Extra - chapter 5

Surprise!!!
There's a little update for you today... it's the 3 pages extra about Cat and Feetsie I had talked about.
So it's up on SmackJeeves for the English readers.

And for the Italian readers...

Open publication - Free publishing - More web comic

I hope you enjoys it :D

Chapter 5 (END) curiosities and blabber

ROMEO

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

JULIET

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET

You kiss by the book.

(Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene V)

Thus begins our comic this week, quoting (in a way) Romeo and Juliet's first meeting.
This is what Lio and Foxy are talking about: you gave me your stomach ache! Quick, take it back!

Of course she kiss by the book. We'll see later on how she uses that to her advantage.

The little, funny, introduction conducts to a theme: Kane is still teaching Castalia and, since she smooched him long enough to convince him to make her read something more interesting, he is giving her Romeo and Juliet.

Is Kane owning the actual, official book? Maybe, Willie's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare) magnificent works were printed in 1623 in an official way. Bad pirated versions of his plays were already running around and maybe Kane got some of the bad quartos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_quarto). Now his sonnets he might actually have but he will be reading Catullo (some of the Catulli Carmina are just sooo romantic) to his wife, instead.

Castalia doesn't seem to appreciate a story with too many kisses... that's because she stops too early and eventually never gets to the cool part: the duel!
Of course the pirate take on this is: you want a girl, you kidnap her and marry her on the spot.
Still Kane finds an excuse for our tragic lovers: they are too young and spoiled to figure out how to solve their own problems (I have to add on top of that that the adults around them aren't very helpful either!). But this is a tragedy so things cannot go right.
Eventually, you'll see, Castalia will not get Hamlet either.

So why is Kane giving Castalia "Romeo and Juliet" instead of "Henry V" or "Hamlet" or "Macbeth"? The story... is not really "something with a duel" now, is it? What is he trying to achieve? What is he saying?
We'll see, with time.

Pay attention also to what Cassandra is saying about her sister: she went from "I wanna do it" to "I wanna do him" in a month. Castalia will not get any cooler on the contrary she'll get weaker and weaker... to a point where... you might not like her anymore. She'll learn a few thing about herself that she will not like either. If she were perfect, though, she wouldn't be human... experiencing love is not a positive thing for her until she figures out what to do with her emotions. In order to touch the Heavens you have to go through Hell.

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Personal blabber (I confess! XD)

As I keep saying... trust me but don't trust me. I will make you believe things... forgive me but it needs to be done. As I write this I have already set in mind and am currently storyboarding the ending of The Pirate Balthasar so I speak as a foreseer. Sometimes I will puzzle you and do things the wrong way... for a reason. I am sorry.

Am I using formulas for writing? I am. Am I following the hero's journey? I am. Will I use call backs, frames, ellipses and reincorporation like in movies? I will. Dialogues with subtext? Plenty of it. Foreshadowing? Some of it. Character arcs? In a good and in a bad way, yes.

Will I use "show, don't tell" like in movies? No. I'll tell you plenty of things instead in the form of gossip and exposition. Neither will I reveal all the details of certain facts (but you'll be able to put the pieces together).
Flashbacks? Not really. There are no flashbacks in real life. Flashbacks in movies and comics always have a label feeling to them: WARNING WARNING FLASHBACK ABOUT TO BEGIN!
I hate that. I'd rather use a "wrong way" to convey emotions directly because I am "telling" a story.
Formulas help me up to a certain point. This comic is a hybrid... certain things cannot work for a slice of life in a restricted circle, plus some formulas need to be broken and bad stuff need to come in in small quantities. I'm with Charlie Kaufman(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kaufman) on this: it's okay to do it in the right amount, like in "Adaptation" - brilliant movie... I'm also with Chuck Palanhiuk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Palahniuk) you have to give your characters authority and then humiliations and you have to be willing not to betray your source material and admit things people does not believe in and might not like (that is why you'll see matrimony as the ultimate goal in life for this girls: even I do not believe in that but my story is set in 1660 so these girls shall get married).
I have confidant characters! Pea and Westley will be there to explain things to the thick headed people around them. In doing so they'll reveal you stuff.
Therefore, in small quantity, you shall see both exposition and deus-ex-machina. They will be there in a conscious way: they know what they are.
Some things need a theatrical structure and you shall see voice over as monologues and "a parte". I'll break the wall a couple of times and characters will talk to you.

For flashbacks I will be using a theatrical ploy whereby you'll see images sliding in front of the narration... as if you were watching a pantomime.
So overall the Pirate Balthasar is mixed media and believe me... there will be even musical in it.
So trust me but don't trust me! :D We'll be done before the Mayans arrive on their spaceships in 2012!

Work in progress!

Okay guys... before I go on and ramble about layouts and floorplans using ugly drawings sketched in Photoshop (I'll make pretty ones for the volume extras, I promise) here we go again with our favorite teaser for the week.

Yeah, yeah I know you like this... su usual: don't trust my drawings! But, at least, these pictures lets you know what stage I'm at right now.

These few pages will end chapter 5.
As I said previously there will be a moment of reflection and it will involve mainly Pea, Kes and Castalia. It's from Kane's perspective, though.

There will be a final pun - I cannot leave you without comedy - and be careful to what Kane tells Castalia by the end... for it's the hook up to the next chapter. LOL


After I finished drawing this I was left pondering one thing...: how did Feetsie actually spend this first month on the Alidivento?
Well, tripping, of course...

So I will add an extra to this chapter: it's a Cat/Feetsie thing and it will be 3 pages long.

This is what I am drawing right now. Then I'll jump into clean up.

Chapter 5 D curiosities

So Chapter 5 is almost done, 9 more pages to go and then we jump into the juicy part.
This chapter, being the first one of the volume, is an introduction and set things up... also the different parts of the chapter are structured in a way that the penultimate part has the chapter climax and the last part is more of a "the moral of the story was" feel to it. Once a bunch of stuff happens it's always nice to draw a line, sit and reflect a bit.
It will be coming up in the next 9 pages.

Then of course chapter 6 starts... the first part will introduce the theme to the chapter and the second part will be... juicy, the third part will be juicy and then we close again... but with a cliffhanger of some sort because this is the second chapter of the volume and it needs a "to be continued" feel to it.
But let's get to the interesting stuff...

What is the stuff Kane talked about in the last pages of chapter 5D?

When Kane was talking to Castalia he said some important words to her. Being in a situation of constant danger all the time he cannot marry just any woman, he needs a cool companion.
Now, one may think: man, then don't marry the first girl you meet in a tavern!
Right... Ah, but see Castalia gave display of bravery and intelligence in one night and he probably saw potential (aside from the fact that he has his own personal reasons and we'll know about them later). In fact, when he discovers that she is ignorant he is shocked and upset... but he is not willing to give up and decide to teach her. He'll be her mentor!
What kind of hero's journey would we have without a mentor?

When he tries to convince her that she can read books, it's okay to read books... he tells her that he believes women to be as intelligent as men, they can think and when they study they even say dangerous things and that's what scares people the most. So he says that, to most people, a smart woman is like a monster and talks about Hypatia.

Now, quoting Hypatia might sound as an anti Cristian statement from Kane's part (she's always been used for anti religious purposes) but he does not mention anything about death, he just says that poor Hypatia... well, something bad happened to her and he think that's because she was too smart (although that might not be true, he probably read books and got his own ideas about that).

Of course the guy is not saying that Castalia should be like Hypatia. He merely says that he needs his wife to be a quick thinker in order to get him out of trouble if he does get in trouble. He needs backup! A buddy! A companion! --- that line is pushing it a bit. Can a girl really get the pirate Balthasar out of trouble?
Who knows... but by setting a high standard Kane can at least achieve a smaller goal: push her to become someone able to stay out of trouble. So that if something happens to him... he does not have to worry about her... because she can take care of herself!

I mentioned already in his presentation that Kane is the type of guy who would never give a fish to a starving man, he would teach him to fish instead and give him a fishing line.
This is exactly what he is doing with his wife without trying to change her.
Castalia wants to be a pirate? Very well, he is not saying: you cannot be a pirate... he is saying: okay but you have to know a couple of things if you want to survive.
Just like he didn't say: I'll give you the world... he said: the world is there, go get it, I'll follow you.

He mentioned another thing called: tetragramma.
Now... we all know what a staff or stave is.
Up until the 16th Century the staff had only four lines and in Italian you would call that a tetragramma (tetra being the suffix you use for 4... while penta is the one you use for 5, it's Greek, anyway don't kill yourself on this stuff, it's just out of curiosity). The modern staff, in Italian, is called pentagramma and has 5 lines and 4 spaces and was introduced just slightly before the 1500.
The tetragramma or 4 lines staff was used mostly for church music and madrigals and the notes, up until the second decades of the 1600 were: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. (goes all back to Paul the Deacon and the hymn to st. john... other stuff you really don't need to know about)....

Except, when Castalia says: do, re, mi, fa, sol... she shows to be superior to her husband in one thing: music! - at least for now...

In fact she already knows "do" and does not mention "ut" and probably that's due to the fact she is pretty young and listens to some modern and... let's say more "commercial" songs.
But Kane is older, doesn't care for music and let me tell you... cannot sing (there's at least one thing he cannot do). So he gets the music misunderstanding part but then he comes out with something as old as a tetragramma... which means the only music he ever heard was the one he heard in church from church choir with all the Gregorian watchamacallit that a church choir would imply. In short, to Kane, music is boring and he probably never heard of Monteverdi nor Henry Purcell (which is a great loss - he'll eventually appreciate music, one day, because of a particular jig!)! XDDD
Oh, I just realized that he probably never even danced a passacaglia from my beloved Giovan Battista Lulli! How saaaad! TT___TT


What else? Ah... tsatsiki... the dish Pifo prepares... ehm... if you like yogurt and cucumbers and find the weather to be particularly hot and unbearable... you might want to try this.
It's good and fresh. It's a Greek dish and let's not forget: we are dealing with Papadopulos kids here! :D

I think that covers it all... if you have any other questions you can use the shoutbox!

Tic tac 17!

Here we go! Did you miss me? Well I was quiet because I was drawing... between meetings.

Apparently when I have free time on my hand it's okay if I do something productive... just as long as I don't log onto the internet (which seems pretty fair).

So the Pirate Balthasar is somewhat my self improvement project! And I was able to draw the next portion of chapter 5 today.

Tomorrow clean up.

Let's see what you can guess from these! XDDD

Page 20 - did he miss something?

Today I woke up thinking: where the heck was Pifo while all that stuff was going on? He really missed a lot.

So... he was pooping. I wonder why he didn't consider the oddity of being all alone pooping on deck - but maybe he enjoyed the privacy.

Fov onfe I am heve alone! *_*

I am glad he didn't show up... I guess between Steeves, Kane acting all heroic and the shiny butts... there would be no way for me to control him.

The pirate Balthasar - Chapter 5 B - RELEASE!

Chapter 5B and its 10 pages are ready on Smackjeeves for you.

Click on the post title to go directly to the comic page there.

Let me know what you think and if I made any grammar or spelling mistakes, as I often do XDD

The pdf will be up tomorrow night on issuu.

Open publication - Free publishing - More web comic

Domani sera il capitolo in italiano!

The Pirate Balthasar - Chapter 5A

For your reading comfort.... here we have the issuu version of chapter 5!<

Open publication - Free publishing - More web comic

Scurvy dogs!

In the last two chapters we saw two particular episodes show up: 1) a man overboard 2) possible scurvy symptoms.

The first case was explained in the chapter itself. Consider that the Alidivento is a small ship and the Mediterranean is not completely an opened sea so it may have strong winds but does not have huge waves. It is also saltier than an Ocean (and salt help people stay afloat longer) and it's warmer (so hypothermia would take on slowly).
On an Oceanic Vessel a man overboard was doomed. I might have mentioned this before but most sailors didn't know how to swim. You stay on a ship, what would you need swimming for?
Taking baths was also not considered to be a healthy habit so... water was not even contemplating for drinking, most of the times, let's say it's something you sail upon.

In our case, although Foxy's recovery is placed a few panels after his fall... you have imagine the Alidivento maneuver, come about and do a large circle to go back and fetch its pilot. So we can probably imagine, instead, that the guy either grabbed onto one of the ropes floating along the ship or maybe he managed to stay afloat long enough to be rescued.
In our story we cannot let Foxy die: he is the pilot, he is good at it and he is Lio's boyfriend! We need him!

But the episode helped us start the relationship between him and Lio plus I used it to go "History Channel" on you and tell you about "man overboard".

The second case is the insightful incident that sparks Westley's love interest for Kes.
I could have used anything... a cold... dermatitis... diarrhea... but we've been on this ship for a month already (well, almost a month, right?). When you move into a new place there are a few things you need to do to settle down: buy toilet paper, pots and pottery, towels... you get a bank account, a phone line, the internet... Once you settled a month is gone by and you finally get to explore.
Volume 2 will explore.
Of course there isn't really much to be seen on board of a ship... except the people who lives on it.
Because of that the first chapter is a captain's log. By the log we'll definitely learn to know that Kane is very observant and that Westley probably opens up to him a lot.

I am warning you, I won't tell you everything directly, a lot of things I'll hint to and you'll have to piece things together yourself. I believe that's how life works and I want to reproduce that.
It will feel weird, at first, but trust me... eventually all the pieces come together, they just do it when they need to do it, it's more gratifying that way.

Anyways let's go back to our exploring people. We saw in the first volume that Wes is a doctor, he has his sick-bay set up in his cabin and takes Lio as a nurse. We heard from Cat and Fox that he can be scary and can even give orders to Kane or override his orders and revert them.
It's his medical dictatorship.
We needed to see the doctor at work (you cannot just say "I'm a doctor" and just leave it at that, right? Otherwise why put a doctor in the crew?).
I always believed that the surgeon had a reason to be the second most paid mate on board. Westley was born to show that!

Now, when the girls arrive on board they are probably malnourished. Cat noticed that, Kane noticed that... Pea and Kes stated so. I had to keep the medical visit short - in the original lines Westley checks Kes's neck and teeth, it wasn't useful to the story, visually... so we only see... the pus.
At this point of the story Wes still hates Kes - oh, hate is so closed to love! - but because he looked stern and serious about his job and she decided to trust him... his attitude changes, becomes "professional" and he acts like a doctor should.
He understands it's not the case to say: you are scorbutic - in most Latin languages that also means: you are not kind!
No offense, she is not kind to him but just say it so, bluntly, in her face while she faces a serious illness... would be indelicate.
Plus it's possibly an early stage... no teeth fell off, no blisters show up on legs and arms... and probably it's just a dermatitis and nothing more.
Still it is better to prevent, rather than cure... aaah, and that's the cure: the magic lemon.

Using lemon or lemon juice on sailing boats has been known and forgotten and known for... centuries. Wes knows that lemon help prevent scurvy. Does he know it's because of the vitamin C? No, he doesn't... it's ancient wisdom. The history of the Jewish Physicians is very long, there's a nice book about it, you might find it interesting.... it's very amazing and, unfortunately, also very sad.

p.s. somebody mentioned limes on SmackJeeves, and that was actually a good question.
Limes were used mostly after the 1700 and in the Eastern/Caribbean and Asian Seas. As I said on SmackJeeves we probably had limettas coming from Persia but not limes in the late 1600. The lime was first mentioned by Sir Thomas Herbert in 1677 when he referenced a site near the coast of Mozambique. Our story takes place about 15 years before that. Also... we are in the Spanish Kingdom (Spain, Sicily and Naples all belonged to the King of Spain)... I'll post a map... here!

There are a lot of little islands on this side of the sea and we are island hopping right here! :D Between Sicily, Spain and Sardinia... (of course we went to Greece to fetch the girls but that was our man going out of his way to get the wife). We'll see an island with black rocks and shores... probably Stromboli! (I renamed the island though ;P) We'll try different Italian and Spanish foods and wines.

Now, Sicily has a valley known as "la conca d'oro" - the golden bowl - near Palermo. You'll find huge, delicious oranges, tangerines and lemons there!
That's why Wes uses lemons and not limes.

Chapter 5A - Release!

Hi guys,

I haven't had internet for two days... and actually I need to set the countdown to my gmt +8 too now that I live in Singapore... cuz to me it's monday night now... and to you it's probably not! ^^"

Sorry... anyways!

Smackjeeves is uploading the new release now. It's only 9 pages, sorry, but you'll find them to your liking hopefully. As usual it will take about an hour to show up completely!

Click on the post title to link back to smackjeeves! ^_^/

polls and covers!

Hi guys,
there's a new poll for you... maybe 36 days is not enough to decide - considering volume 2 will be done November 16th - but still... maybe you have plenty of time to choose and decide who would you like to see on the cover of volume 2.

In the meantime I am trying to make this Foxy&Lio cover and I had picked for them the color green... but I am not convinced:

Your honest opinion - to me something's wrong, like there's not enough contrast - lime green, wood green or... Deda change the colors?