Far Out There

If any of you were still hoping for more Layla fan service, this’ll have to do. Actually, in my mad dash to defend our heroine’s modesty, I kind of deliberately created a nit to pick. There’s no was she had that slip on under the clothes she was wearing earlier, and it doesn’t make sense for her to have put it on BEFORE deciding to tempt Kevin with a dress. But then, the only other options were:

A. having Layla prance around in a bra and panties for the whole page (which just plain wasn’t happening)

B. framing the whole thing in tight close-ups or other weird angles like the last page (which would have ruined the “clothes everywhere” joke)

C. doing one of those corny “rapid-fire montage of different outfits” (which just seem stupid to me, since Layla’s in too much of a hurry to bother putting on any clothes she wasn’t already sure about)

Also, sorry that the art’s a little rougher than usual (dig those wonky border lines). Katsucon’s not for two weeks but it’s already throwing me for a loop. -___-;;;

(Historical Notes: I could again comment on how in later years I’d have a harder time avoiding the trap of going ahead and doing the stock fanservice situation but being “ironic” and “satirical” about it.  The longer you do this, and the more ideas you burn through, the harder it is to take the high road and leave an obvious potential gag un-used.  But really, i want to focus on Layla’s figure… which just might be the single most unfortunate transition in the history of anything ever.  But seriously, compared to the way Layla is drawn now, she looks SUBSTANTIALLY less buxom here, and a big part of the late-onset puberty she experienced was actually this plot arc here.  From the start, one of the key concepts for Layla was that she was the girl who USED to have everything.  She was spoiled rotten thanks to her family’s money, obviously, but even without that she’s just used to getting her way.  Being by being smart or intimidating or charming, she can usually bend anybody to her will… only for Far Out There to be a parade of situations totally beyond her control, cue comedic frustration.  I kind of took for granted that Layla would be an attractive person as a means to enabling those charming qualities, but it wasn’t until I had to throw her up against a lunkhead like Kevin that I started feeling the need to crank that up a bit.  As we’ve already seen, and will continue to in further pages, Kevin is way too dumb to appreciate Layla’s finer qualities, and I knew later characters like Disonar were lurking down the line, so I gradually started amending Layla’s design to make her more immediately attractive to that type of knuckle-dragger.  That is, bigger boobs & butt.  Of course, there’s also the matter of Tabitha’s redesign, but we’ll get to that later)