Pavane in Pearl and Emerald
Wordcount: 32807
I think we have passed the point of maximum confusion, and from here on in Kide actually gets to find out what is going on. (And then I sure hope he can figure out how to fix everything, because I haven't managed to do so yet.)
I've been searching the web for stuff that will help figure out what I should be doing with the layouts for Black Flag, and one of the things I found was a critique by some guy named Alex Toth of some other guy named Steve Rude. And although I have no experience and no training and know next to nothing in this field, Alex Toth's critique makes me positively eager to go and do all the things he tells Steve Rude not to — most particularly, when he goes on about Steve showing characters from the back.
In my search I have been looking at a lot of manga related sites (because they are there) and one of the comments that has been made is that in manga you are much more likely to see a main character's back. This is almost never done in American comics. Well, now I know why — if you tried to show them from the back some geezer would yell at you. I've been showing people from the back when there seemed to be a good reason to do so. And I intend to continue doing so, until I figure out a good reason not to.
One of the other things I found on the web was McCloud saying in an interview that everyone starts out in comics by wanting to imitate the style of some favorite artist. I suspect he's mostly right, but I can't possibly be the only one who has approached the field from a completely different angle than that one.