Cartoon and Conquer – Commentary Gallery

 

Published 16/08/2013

Blue tiberium shows up as blue on a map, so what if you only have one shade of blue? This happens. ▫ In order for the joke to work properly, there needed to be an explanation for why people with futuristic technology would have an inferior map. Nod forces should not be using an EVA unit, this was a complete oversight on my part, but in retrospect, I decided even Nod troops might refer to a similar device as an EVA unit.

 

 

Published 30/08/2013

The G.I. sometimes doesn’t even hear the words coming out of his own mouth. His speech in the third panel is a reference to the propaganda each side during the Cold War was feeding their citizens; they are bad, we are good, and when you aren’t looking, we’re going to do the bad things we said they are doing.

 

 

Published 13/09/2013

I wanted the infantryman to lead the group so they could be led astray, but I needed to justify why he was charge when he is actually of a lower rank. ▫ Although the veinhole wasn’t depicted, at least another one of the tiberium lifefroms got a mention.

 

 

Published 27/09/2013

Some people came away with the impression the infantryman was a poor shot, but I challenge anyone with a fully-automatic machine gun to do better. ▫ Even nature isn’t safe from the Desolator. ▫ Why 63? Because plus the one he’s holding makes 64 which is the sixth power of 2. When I write “random” numbers, they are often powers of 2 or a couple powers of 2 added together. ▫ This was actually the beginning of a rather long story arc that, aside from a couple breaks, ultimately leads to the end of the series.

 

 

Published 11/10/2013

The orders given three strips earlier are finally revealed to have been filtered through the worst possible interpretation. ▫ I thought the officer asking if he needed a map drawn for him, which I added on impulse, was a nice follow up to the literal hand-drawn map in #61.

 

 

Published 25/10/2013

No nuclear devices, just the Desolator. ▫ This strip illustrates the gap between enlisted men and officers. Not only is there a disconnect between communication, but the officers have secret stashes of liquor. I think this is a fairly accurate portrayal of real militaries.

 

 

Published 8/11/2013

It took 24 weeks for eight days to pass. This is why the comic has its own time and doesn’t follow the real calendar. ▫ I love the expressions on the infantryman and flame trooper’s faces, and the reason I love them so much is because never in the entire series have I intentionally given a character with a helmet an expression, it just happens, and it happened best here. ▫ The process of getting shipped out puts the Nod storyline on hold long enough for GDI to have some time of their own.

 

 

Published 22/11/2013

The G.I.’s speech here is similar in spirit to #52, where he spouts philosophy with no meaning. The sniper notes his hypocrisy, but he remains oblivious. ▫ Although not yet seen, this strip introduces the very troublesome chimpanzee.

 

 

Published 6/12/2013

Proper motivation is insufficient to improve one’s self physically and mentally, but that doesn’t stop people from believing positive thinking is enough to succeed in their goals. If their course took them through a minefield, they might reconsider the validity of their beliefs. ▫ I don’t know what that device is the grenadier is holding in the second panel, something futuristic that looks annoyingly close to a tablet and is obviously not an EVA device. I didn’t want an EVA device or it would raise the question of why they didn’t always have EVA devices on.

 

 

Published 20/12/2013

This strip presents a few preemptive strikes against complaints I foresaw. I intended to call the chimp a monkey, but I know the difference, and wild chimpanzees are not cuddly. ▫ I expected people to catch onto the name Josh, which is the chimpanzee’s label in the game code for Red Alert 2 and Yuri’s Revenge, but nobody mentioned anything.