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Convention Appearances:
- Boston, MAAnime BostonApril 6-8th
- Collinsville, ILAnime St. LouisApril 20-22nd
- Chicago, ILAnime CentralApril 27-29th
- Portland, MEMaine Comics Art FestivalMay 20th
- Dallas, TXA-KONJun 1st-3rd
- Check the Calendar >;>;
wow…pic in panel 5 is the first victim killed by Major Bryant isn’t it…guy’s almost in as bad shape as the one Kate killed….still can’t wait to see what Xiang does here, do we finally get some answers or a load of bs or denial?
Pretty sure that’s actually one of the feds that came to get Bryant. The first one was in the alley and was covered in garbage.
‘when you have eliminated all other possibilites, the one that remains, no matter how fantastic, is your solution’
i’m paraphrasing, but it’s true.
That’s called Occam’s Razor… The more you know?
That is not occams razor.
Occam’s Razor is “The simplest answer is usually the solution.” Or there abouts. Basically whatever makes most sense is what probably happened.
What you’re paraphrasing there is a quote by Sherlock Holmes.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
–Sherlock Holmes
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” — Sherlock Holmes in The sign of the Four
Well, I woke up this mornin’ with the realization that it’d been almost *twelve hours* since I’d last picked a nit. Twelve hours! Can you believe it? Neither me, so let me rectify that with the following:
So Bryant is a pilot?
The winged badge above his name tag in the last panel is reminiscent of the Army Aviator badge. This badge is worn by Army pilots, and a very similar badge is worn by Army aircrew (any crewman on an aircraft who isn’t a pilot).
As special forces, I would think Bryant would have a Parachutists badge rather than a Aviator badge. They look somewhat similar in that they both have wings, but the Parachutists badge has…well…a parachute in the middle, and the wings curl up to meet the canopy of the parachute. Kind of looks like a snowcone flexing it’s biceps.
I’m also guessing the blank rectangle underneath the badge is a Meritorious Unit Citation, but that’s a complete shot in the dark.
As always, great stuff Dirk.
Not a pilot. Airborne. I couldn’t quite track down xplanations of the various medals. If I can track down the right info, I’ll correct the artwork.
If he’s airborne, he’ll wear the Parachutist Badge on the left side of his uniform. Since he’s assigned to Ft. Campbell and he’s SF, he’s probably 5th Special Forces group, and will have their background trim behind it. (The oval thing in the infobox). If he has no other badges, it’ll be 1/4 in above his ribbons. It’s a relatively low-priority badge, so if he has some others (likely) it’d probably be on the pocket, with the top 1/8″ below the top of the pocket.
A likely set of badges for MAJ Bryant might be (you can find pictures of these here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badges_of_the_United_States_Army ):
1/4 in above ribbons: Combat Infantryman Badge (only if MAJ Bryant has seen combat. I think he has, but haven’t done an archive trawl recently enough to be sure)
1/8 in below the top of the pocket: Parachutist’s Badge with background trimming, Air Assault Badge.
Here is a picture of how these would be positioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Army_Green_Berets_DF-SD-02-02957.JPEG The NCO you see centered has an Expert Infantryman Badge where the CIB would be (above the award ribbons), and a marksmanship badge where the Air Assault Badge would be (the rightmost badge on the pocket flap) You can see the oval shaped background trimming, though not of 5th SFG.
With the way you’ve framed the shot, you probably can’t fix his badges easily. All special skill badges like the one you intended for MAJ Bryant to wear go on the left side, obscured by Agent Xiang’s head. OTOH, his nameplate and whatever you intended to be the oval on the left side should be on the pockets, not overlapping them, and he should have Special Forces Branch Insignia (the crossed arrows about halfway down the page) where you’ve got (I think) his rank, and his rank should be on his shoulder loops (not visible in the shot). If you want a reference as to how the lapels look, the officer pictured(warning, HUGE 7.5 MB JPEG file) here will provide an example. MAJ Aymat, the person centered looking at the camera square on, has the “US” insignia that all officers wear, and he has Infantry insignia (crossed rifles) where the Special Forces insignia (crossed arrows) would be.
Dude. Wow. You distilled everything I needed to know into one place. Thank you! I’ll check these out and integrate accordingly.
No problem. It’s easy to know what goes where when you know what everything means, but the rules for uniform construction can be pretty arcane to an outsider. We take a lot of pride in our uniforms, and it’s frustrating to see so many movies and TV shows with them wrong. I’m grateful to see someone who cares enough to attempt to get it right.
One other thing I didn’t think about before my previous post…the “wings” that you have on MAJ Bryant’s right side could be the German Parachutist Badge. It is occasionally awarded to US military personnel, and it is worn exactly where you have it. (All badges from foreign countries are on the right side, above unit awards.)
As a matter of fact, I think the Green Beret in the photo I posted before has this award.
I knew somebody would have the direct quote. Sherlock Holmes paraphrasing and embellishing on Occams razor.
ooh can wait till next week
Yea! An update that falls on my birthday! ^_^
Can’t wait to hear what he has to say next regarding his investigation. I wonder just how much “sense” he’s made of the info he’s found thus far.
Dirk,
Is the policeman in frame two sweeping for listening devices?
*whistles nonchalantly*
I was wondering what he was holding in his hands! And here I thought he was playing the new Pokémon.
Everyone knows you don’t need bugs anymore. Get a cellphone, tape it to bottom of table, enjoy. Bug sweepers don’t pick up the signals from cellphones. Don’t ask me how I know that… I just do…
I’m going to pick a nit as well… as my workplace’s resident AV guy, I have to say that projectors -just don’t work that way-… though, as we all kind of wish that they did, and this is a half-fantasy vision of the world, changing it would need lots of re-framing and re-drawing and it doesn’t hurt the story, I won’t make any bigger a point of it than this webforum comment
(best you’d get at that throw distance with a typical data projector – at least, one that the administrators at a public body like the police or FBI will be willing to pay for* – is an image half that size, and the whole left side of it would be in shadow with Xiang stood where he is… and he’d have the picture showing all over him
)
* very wide angle ones are available with trick lenses, at some cost, for mounting atop interactive whiteboards etc, but this’d still kind of be their limit. For the sake of argument we could maybe say that he managed to sneak an order for a top-of-the-line niche model past management and then also convinced them to let him take it on the road… or, he bought it himself for a home cinema and has brought it from home because CPD doesn’t have any large-format display facilities of their own that aren’t in rooms that also feature surveillance equipment?
I know. I use projectors, too. I beg artistic license. In this case drawing it “right” would have been awkward. (I tried drawing the image on him, and it just muddied things up.)
And yes, Xiang did bring the unit along with the computer.
I’m not going to pick any nits. I just want to say how pleased and impressed I am that you try so much to keep a WEBCOMIC as close to real-life accurate as you do. Many artists don’t care that much, and honestly, for webcomics, it really isn’t important. Your’s is fine without that touch, which impresses me more with your effort.
Also, CatCube, yer awesome for posting all that.
Actually there are some interesting techniques you could use with one more device in use, though it would be an unlikely choice since it wirelessly broadcasts a video signal. I’ve seen a wiimote used with a projector, computer, and several IR sources to do area specific projection, an extension of that could conceivably not show video where someone was standing if you could isolate their shape from the background. then you just encode fully opaque pixels sent to the projector for those locations. Computers are getting fast enough that this is possible in real time.
Foldable Displays (tracked with the Wiimote)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhSR_6-Y5Kg
Your cominc definetly has the best art work I’ve ever seen and like Hoppy said it’s vrrry realistic despite being about werebeasts. on top of that it has a story worth waiting once a week for if I was to rank my top five webcomics this one would definitly make #1