Page Notes
Episode published on Monday 18th of July, 2005.
So here's where I make a big reveal and hammer another huge nail into the coffin of my webcomic. Some people never cotton on but many do and every time it happens it is really embarrassing for me. My name is Sean Payne. The head of Detulux is S. Pain. Coincidence, or blatant author insertion? It's quite obviously the latter.
However, before you close the page with disgust here is my reasoning: S. Pain was an uninspired pseudonym I devised for myself when I was 14. This was also around the period where I was trying to develop a bad guy character that was different from all the other Hollywood baddies - one who was competent. So I channelled everything I thought a villain should be into Mr. S. Pain.
I don't use it as a nom de plume any more, ever since a friend pointed out that it could be easily misinterpreted as "Mr. Spain" (annoyingly this happened when we were playing a video game where my profile name was "S Pain" and I hadn't noticed that it just looked like "SPain" until my friend commented on it). The whole author-insertion thing has been an embarrassment for years ever since I realised that it is possibly the most egotistical and narcissistic thing that a writer (or even that a normal person not inflicted with the affliction know as "writing") can do. But here's the interesting thing: I've moved on, but Pain hasn't.
Mr. Pain is still very much a distillation of my teenage opinions of characterisation. I occasionally dabble in writing "more serious" material in prose form, and the way I approach writing a character "properly" and the way I approach writing for Pain are two very different things. Pain is a cartoon, a vibrant and unabashed collection of adolescent notions channelled into a story about the life of a cartoon criminal, with no realistic emotions whatsoever (you could probably bandy around the term "hyper-realism" if you're a bit of an artsy sod). I, on the other hand, am an overweight, rather weary and lazy young man who hopes to one day hold down a job.
I think it's safe to say that this comic is no longer a self-insertion fantasy. It was, though. Which is why the writing for these early strips was awful.
Of course, this could all be pseudo-psychological justification for something that is still an expression of my egotism no matter what I say. You decide!
As for this actual strip, yay for me forgetting to leave a space between both rows of panels. That's because I never used to pencil out these early strips, I would draw them in pen from the off and scan them straight in. My belief was that I was above planning things out...hahahahah! Past-me cracks me up.
Tagged:
Location - Detulux HQ,
Location - Paris, France,
Max Valerion,
Newbie the Henchman
Comments
Transcript
Title - 09: "Obscenities"
(The Boss strolls across the grass of one of the Detulux lawns alongside the new guy.)
Narrator: 10 minutes later...
The Boss: ...So who is this guy on the roof? A local?
New guy: He isn't French sir. I think he's American.
(Closer up to the two we can now see the Boss in detail. He has tidied himself up, had a shave and brushed his hair into a side-parting. He is now wearing a white suit, a blue shirt, a black tie and a pair of small oval-shaped glasses on his face.)
The Boss: That's okay then.
Subtitle: Mr. S. Pain - The Boss.
New guy: (confused) Sir?
Mr. Pain: (smiling) It means we don't have to spend any time working out what obscenities he's yelling at us. Do we know why he's on the roof?
New guy: He's a protester, sir.
Mr. Pain: (guffawing) Ha! Might use a few obscenities of my own, then.
