#587: "Thirsty. Tired. Die."

[Kurosen]

The panel layout for this one was much easier to construct in my head than on the screen. I think it came together rather well in the end, especially considering how the word bubbles came out on the first pass.

Basically, when I make an episode of 8BT, I start by writing the script. I've been doing this long enough that I can generally shape the script to the layout I have in mind or come up with a layout based on the script. Usually it's a little of both.

Anyway, once the script is done I'll paste the lines of dialogue onto a blank page. That's where I format them for the word bubbles and get a more precise idea about how the page's space will be used. Once all the lines of dialogue are pasted, shaped, and arranged, I go back through and give them their white balloons so they're easier to see against the backgrounds of the panels that will be going in next. This also helps to give an even clearer picture of how the page's space will be used since the bubbles themselves are slightly bigger than the lines of dialogue.

The first run of the dialogue in this comic was hell. See, occasionally, the "perfect" wording for a line makes an ass-ugly word bubble. I can fix it by changing the wording a bit. This comic was the first one where every line of dialogue made an ugly word bubble. Luckily, I'd gotten an idea of how the whole page flowed at the white-balloon stage, so that made it much easier to change each line of dialogue without losing the intended meaning. Really, I think several lines were strengthened by the changes.

And all of this might make a little more sense in 30 minutes when the comic updates.