s response 🙂
Okay, the first one didn’t hit nearly as hard as this one. Well-played!
To answer your question, Scott, one way to do this without gore is to imply impending violence and then cut to Alexander’s face. The human mind is quite good at imagining what happens, say, when a giant rock falls on someone, so there’s no need to show it if you’ve shown the conclusion as inevitable/inescapable. But by showing Alex’s face you can highlight the impact on him. We’ll see his resolve weakening.
Good storytelling going on here.
Not necessarily. 🙂 Nastajia’s parents could be on Earth…but they could also be illusionary. 🙂 I’m inclined to think they’re really there though. It’s not Abaddon’s realm afterall…and while he may have power outside of his realm, I doubt it’s as strong as within the Nightmare Realm…which is why we have nightmares when we sleep and they don’t (usually) continue when we wake.
I think you’re doing just fine with what you’ve shown us so far Scott. 🙂 I can’t imagine that it will be easy to depict Nastajia dying repeatedly without dipping into the “gratuitous violence” side of the pool, but so far you’ve succeeded with flying colors.
I think about now anyone would begin to suspect that any appearance of Nastajia might be a trick (especially a dying appearance) and begin to wonder where the real Nastajia is. After all, the enemy could have just killed the real Nastajia if that was what they were after.
Hah, now begins the ‘how many creative ways we can kill Nastajia’
Wow. This is creepy.
How many times must she die before Alex realizes she is not there and far off?
If you want to express repeated murders, with a focus on what it’s doing to Alex, don’t even show her at all.
Show the fiends moving in closer, show repeated shots of Alex, his eyes getting wider, and his face more expressive. Is he horrified by the repeated illusions, or is he enraged that they’re trying to mess with him this way?
Make it all about Alex, and how he’s reacting as they try to break him down.
And the final panel is his rage going critical, just before he goes Super Saiyan. 😛
Oh! The sound effects, too, of course. Screams? The shunk of a blade? The slash of claws? The rip of teeth?
I agree, letting Alex know he’s being tricked takes some of the bite out of it. Still, he would have figured it out eventually; and if they can keep him off balance and confused until he starts to fear, or they can overwhelm him… The danger to THEM is Alex shifts his focus from Nas to them and starts slaughtering them wholesale in his rage. The danger to ALEX is, they get him so used to false Nastajias that when they show him the REAL one he ignores her until it’s too late.
Ok….just go ballistic with the sword now, Alexander!!
Ok Alex. You’ve said, so far, you’re worthy of the title of King.
Me thinks Abaddon is about to test your will and sanity to your breaking point. Good luck kiddo, you WILL need it. ^_^
+1 on that last part.
Taking out the bite… Or making sure that when he does find the real Nastajia, he’ll waste time thinking she’s a fake too?
Are they mind gaming Alex here? Playing tricks on him? Will he figure it out eventually or just let Abaddon keep at it?
What if Nastajia was never real to begin with?
This could actually be a very crucial moment in chance to prove himself to be capable of being king. Keep your wits, lad!
I got to the bottom of the page and was like “Okay. Now they’re just messing with him.” They just gave away the game and yet they still keep doing it. Took me a bit to work it through. They’re nightmare critters. Nightmares don’t just show something horrifying once and leave it at that, they rerun it over and over, with variations. Never give you a chance to stop and get over it. They’re trying to overwhelm him with too many Nastajia deaths too quickly for him to wrap his mind around the notion that it isn’t real. Keep him reeling and break him. Let’s hope Alex is smart enough not to fall for this trick.
Alex is….kinda dense.
I don’t know why I still let that surprise me.
i think it’s fine the way it is. Fly, Alex. Start carving up buildings or something. Show Abaddon what trouble really looks like. A darn shame Alex can’t “dream” weapons into existence there. Now that would be neat trick.
I keep wondering why an illusion created by Abaddon would bother to even tell him that…
Don’t. Just Don’t.
Methinks there is a way that he can solve this dilemma without more bloodshed. These creatures are enacting one of his Nightmares.
How do you overcome a nightmare? You give yourself the strength to know that it isn’t real and that no matter what, YOU have control.
In real life, I’ve been instructed to go to bed with the solution: role-playing your victory. …but that doesn’t always work, ya know.
I found the way El Goonish Shive portrayed a similar situation fairly effective. See it here and the next page.
I think Abaddon’s doing it to mess with his head… taunting him.
Man, if they do that one more time Alex is going to get so angry that they’re messing with him it’ll be “That’s all I can stand, I can’t stands no more!!” and he’ll go berzerker on the lot of them while Stars and Stripes Forever plays in the background (ala classic Popeye cartoons)
I think it would have had a lot more impact to just kill her once, leave her body there, and let Alex despair.
Ooh. I like that!
I could tell you some stories. 🙂
Google Hypnagogic hallucinations. It’s happened to me twice. I’ve woken with motor atonia more times than I can remember. It’s not even scary anymore.
It’s not a medical condition for me. I used to work at night, and my body was not happy about it.
Maybe just Nastajia’s word bubbles with endings of her phrases cut out by sound effects of her being killed? (I’m fairly slow for a guy who lives half a day ahead, am I not?)
In the story, that’s meant to be an actual physical fairy doll, mind you, so the way it tears apart as a doll (with the stuffing bits) was quite logical. It’s not really an illusion, and the next page shows the destroyed doll lying on the ground.
if I was abaddon, I would have agreed with you.
Oh come on. It was getting good.