Page Notes
Episode published on Tuesday 9th of August, 2005.
I remember how this strip came about. As I've mentioned in the notes for a previous strip, I used to bash these straight out with pen on paper without drafting in pencil beforehand. I must not have had a script either, as the entire theme of this strip from which the title is derived was drawn from the fact that when I drew the third panel, I accidentally left a gap in the word "environment". Rather than simply start again or, gods forbid, use computer software to rectify the mistake, I wrote it into the strip as one of the protester's odd quirks. That's the truth - I was just too naive to remember that you can change things when digitising a comic.
The term for the unusual approach to censoring swear words I used here is called "grawlixes" (or "grawlices"). The reason I stopped using it later on (when I started digitally wording pages) is because I already use exclamation and question marks frequently enough as it is, so using them as grawlixes just served to make things more confusing.
I also realise that the word "simper" has not been used in common parlance since circa. 1950s issues of British comic The Beano. I was a big Beano fan as a kid / teenager, which is why all my characters seem to sweat a lot. Seriously, pick up a copy of either the Beano or Dandy and see how many times characters express surprise, worry or exasperation through the medium of sweat. It's a bad drawing habit I picked up that I'm still trying to kick.
I can't remember why I went with a protester crisis for the introductory arc. Guess I have it in for environmentalists LAWL CONTROVERSY.
Tagged:
Location - Detulux HQ,
Location - Paris, France,
Max Valerion,
Melvin Pratt the Environ-mental Protestor,
Newbie the Henchman
Comments
Transcript
Title - 12: "Environ-ment"
(The protester up on the roof of warehouse twelve punches the air with his right hand. In his left hand, he holds a large placard on a stick with the words "SAY NO TO CORPORATIONS" on it. We can see his clothes now - a green sleeveless jacket, a pale green shirt with "SAVE THE WHALES" written on it accompanied by a cartoon whale, and a pair of black and red checked trousers.)
Protester: DOWN WITH CORPORATIONS!
(Someone shouts a reply, they are off-panel so we do not see who it is. This reply catches the protester off-guard.)
Voice: WHY?
Protester: BECAUSE THEY POLLUTE THE ENVIRON-MENT! DUH!
(We see that the replying voice belongs to Mr. Pain, who seems amused by the man up on the roof of his property.)
Pain: (to himself) Heh. "Environ-ment".
(Pain puts his hands together and brings them up to his face, mock-simpering like an adult cooing over a newborn baby.)
Pain: ...Aww! Isn't that nice? He's protesting about the environment!
(Suddenly, Pain changes his expression to a surly glare up at the man on his roof. He pauses, before quickly raising an accusing finger and a fist at the protester above him, yelling at the top of his lungs.)
Pain: GET THE [CENSORED] OFF OF MY ROOF!
New guy: Heh heh!
