‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 342

And thus ends this Reality section. YAY!!!! I have time for a life again! *happy dance*

I hope this massive peak into the Reality side of this story was insightful. Now it's back to cheery and bright (not to mention waaaaay easier to color) L.i.F.e!

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And you wait is over . . . soon. Just not because of me, as I have an entirely unrelated comment.

So, L.i.F.E. stands for life is for everyone, so why is it capitalized L.i.F.e. instead of L.i.f.E.?

Honestly? Cause L.i.F.e. looked cooler than L.i.f.E. Yeah, that’s basically why.

Additional reasons (that Aneeka can retro-claim if desired) 😉
(1) It is consistent with the consonants both being capitalized and the vowels both lowercase.
(2) I think it looks easier to say. If it were capitalized L.i.f.E., I would feel like it should be pronounced “Liffy”.

Good on you for your hard work.

I think we are all just as eagre to get back to the L.I.F.E. part ourselves. 🙂

Well at least now Jake has an idea planted about why Kat MIGHT be doing this. And if he starts paying attention to this getting proven/disproven… Kat isn’t exactly subtle. Yay for chances!

I am not sure whether or not you’ve explained his inner turmoil sufficiently, because I’ll need to re-read the comic eventually anyway. Mostly I remember how you loved or hated how various panels turned out. 😉 Oh, and the Dude’s adventure. And how the Switzerland dialect was too much for even their advanced translation engine. XD

But if I recollect correctly, he’s her former childhood friend and therefore he still feels sympathy for her, but he isn’t sure whether she’s a villain or – ahem – not a villain. Also he doesn’t know whether or not he should continue to try to blow her cover, because having your childhood friend lost, found again and then killed is awful. Is that it?

Since he frequently denies that a hacker alone can cause so much destruction, whether or not that is even true in the first place I’ve always gotten the feeling that Jake wasn’t sure she was a villain in the first place.

“Too late.”

~~~

Anyways Aneeka – thanks for putting in the effort for the Reality pages – definitely enjoying the layers of plot revelations (Back when Kim was talking about Dr. Grace, I was looking through the archive and noticed that Kim already made an L.I.F.E. appearance – having more context to the power structures was pretty rewarding for me), and looking forward to seeing how the conversations and events here tie back into L.I.F.E. and the Game.

Rereading the last pages I’d say, Jake’s conflicted because Kleya is/was family to him and he has no idea, how her stance on this matter is. He wants to discover the truth, but he might inadvertently kill the rest of humanity instead. Simply betraying her will get Kleya get simply killed instead, without any chance to explain herself or even to redeem herself. So either he protects the survivors and offs Kleya, or he protects Kleya and potentially offs the survivors. He doesn’t like ending up offing people, so he has chosen for now the option which has at least a chance to not off people.

So, am I correct?

I think so, too.

Which option do you mean? The option of playing the game with her, getting close to her and maybe finding out the truth that way?

Yes. And Aneeka confirmed it in another comment. Yay!

I know you work hard on the real world stuff, but for some reason I like the L.i.F.e style more. Maybe because L.i.F.e’s not as scary as reality.

“Maybe because L.i.F.e’s not as scary as reality”

Yay! That’s what I was trying to subconsciously get readers to feel like via the different art styles. Thanks!

Well, then congrats on both story and artwork! I know a gritty Reality is much harder to convey, because you need to *show* the grit, scrapes, etc. without killing yourself or your schedule, which is a tricky balance.

Personally, the story is good enough that I would read it if it were stick figures, but being able to include subtle details like this is a definite plus.

That was a fantastic stretch of pages, I can’t believe the Reality section is over already! This was a great immersion into this side of the story, and as much as I love Kat, it was nice to see some of the others’ motivations.

That said, that was a perfect way to end things, and now I can’t wait to see how things are going inside L.i.F.e.

I’d say it’s enough that his inner turmoil was made clear. It’s understandable for him to be conflicted without knowing why, so I don’t feel confused, I’m just in suspense. And that’s a good thing.

@Alex and SRP: Yeah, that’s basically it.

Judging from everyone’s responses and the lack of “Why can’t he just do this?!”, it looks like I was worrying about nothing. Yay!

Thanks! It’s good to know to be right.

I’ll be glad to get back to the superficially cheerful L.I.F.e style, too.

The Reality pages are lovely, expository, and set the mood immediately… But they look absolutely murderous to draw! I’d rather the effort go into the story and characterization. 🙂

Though honestly, you have have 342 pages of excelling at all three, so far…

The funny thing that noone mentions, is I mean… assume someone does rat her out. With D being as pervasive as he is, and her in a position to apparently have data on the entire planet, including the location of the shifting poles and on volcanic eruptions the world over, as well as be able to reroute food to herself if she was willing to…

What the h*** could they do about it? I mean, even if they discovered she’s the “evil cyborg girl” their best tactical option would be to NEVER MENTION IT. Because if they chase her off out of L.i.F.e., they lose the only lead they have. If they go for her, they now have a barely-surviving planet suffering the world’s most deadly rampage instead of a thriving planet suffering the same. Best to just… let her be and quietly hope she remains more interested in playing video games then laying waste to everything you know and love.

That…. is a very good point. What could they do? Even if they backtracked her, they’d find an area in the middle of some ocean, and by the time they got there, she’d be long gone, if I remember the earlier Reality segment right….

So… have you considered doing a hardcopy version of your comic where you have the page on one side, and your commentary on the other side?

I like that idea. The left page could be the comic, full color and all that and the right page could be the comic faded/grayed out as a background for your comments or clarifications.

I can honestly say I’ve never considered the idea. Judging from my annotations/commentary in the AneekaChannel, I’m afraid sticking to one page will be tough! Maybe I’d have to do a condensed version and then an extended version. lol

Yes, in book form it would have to be condensed. But people can go online if they want more, right?

I may be dense but going down the facts:
V is considered a virus by others but is actually an AI
Kleya was a prodigy and learned vast amounts of computer work, including getting a cyber enhancement rig that was deemed a failure to work.
Kleya liked to win.
Hackers took control of robots. (Not Kleya near as I can tell)
The Earth’s poles reversed and there was massive devastation that leveled society. To the point that there is little of anything around and people are hooking into L.iF.e to escape reality and the loss.
Because of the robot rampage everyone blames hackers, all hackers, and by extension programmers for all the ills including a natural disaster. Kleya being the best at programming and hacking is assumed to be the true architect of everyone’s woes.

So basically end of civilization as we know it and mob mentality is casting blame where it can. Do I have this right?

I don’t think we can assume Kleya is innocent of hacking the mech armored soldiers. After her dad was taken away, she went on some kind of rampage, and she definitely feels guilty about what happened to her mother, who died when cyborgs destroyed the hospital she was in.

I doubt she had anything to do with the magnetic pole shift, and she may not have been the only hacker causing problems before that, but she’s got quite a lot to answer for.

I think her mother might have died before the cyborgs destroyed the hospital, and in her grief Kleya destroyed the hospital. Thus only looking like she killed her mother when she really didnt. Maybe.

While this section was nice, I have to agree, it really didn’t tell us much more then what we already knew about the characters. We knew Jake and Kleya were friends and worked together, and that Kleya played a part in her mothers death even if accidental.

You stressed this reality bit had to come out, and while I agree its nice to see what the people are going through, look like and see a bit of the city, it also be nice to add in new details as well, So far, this only showed that Kleya’s father was taken away, and Jake was more of a brother then friend/co worker?

I’d like to have seen how the world ‘ended’ how the war started, the damage it did, how the virus took over, and how the people came together.

Thats just my two cents.

Love the shading and the mood/effect of the last panel. Nicely composed with the lines drawing you in to the center and then focusing on Jake appearing very small and lost there. Excellently done. I stumbled on this comic and was at first put off by the poor graphics but the development and story line pulled me in 🙂
I like how there are 3 layers Reality L.i.F.e and the Game and the visual differences between them.
And now enough of Jake’s inner turmoil…. back to the story development whoot whoot!

Perhaps the Hakido translated her thoughts to D? She was talking hackers from all over the world and was forming a group (Or they found her) and she was thinking about being, for lack of a better word, mischievous (Some of the less violent attacks). At this point she was also working on D, fixing him or something. Her mom finds out, argues with daughter, mom goes to the hospital for volunteer work. Kleya is angry, so she thinks “I wish she would e attacked by robots” or something similar. Hakido translates thought to D, D happy that she is working on him wants to make her happy. D hacks robots, and sends them to blow up the hospital Kelya flies to hospital to stop robots manual because neither D or her could stop them because of magnetic shifting. And like my parents, me, and my parents parents, one of the ways she reacts to stress is her brain releases a stream of endorphin’s so that way she wouldn’t keel over in shock, so it caused her to start laughing. The group following what they thought was a call to end the world turned there attacks more violent,and again she could not stop them because she couldn’t communicate with them because of magnetic field. I think the reason why she was being , mishchiovous in the first place was because she was rebliong/she thought it was funny

This would make a lot of sense. Scary thought…

“He overdid it again”

If anyone could make a game move into reality, she certainly could use D to hack it:
*Raises hands and smiles.
*WHAM!

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 342