From: mauser@intercon.com (Richard Chandler)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.furry
Subject: Re: Where's the *discussion*?
Date: 18 Dec 1992 20:45:02 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

> From: bn510@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Matthew L. High)
> Re:  Richard Chandler and Beatrix pencils -
> 
> Yeah, I saw those pencils, too.  Except for the first page, they were
> extremely sketchy.  Doesn't mean I have to like his treatment of
> 'em, however.  Taral would have been better off doing Taral - rather
> than inking over Steve's work.
> 
> Just an opinion...

Well, you've probably seen this, but here's Taral's comments I snaggerd of of 
FidoNet.  Including files generally gives me problems, so I hope this works.

Subject: Beatrice Farmer
To: Scott Malcomson
From: Taral Wayne
Date: 12/16/92 7:52:06 AM
-------------------------------------------
Much as I'd like to take all the credit for Beatrix's first show in Albedo, 
Steve did contribute in two important ways --

He wrote the script.  By and large what you read was what he wrote.  I went 
over it and smoothed out some phrases, substituted a word here and there, but 
there were no major changes.  In the "reading" scene, where all the muscle-
types are actually getting into Beatrix's books, Steve suggested a couple of 
literary type jokes.  I kept the essence of a couple but changed them in 
detail.  The others were left up to me.  That pretty much sums up the 
tolerant spirit Steve has toward his text -- he's very easy about input.  
Nevertheless, he DID write the story.

Steve also laid out the panels.  Including the flying mini-van.  I did little 
with the layout on that page except to experiment a bit with borders and 
figure out some way of working titles in.  I tilted the van a bit more in 
accordance to what I figured the laws of gravity demanded.  The only page I 
had to do much work on lay out was the third.  Steve gave me two 
alternatives, and in the end I choose both and neither... That is, I worked 
in some of the elements of both, but the resulting page isn't quite either.

I regarded "Moving Day" as an interesting experiment for Steve.  It opens 
with a fair degree of elastic motion, if you follow me, which continues 
almost half way through the story.  By page three, though, familiar habits 
catch up with him and he relapses into talking heads, which was really too 
bad.  Not that I can think of how to change that, given the story.  

While inking I discovered that Steve has a very unusual way to stage a scene.  
In most cases, if you want the main character to stand out, you put them at 
the front of the stage.  But Steve frequently puts them way off in the 
background, as though looking down a tunnel of foreground characters and 
objects.  Someone I know also said that Steve tends to restrict his vantage 
to a narrow range of angles -- from the horizon to perhaps 15 degrees above 
it.  This appears to be approximatly so, though it must be true for almost 
all artists when you think about it.  I see little advantage in suddenly 
shifting to an overhead view just to show the same five or six people 
carrying boxes in Dorthy's living room.   Japanese comics, I notice, will do 
that.  I prefer to use visual devices only if I can justify it. 

--- Maximus 2.01wb
 * Origin: The Trap Line (1:250/432)