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Laitma — Imago Page Two
Published: 2011-09-25 04:56:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 1196; Favourites: 29; Downloads: 6
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Description
First comic assignment for my Sequential Art class. The prompt was to do a 2-page B&W comic on "A Day out of our Summer".Since the prompt itself was pretty simple, I wanted to push it a bit more. At Panama (where this is set) I took a field course in Tropical Animal Behavior. I've considered going into biology before and I still kind of do sometimes, but I've always had a problem with the killing of any creature, no matter how small. It's not a matter of the death itself, per se, but more a matter of a human causing suffering to an animal, no matter for what cause or justification. (I hate animal testing with a passion, yes.)
I liked doing this project--I loved getting to see the way the spiders reacted and moved, I loved watching them wrap and bite and eat, and I guess I tried to justify my act of throwing other insects into a spider's web as just "helping" a natural process along and feeding spiders in the process, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. (After trying to pinch out a dragonfly once with forceps I swore never to do it again; though it was frustrating and much less successful as a method of putting the bugs in the spider's web, I always just threw them from the jar. If they bounced off, that was the end of it and they were free to go.) I still feel significant regret for many of the insects I did end up killing, so I guess that this is what I wanted to do my comic about, ultimately.
The text was kind of also used to address this point, since I get so frustrated sometimes with how scientists can boil down some things as beautiful as life and death and survival into nothing more than numbers they can crunch and analyze, as endless streams of data...
Though, that being said, there's also an elegance in numbers that I love, so there's the paradox I tried to hint at, too (can you pick up on it?). : )
Also, the style of this comic was heavily inspired by Matthew Woodson's incredible comic, What Youth and Beauty These Creatures Bare
[Page One] [Page Two]
Inked on Recycled Bristol with 005, 01, and 08 Microns, and a white gel pen.
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Comments: 69
Ahhhhhh yes thank you so much, I'm so happy to hear that you relate to the concept, hahah! The speech bubbles for the animals were a touch that I really enjoyed doing, thank you!!
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It's so beautiful... *single teardrop* The artwork... the concept... the voiced desires of the creatures.. truely a work of art.
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Ahhhhhhhh, th-thank you so much for the super-kind comment! I'm glad that you enjoyed it so much, and honored!
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IT'S COMMENTING TIME
/plows through backlog of pieces
I know everybody has pointed this out already, but I have to say it too--this is really bloody gorgeous. The amount of detail in the insects is stunning, and I'm sure even the people who haven't seen you freak out over insects before can tell just how fond you are of by the attention you put into drawing them. And the phi at the end was brilliant.
One of the things I love most about your comics is that you're not only trying to tell a story. You're trying to convey so much more than "what I did this summer." I loved reading your description as much as I loved reading the comic. It really hits home the fact that you can be an artist/writer and a scientist, and everyone who says otherwise (occasionally including that stupid voice in my head, which really needs to can it sometimes) can go knock themselves upside the head.
Some of the sequence was a bit hard to follow at first--mostly the middle section of Page 2--but nothing too bad that I couldn't get it on the second look.
I'm guessing this was probably a time limit thing, but the emptiness in the background feels... off. In some panels (i.e. the closeups of the spider and web) it would've been a distraction, yeah, but some of the other panels feel a bit too.. I dunno, bleak? Especially 'cos it's the rainforest, where there's always something within a few feet blocking your line of sight. I guess I'm just saying that it doesn't entirely feel like the rainforest here, where life is really IN YOUR FACE all the time, haha. Unnnless the emptiness was on purpose, in which case I'd have to reconsider what I just said.
In short, you did a beautiful job.
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, th-th-thank you so muchhhh, waaaaaaah your comments are the nicest, ohmygod~ ;C;
Being able to transmit a message through my stories--that's always what I've wanted to be able to do, and I'm so glad to see that I'm accomplishing it! ;v;
And yeah, no, it was mostly just terror/timecrush/incompetence on the blank background, hahahah. xD;
Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu you super-crazy-nice-person youuuuuuuu!!!
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... Yes, yes I am.
;A; Gwah. This has been what's bugging (uh, pun not intended -headdesk-) me over bio; I really love it and I'm a follower of the concept that knowledge is important for knowledge itself, but I don't like the fact that things have to be harmed in the process of this knowing. I'm still trying to justify it to myself and there's a lot of different points of view in my head trying to persuade me. :C
It doesn't quite help that I like physiology and such, and dissection seems inevitable. I am not uncomfortable with the dissection of animals, which in turn makes me feel guilty.
Art-wise, it's very clean and smooth, and the minimal background detail makes it feel very... abandoned? Alone? Desolate? with a false sense of tranquility in some panels. The speech/thought bubbles are done nicely -- I like how the text overflows! Very graceful writing, too. XD
Bwuh, tl;dr -- very thought-provoking comic; loving your lines as always!
Didn't see it before finally going through my notifications backlog so apologies for this late comment!
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Hahahah, yeah, it's a hard thing to figure out. I'm not really against dissection itself, I just have issues with the fact that something was killed just so people could dissect it... :< It's hard to explain, but, I guess I just feel like anything not a "natural" death is wrong to me? I have a fascination with bones and stuff, I like poking and collecting dead things, but that's all like, only if the death was a natural thing I stumbled onto? It's difficult to define, hnnn... >>;
And really, don't apologize, I'm just as horribly late in everything, ahah! I'm glad that this comic could be so thought-provoking, though~
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Mmm, I think I know what you mean...! I wouldn't mind if the animal died before we dissect it (from other causes/for other reasons), but I have sort of found a compromise in that if the animal was meant to be consumed, by humans or by other animals, it is okay... Still a terrible waste, though. > < Not sure if I'm just trying to make myself feel better here, or if there's actually logic in there somewhere, haha.
-patpat- You are very good at speaking about issues through your comics! I think your style brings the themes through very clearly; in Bodies of Water, too, for example.
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No yeah, yeah, that's it! Killing an animal for food is okay, but otherwise, I have a lot of trouble with it...
But ahhhhh, th-thank you so much! ;v; I always end up on such depressing topics in my comics, ahah~ xD;;
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Depressing comics are only depressing because they point out truths people would rather not think about, sometimes...!
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Hahahahah, sad, but also... true... >>;
Yeah, people seem to want to avoid the truth a lot of the time... and I can see why, sometimes, but--I'd rather confront it! DX
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Yes, that's very true. D: I am, unfortunately, a person who tends to run away from bad things, so when something really stops me and gets me to confront these thoughts that I've been avoiding, I have really high respect and gratitude for the person who caused that something (wow, weird grammar everywhere DX), because in the end I almost always come out improved. So yeah, thank you, once again, for being willing to put these themes into your stories! -OTLs-
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Exactly, exactly--I know that feeling, mostly... for critiques of artwork, hahah. xD But yeah, I get the feeling.
I just, love something that makes me think about it deeply, something that lingers in the mind~ *v*
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For me it's a lot of stuff...! XDD
Yes; exhilarating adventures are a dime a dozen, but stories that leave a lasting impression usually have a message that really makes you think about things. <333
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Wow, this is really impressive!
The pictures are already great, but the writing makes it so touching!
I just love how the animals use such important words as life and hunger, while the human is just interested in numbers.
I have to say I never were a very science interested person, at least not in a very factual way. I always feel sorry, when I see something die, even though I know it's to keep another animal alive^^""
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Mmn, mmhm exactly, this is exactly what I tried to say in my comic, so thank you so much~
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;-;
I've always wondered what goes through the minds of spiders when something as big as a person is walking up to them and staring right back into their eight omnidirectional eyes. O.o
...and, well, yes, I've done this too. As an adolescent I threw a cricket into large web just to watch. I still do it to this day with houseflies I've already swatted down. But the cricket still bothers me after all these years. I even tried to take a photo of it happening. >>;;
A-anyway...! I'm glad you shared this extrapolation out of your (apparently fascinating) life. ^_~ I think your spotlighting the butterfly, and then the spider, but minimizing the human, says all the more about you the author.
already said it best about the simple wording being such a moving element to the comic, so I won't repeat it. ...but that last shot of the butterfly's soulful eye, with the two fangs just barely in frame, seemingly addressing the person, as well as the reader. o____o yeah, this gives me a lot to think about.
also sorry for, well, being too lazy to comment on this for the past 3 weeks. i don't even know. i'm terrible. —3—
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Fun fact: most web-building spiders actually have very poor eyesight, and rely on it almost not at all! (I, uh, don't know WHY they have so many eyes, but... yeah... >>; )
But yeah, they actually never responded to my approach visually; however, if I even stepped on a blade of grass their web was attached to--oh, you could tell they felt it! 8) The proposal of my paper actually included the idea that the spiders could tell based on the vibrations in their webs what kind of bug they'd caught--if it was a butterfly or a beetle, small or large, something to eat or something to let escape! (A lot of grasshoppers escaped, haha.) But, yeah. ;D Just fyi.
...I think the spiders with the best visual capabilities would be jumping spiders. And those guys? Shit, man, you've GOT to play with one of those. They are so GODDAMN ADORABLE and so anthropomorphic in their behavior it's like WHOAH. OHGOD. ohgod ohgod ohgod I love jumping spiders so, ahahahaha.
But seriously, thanks so much for your comments! Gosh you're too amazing, and I'm so insanely happy that this comic is actually something you'd be thinking over!
Thank youuuuuuuuuu~
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Gosh. That's a lot of experiments.. (and grasshoppers can be way aggressive in fits and starts, as another traumatic instance in my childhood proved...)
[link] ...if you haven't already seen this. ;D
And thank you for making it~
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Ohgosh yeah, I love those ahahaha. And have you seen this? [link] (The narrator cracks me up to no end, lmao;; )
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FFFFFFFFF LITTLE GUY JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED. ♥;;;
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"Watch your back, mate!" is the line that gets me every time xDDDDDD
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Dude. You got to go to Panama?! That's freaking sweet. I'm probably late like a two week old pizza but I thought I'd just put my two cents in there. For the record, the thought of a giant ass spider web creeps me out like no other but the pictures are great! I'm still wondering how you got all those panel shapes in there like that let alone the time it took for all those details...jeez. o.O Great job!
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Ahahaha, awwwww, thank you so much! I love spiders though, and the bigger they are, the better! I'm gonna be uploading some photos of these spiders soon--hope you don't mind, sorry haha!
But yeah, I had a fantastic time in Panama! Sooooooo much fun!
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This is really good! The artwork is clean and crisp.
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Ahhhhhh, thank you so much! I'm really anal about details and having control over my lines, so I always use the smallest microns (005 and 01)... I want to try brush inking, but every time I do I get so frustrated, hahahah!
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ahh so cool! and science! Really good nature art 
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Gyahahaha, "and science"! I wanted to throw a bit more in there since the prompt was so boring xD
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I was actually quite moved by this. Even if you hadn't explained the thought behind it I think I still would've gotten the same impression from it. The way the creatures are repeating the same words gives you that sense of natural instinct and the inevitability of things. The way you've set it out does show it in a scientific way...but there's this underlying feeling of compassion and understanding too.
This is a really well done, profound comic. You keep making stuff like this and you'll be a superstar!
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Jesus christ G
Way to make someone's whole fucking week, I swear ;v; ;v; ;v;
But, just, seriously, you're just--augh you've always been so insanely supportive of me and I just don't even know what to say now! I'm touched that this really connected with you, and that it was, ahaha, profound enough. I guess I just always want to push the story/medium a little further? x)
Seriously though, thank you so much. You're the best.
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so detailed 
I want more comics from you C8
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Ahahah, but, the details are so killer, takes me forever~ xDDDD;
But, ahhhh, you'll be getting lots more comics from me, hohoh! Probably a total of 5, 6 by the end of the semester??? xD I just finished my newest one, I should probably post it soon, huh~ xDDDD
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really nice pages! I don't know if the class required that kind of paneling, but it can be a tad confusing at times. that's my 2 cents. keep rocking!
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Ahhhhhhh, thank you so much! I actually know absolutely nothing about panels and the class didn't discuss it at all, so I kind of just made them up as I went... I'll try to cut down a bit on the weird-sized panels, it's a good point.
Thank you so much! Your comic is so incredibly well-done and inspiring to me, I'm so greatful you're offering me such nice feedback, hahaha!
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you're welcome! panels are very important in comics, i'm sure you'll get there with time. you can have them in every shapes and sizes, but the important, is that the action flows correctly! if the eyes start wandering here and there then you might want to rethink your image sequences. having just 4,5 or 6 panels per page helps this immensely (: it also helps you deciding what action is more important, and what's marginal (ie it's not a crucial image for the story)
uhm, hope i made some sense, being late at night doesn't improve my engrish D:
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Ah, no, that made lots of sense, thank you very much!
...Unfortunately I finished my second comic last week, and it's got, like, 12 panels a page... xDDDDDD I suck at cramming the story in my head into two, three pages ahahaha...;;
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aaa goddamnit you are so good at symbolism and...just making things fucking elegant and beautiful
;___;
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Ahahahaha symbolism
I'm such a cheeseball xD
But ahhhhhhhhhh thank you so much Calmmmmmmmm
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haha I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE
(though I wouldn't have noticed if you didn't mention it xD; )
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Heheheh, I'm all about the subtle details, hahah~ xD
Ahhhhhh Dusk ilu, you always pick up on my nerdiest jokes~ <3
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...I don't even take a lot of science or anything. Probably I'm just inherently a nerd. :B (It's like my superpower or something.)
Subtle details are the best. <3
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Ahahaha, but you're a LITERARY nerd so it's awesome. x)
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I was looking for an excuse to use that name AND YOU JUST GAVE ME ONE
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