NOT QUITE TERRESTRIAL #4
Writer's Commentary

Hi, this is Nate Raymond, aka Nate1234, here with the commentary for issue #4. It took a while to make this issue. I wrote the script about three months ago and we just now got the issue done this July. No, we're not lazy. The thing to remember is that every one of us have our own priorities and jobs outside of Not Quite Terrestrial and thus we try not to treat NQT as priority #1. We'd love it to be, but that would be impossible.

Another thing to note is that issue #4 is, at the moment, planned to be {dixey}'s final issue. Her other priorities have caught up with her and she just feels that she needs to leave so she can have time to complete those priorities. She's also exploring the possibilies of getting into mainstream comic books and needs the time to build a bigger portfolio.

Onward to the commentary now!

Cover
Finally, you guys get to experience the true magic of Marie Yuen. See, she's a great artist, but some may argue she's even better at coloring. When you put her art together with her coloring, though... it's amazing. Just look at this cover and try to tell me it's not pro quality. It's beautiful.

The room Shawn and S-409 are standing in will be seen later in this issue, but pretty it's a room for other weird creatures like S-409 (the "S" in "S-409" stands for "species", actually). The shadow of the one monster in the one cage that's sorta standing in a slumpy way is supposed to be our version of the Jersey Devil (a creature who will most likely never make a regular appearance in NQT, though we had originally planned for a story with him). The serpent creature I've decided is probably the Gloucester Sea Serpent.

Page 1
This is the first page of four drawn by Tigrr Wildcat this issue. There's a lot of hidden stuff in this page, so I'm going to let Tigrr talk about stuff in it:

  1. "Well, hey now, that's my apartment...I live on the bottom floor. *insert old Luba song here* ;)"
  2. "Car - While you won't be able to see the rest once it's resized, welcome to the S(ierra) H(olt) series Jaguar (well, it had to be a cat..)"
  3. "Liscence plate - Californian plates, translate the numbers to letters on your phone, it spells out "area51". Simple, yet effective."
  4. "Bumper sticker - Ih8cels, 'nuff said. I reaaaalllyyy hate cel phones, especially when the person is driving and not paying attention..to anything. Man, I've lost count how many times I've almost been hit by someone blabbing and not paying attention to a single thing. I still wish I could find that bumper sticker saying, 'How well would you drive with that cel phone shoved up your ass!'"
Page 2
Once again, I'll hand the keyboard over to Tigrr for a moment. "Anyway, just a bit of useless info for this page. Nothing spectacular
in this page really, only one thing. Last panel...awww...ain't that cute? Little Sierra is playing with my 3 year old puppy named Teeka.
She's part Terrier and part Chihuahua. Hyper? I think her picture is next to the word in the dictionary! Love her though, too bad I can't have her with me in my apartment. Ah well. That's all. ;)"

Page 3
Not much to say at all about this page. When I look at it, though, it looks like, if this scene were filmed, the camera would be going slowly around Sierra and Mary.

Page 4
Tigrr took some time to do this page, which may explain a slight style change. But it's a great page, and, like Marie pointed out, you can really see the family resemblence in that last panel!

Page 5
The first of {dixey}'s four pages. Like I've noted before, this will be {dixey}'s final issue probably. This was also the last page she did. Boy, didn't she hide S-409 in the weeds well, though? I think she did a great job with that.

Page 6
It's interesting, especially this issue, to see how the artists display Sierra using her mental powers. {dixey} chose a more typical approach, but it works so well. I mean, everyone reading the issue knows exactly what she's doing, and I think that's a great thing. Poor Mary, though... wnated to get in some quality mother-daughter bonding, but now Sierra's ran off. Oh poo.

Page 7
Oh my God, it's an interlude with Kindle! Oh, all you twelve-year-olds lookijng at this page, shame on you! And for those of you who think I was the one who came up with Kindle being a stripped, we had initially voted between the choices of drug dealer, grocery store bagger, prostitute, stripper, and out of work, and all of the girls voted stripper. So hah!

Nah, but seriously, this page sort of caused us some trouble early on. When {dixey} presented it to us, I thought it was great, but others got to thinking it might be hard to tell it's three different panels all merged into a splash page. So some suggested adding shade to the characters in the bottom scene. In the end, though, that looked weird and so I just left it alone. It's such a beautiful page on it's own, why ruin it?

"I didn't use any references, because I assumed I wasn't gonna tell people who most of them were, so I wasn't trying *really* hard with the likenesses. Cut me some slack :)

  1. Roy Harper x2 (Arsenal - DC Titans)
  2. Garth x2 (Tempest - DC Titans)
  3. Dick Grayson x2 (Nightwing - DC Titans)  I know, that one sucks bad but I didn't know how his hair went! But, uh...he's leaving with Tempest, they're not really interested :)
  4. Link! x2 (My boy!)
  5. *sigh* Another horrible one. Jimmy Olsen x2 (Superman's pal...) Stupid picture, but if you see the original his shirt says "staff" over a planet. Hehe.
  6. Kindle's [lover later in the issue]
  7. Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern - DC) He's got his symbol on his shirt, and I put him next to Arsenal because they're friends.
  8. Tim Drake (Robin III - DC) Is he gaping at the stripper or all the guys he knows? I'm not sure. ;)
  9. Kon-El (Superboy - DC)
  10. Horrible! I'm really embarassed - but no reference! Okay, uh, I was kinda going for Tom Green just a little. Because I drew that part while we were having those discussions [about who should cameo]. :)
  11. Halfassed effort :) Very quick rendition of Danny (one of my characters). I threw him in last minute.
"The rest really and truly are completely generic, though the guy behind the pole has a soccer shirt on (as Matt [{dixey}'s boyfriend] saw right off)."

Page 8
Funny story. Marie turned in a rough draft of this page accidentally when she wasn't even supposed to draw it! Go see her design in the gallery (Recent Sightings) under "Alternate Takes on Scenes." It's a great design, too bad we couldn't use both her and {dixey}'s page.

{dixey} named the strip club "The Strip Mall". When we got this page, it was severly smeared, but Marie, an expert at computer graphics, fixed it right up. Also, {dixey} tried very hard on that last panel to draw as little nudity as possible while still allowing the veiwer to know she's taking off her dress.

Page 9
The beginning of Marie's pages. Man, she drew this scene so much... bigger than I imagined. I imaged a five story building. She drew this huge military complex! It's very awesome. The sign on the fence, by the way, is the exact same as the one the real Area 51 has on its fence (I'm amazed how accurate Marie was with that).

Page 10
This page came off very nice, though I can't say I'm 100% sure that joke at the end was good or not. A friend by the name of Paige suggested it to me when I showed her the page for an idea for a line for Sierra to say. I dunno, it's the best we could come up with and the least offensive. I love how Marie drew the eyes, though.

Page 11
Back to Kindle and her lover, it appears they've finished the job. I love how Marie drew Kindle's hair in these pages, it's so amazing with all of the shading.

Page 12
This page blew me away. Marie tends to follow my scripts very loosly, so when I give her scenes like this, I'm always shocked and amazed at what comes out of it. Very beautiful. Plus... hey, the guy burns pretty well, eh?

Page 13
The first of Glock's pages. Originally, this wasn't even a page in the script, but the comics are supposed to be 16 pages long and I was short a page so I came up with a mood page with Mary. But Glock did wonders with it, didn't she? I love all of those photos. Look at the one of Sierra dressed like a super-hero! Great page, I love it. I love silent pages. =)

Page 14
Do you recognize that warehouse? If so, good, then you'll probably tell me it's the same one we saw in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now, I'm not sure who all of the species are in this page, with the exception of the alien. Glock does tell me, though, that the boy in the watertube thing is Superboy.

Page 15
Traditionally, I try to avoid thought bubbles in NQT, they take away from the fun of the series to me. But we let the rule slide slightly this page, allowing the viewer to see that Sierra knows where S-409 is. And, boy, don't those doors remind you of the Wizard of Oz?

Page 16
The background was done with a computer by Glock. It's also the first time Sierra and Shawn have met face-to-face. And... well, just look at the damn pic, you really should, it's awesome!!! So much better than how I imagined it. Oh, and just so you know, a different rendering of this scene will appear as the first page in NQT #5 drawn by someone else.

Bonus Pin-Up
We decided to start doing pin-ups for NQT from here on, and this will be our first one! This was actually the first NQT drawing Marie ever did for us when I first approached her to draw NQT. Now, mind you, certain aspects of all three characters are portrayed differently than they normally are in the comics, but it's still an awesome drawing, one of my personal faves.

And that's all for this issue. Be sure to come back for issue #5!