I think I’ll stop the story here. There’s no way I can top this page. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
Oh, you want to know what happens next. Really? You’d make me work on my birthday? You monster!
Okay, return on Monday to see if Jane survives her brief impersonation of a majestic albatross.
Original Script
Action shots as Jane twists around. She tries to grab at tangled ropes and fins of other vehicles without luck.
What a beautiful, scary page, Andy. There’s so much going on.
It reads wonderfully whether you go horizontally, or in three vertical strips. The feeling of flying, of being surrounded by nothing but air, and then the confetti bespeckled water waiting for the impact at the end…
And Jane’s expressions-crying out at first, then trying to figure out what to do, then that glorious dive.
Oh, you’ll top yourself. You’ve been doing it page after page after page. Why stop now?
Thanks, Charlie. I toyed with the idea of having lots of other ships whipping past her, but the horrific simplicity of falling between two surfaces was too elegant to resist. Less drawing, HA!
Seriously though, Radio Lab had a short piece on a study of cats who fell out of NYC buildings (skip to 23:00). Felines who fell from stories 5 to 8 suffered terrible injuries. But, those who fell from less than 5 stories or more than 9, up to 44 stories in one case, suffered much less injuries and many walked away. Maybe Jane is a cat?
I’m assuming that the next page will be one big panel.
It’s too good an opportunity to pass up.
Yeah, these are excellent layouts. Since comics are usually read in a horizontal fashion, vertical layouts can be tricky to pull off, but it’s rewarding here.
I have to agree.
I just hope she enters the water a little more like a diver and less like an albatross. The swan dive is beautiful, but at her velocity, that position will break her neck (or back). Water is only soft when the impact is slow.
I love the tear coming out of one eye. Is she crying in fear or is that because of the air whipping past?
Too true, Tru. Hitting water at high speed is like slamming into a wall. There’s a story of a construction worker falling off the Golden Gate Bridge and surviving by throwing a hammer at the water to break the surface tension, but I’m not sure if that actually happened or if it was a coincidence.
The long panels are especially effective for these shots and I like the way you’ve got this page formatted in a vertical pattern. It really emphasizes the sense of falling her. The way her clothes are billowing around her is actually really graceful and beautiful, all peril aside.
I wonder if she could have used all that billowing fabric as a parachute? Or impact padding?
That’s kind of an Urban Legend. The kid who jumps off the roof with a bedsheet is going to get pretty banged up.
However, my best guestimate, judging by the airship altitudes shown on Page 6, and the fact that she didn’t hit anything on the way down, is a drop of about 133m. Given the billowing dress, I put the potential impact at around 40km/h, with a fall duration of 12 seconds or so. Surprisingly, (at least to me) that is survivable, and, given that she needn’t breathe, she won’t drown.
I’m grinning that you took the effort to calculate her odds of survival. That’s fantastic! It’s a shame about those fresh-water sharks, though. (joking) (maybe) I just saw your review of Princess Chroma. I’m off to read that next.
this is a high water mark (yes, bad choice of words there …). several iconic images. the flight of balloons in itself. even more, jane’s futile reach as they get further and further away. that beautiful dive and the mental state it implies. and if jane’s eye with the tear and her eyebrow isn’t an actual heiroglyphic it should have been. (that might be an interesting idea, designing a set of modern heiroglyphics. street signs ahd damn emoticons don’t really cut it.)
How about kawaii faces? ≧◡≦
Hopefully she doesn’t melt in the water or something.
At least she wont need any scuba gear.
For some reason “Moisturize me!” (from Doctor Who) comes to mind.
Oh dear….well I have the feeling that it’ll be a good thing she was wearing her necklace! Maybe that’ll do its job now.
Your thoughts on ending the story right there made me smirk. And what a lovely shot of her reaching back towards the flotilla above!
I’m thinking this page might make a nice poster, if it was redrawn with sharper details and improved colors. I cannot stop here, there’s too much goodness to follow! These first pages are all lead-up, misdirection, and clues to the REAL story. 🙂
I was going “don’t lose the Key in the lake.
That would be unfortunate. But it would lead to exciting underwater bathysphere adventures.