Cartoon and Conquer – Commentary Gallery

 

Published 3/02/2012

The separation of our time from the strip is why they are on a mountain here. I wanted to do some snowy environments, but wanted to avoid mentioning what season it was in the strip. ▫ I misspelled skis when this was released and if anyone caught it, they didn’t point it out. It wasn’t until a very long time later that I finally noticed the typo and corrected it. ▫ People seemed to like the pose the infantryman took in the last panel, so I replicated it when making the character profiles.

 

 

Published 17/02/2012

The general’s overuse of nuclear weapons continues, and the last line here is a foreshadowing of the future plot. ▫ Like other explosions, this mushroom cloud was made by blending only yellow, red, and black. The fireball was initially too small, so I made another cloud on a lower layer and merged them. If you examine it closely, you can still see the two images, but I was rather pleased with how the layered effect came out. Explosions are very time consuming to draw, and I didn’t want to have too many either, so only one more nuclear detonation was depicted, and I think it came out much better.

 

 

Published 2/03/2012

Where do they store their weapons when not in use? The sudden appearance of weapons is probably the most cartoon feature of the series. It isn’t intended to represent Renegade, it is only because weapons get in the way of gesturing and are annoying to draw. ▫ This taunting of GDI seemed to be surprising to some, I figured people would have caught on by this point that the war was going to be fought with wit rather than bullets.

 

 

Published 16/03/2012

This is the only other half-sized strip in the series after Cartoon and Conquer #3. After it became obvious half-sized issues were not going to happen, I had been trying to come up with a joke small enough to do one more to compliment #3 so its existence wouldn’t be left forever alone and awkward. ▫ An Apocalypse Tank was supposed to feature in the second panel behind the Soviet troops, but it had to be cut due to time constraints. This also marks the Tesla trooper’s first appearance, though he wouldn’t get any speaking lines for a while yet.

 

 

Published 30/03/2012

The Shiners were only seen once, but at least they weren’t forgotten. Oh wait, they are Forgotten. ▫ I think drawing things on sleeping people’s faces is too overused to be funny anymore. If you’re going to prank somebody, at least put in the effort to be original about it.

 

 

Published 13/04/2012

Technology makes lying harder. If you’re a bad liar to start with, it’s even worse yet. ▫ I think this strip finally makes it too plain to ignore that the enemies are not going to try killing each other. Killing is too easy, hogtying with a bow and returning to sender is a much better insult than shooting him dead. ▫ The message says “Передавайте привет Тане!” which means “Send my regards to Tanya!” I probably should have used the more common spelling of Таня though, as Тане has other non-Russian meanings.

 

 

Published 27/04/2012

The lengthy description of archery in the second panel is everything I expected to go through people’s minds when they saw a bow in a future setting, and served as a set up for me (and the engineer) in the next panel justifying why it was there. I think people will still shoot bows for sport far into the future and didn’t want the fantasy game genre to interfere with how I see the future. ▫ Arrow balancing is probably something the more acrobatically-inclined grenadier should be doing, but pestering the engineer is the infantryman’s job.

 

 

Published 11/05/2012

When fiction wants to show off someone’s accuracy, it is often a cluster of projectiles on the bullseye. The sniper is more accurate than that. ▫ Despite their often poor reputation, I actually like bagpipes, but I don’t think many will argue that bagpipes played by someone with no talent is about the worst sound you could imagine one person could produce.

 

 

Published 25/05/2012

How can a faction with Buggies and Recon Bikes concentrate on war when they have Buggies and Recon Bikes? ▫ Although the rocket soldier’s pessimism is the set up for the joke, it is highlighting the hostile wasteland that is the universe they inhabit. His laziness is starting to become more apparent here, a constant theme for his personality.

 

 

Published 8/06/2012

What could be worse than some guy with no talent playing bagpipes? Oh right, if he was also wearing a kilt. ▫ The general doesn’t actually care if his men are dying to the “new weapon”, he just gets unnerved at the thought of someone having access to weapons better than his.