[TRENCHES] Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - Side Character Sketches

Geth

Side Character Sketches
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/side-character-sketches

Thanksgiving

Anonymous

As a UK development studio working with a US-based publisher, we were vaguely aware of Thanksgiving. To us, it was that Thursday in November where, for love nor money, you could not get an answer from anyone on the other end of the line. On the plus side, the steady stream of bug reports and feature requests also dried up, so we’d get a chance to catch up a bit.

One particular November, the publisher was leaning on us pretty heavily to get a console port done, and we were putting in some serious hours to work out the bugs. Thanksgiving arrives and the silence is deafening, as all Thanksgivings are, but at least we can get on with the work without international interruptions. Work continues pretty much around the clock throughout the weekend.

The following Monday afternoon, I’m busy uploading release candidate version #34 to the US test department when the producer walks in. I start telling him how I’m optimistic about this version and - touch wood - this could be it. He interrupts me:

“I wouldn’t bother sending that version. I just got off the phone to the publisher, and apparently they got release approval for version #32 last week. It’s gone out to stores. They forgot to tell us.”

J-mental

Hoping that already glacial storytelling was going to get advanced today? FUCK YOU! Sketch time!

Amaryl

does this mean that the season is over?

Morblitz

Yes. It's over. Apparently too subtle for J-mental to notice through his anger, though.

Urban Achiever

I'm still really enjoying the overall character arcs and the consistently wonderful artwork of The Trenches. I can't wait to see what Season 4 brings!

marsilies

Yes, the season is over, as posted by Tycho on the PA news page last Friday, since Trenches doesn't have a news page:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/06

As we have said on many, many occasions, the ultimate victory scenario is to make things, and then push them off the dock to have their own adventures. The Trenches just wrapped up its third season, which brings the archive there to over two hundred comics, each of which includes various gruesome True Tales of industry life. I really, really like it. This is what we have accomplished with Scott Kurtz, and when time got tight for him we brought on Mary C from Kiwi Blitz to handle the art. Time has tightened for him again, fairly significantly, with the success of Table Titans to the point where it’s not something we can do together anymore. Plus, Mary C is heading to Japan, which necessitated a stratagem. You might have noticed an art change in the last couple strips; those are the exquisite lines of Monica Ray, from Strip Search but also, you know, from Earth. That was Phase One of the Trenches Longevity Initiative (TLI). The second was to bring on Ty Halley, also of Strip Search fame, to write the shit out of it. This is an interesting juncture, for us and for Trenches, and I’d be curious where else this model could work

Once again, I think they should revise the Trenches site so it has its own news page. Also, when is it appropriate to start complaining about the "About the Authors" page not being updated? I assume after the next season is launched?

As for the sketches, the top drawings look like they're excerpted from the comics Mary Cagle drew, while the bottom sketches look closer to Monica Ray's styling. Were these sketches Monica did based on Mary's work to get a feel for the characters?

Hardtarget

yikes they really need a news page

davidhbrown

marsilies wrote: »

Yes, the season is over, as posted by Tycho...

Thanks, Marsilies; I'd missed that.

EggyToast

The *very first* new Trenches comic under the new artist was kind of weird. The rest have been delightful. But now it's its own thing, apparently, so who knows!

Morblitz

Wow it's being handled by Monica and Ty from strip search now? That's amazing. Congratulations to them.

forty

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