1049 Torch.

I made more than one version of this page because I couldn’t settle on a song. As someone who is not in touch with music it can be very difficult to make decisions in scenes that need refrences to it. I breifly toyed with the idea of writing original lyrics for this part, but I don’t think in ways that make songwriting work very well. Songwriting allows breaking language in ways that I can’t get my head around. I may be forced to change this if ever I get around to printing it because I don’t know the exact rules for quoting song lyrics. I assume they are similar to to the rules about everything else, which seem to be the one with the most money gets what they want. That person is almost certainly not going to be me in any dispute. As far as I know Shima Takeshi created the song in question. I suspect my work is so far below his radar he won’t give a shit one way or the other. In any event I should probably credit him in some way when it becomes an issue. I hate to stick it on the page, but in a book I’d probably put it in a list with the other stuff.

A long time ago someone told me they were composing some music inspired by the comic, but after the first email nothing ever happened. That is not uncommon. People are often filled with fire right after reading the comic, but it quickly subsides when more important matters pop up.

Remember the French translation? I suspect that’s dead in the water. I kind of knew it would turn out this way. Resetting type even on an existing work can be very time consuming. I’ve played with the idea of relettering the archive, but many of the typefaces aren’t included in windows now and the one I use doesn’t fit in the space originally allocated. You have to remake the entire text and bubble layers. It takes forever. After you remake the first page it begins to dawn on you just exactly what you’re committing to. Then the emails stop. I don’t blame the eager fans for walking away. It’s a comitment that, by any rational standard, would be insane to make with no guarantee of compensation. Shit, making a comic at all borders on insane. The proffit versus time spent is ridiculous. More so if you aren’t monetizing it with advertising.

The fact that this comic has been relatively successful is strange in that it requires a higher degree of dedication to keep up with than most. It rarely feeds you past information for the sake of clarity. A reader is required to remember things. That is as near to the antithesis of modern thinking as you can get. that said, it’s not impossible for someone to just wander in at some point and understand what’s happening. It’s more or less the same as going to a new job and slowly learning about the new people in your life. It just takes a little time and attention.