Page 156 – Communication Breakdown
Man, I’m still getting these pages done by the skin of my teeth right now, what with how that big Conventional Wisdom update required burning through what little buffer material this comic had (it was worth it though, I’ve never done ANYTHING that’s gotten as many hits as that puppy). It especially sucks because I’ve got, like, 5 other side projects that haven’t made it online yet because I never have time to finish them.
Well, anyway, this page was a lot of fun to draw. Layla’s way more fun to draw angry than happy.
(Historical Notes: This is one of those points where Layla’s final personality really started to settle into place. She was always a lot closer to the finished product than characters like Trigger, but there were still some balance issues left to work out. Several of the earlier pages really over-played the “blatant villain” aspect of her character, when it really should have been more “ambivalent opportunist.” Pages like this do a much better job than the intro of establishing that Layla talks a much meaner talk than what she can walk, and she’s all the more interesting for it.)
To be fair, she had been attempting to run a for-Evil corporation for a while at the beginning of the story. So it should hardly be surprising if she appeared to be a blatant villain — that’s exactly what she wanted to appear to be while in that position, and naturally it would take a while to wind down that persona.
This is one of the main paradoxes of Layla’s character: she’s very unaware of what she actually wants.