- Ook-La is my phonetic spelling of UCLA.
- Lu Sei is my spelling of my Organic chemistry professor.
- The reason it's mostly in anime style is that it's all a daydream and the character dreams in anime, like any regular nerd.
- The lack of backgrounds is a technical issue rather than artistic. As of this project, I haven't found a good way to combine Flash and Corel Painter into an effective unit.
- I did the whole comic, from concept to sketches to final image, on computer.
- On Page 1 you see what the character sees in the professor.
- Page 2 shows the transformation of Lu Sei into a full blown monster as well as the character's transformation into his dreamstate.
- I don't know how well it comes across, but Lu Sei's limbs are electric, and so are the minions' limbs.
- Page 4 is where you might get a hint as to what's really going on.
- Page 6, with all the sword cuts through the panels, is really my inspiration for the whole project. I drew those panel concepts before anything else.
- Page 7 finally shows how nerdy I am. Since Lu Sei is my organic chemistry teacher, her minions are all atoms.
- The minions are 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen which equals, yes class, H2O or water.
- The stance they take is what the configuration of a water molecule actually is. I am such a geek.
- Page 9 further shows my dorkiness. The reason he chooses the Na atom is that Na stands for sodium and sodium reacts violently with water.
- I had considered using a Magnesium atom, but I remembered that the magnesium has to be on fire before water causes it to explode.
- Science is fun!
- Page 10 - I don't think sodium causes that big of an explosion, though.
- I really like how beat up he looks in the last panel. I have no idea how he could've gotten that black eye.
- Page 11 - I'll say it's because she's so beat up that she can't power her hair and that's why she's bald. But really, I forgot to add in the hair at the end. Oops.
- You're supposed to realize that he got thrown to where his sword ended up and that's how he gets his sword for the next page.
- Page 12 - I originally had Lu Sei become a huge hexagon form and the ronin would see that in her stable benzene state she was indestructible. He would then get a Carbon atom or something and toss it onto her to weaken one of her bonds and then she'd be vulnerable again. That became the whole Na/Sodium thing and in the end it was just too hard to wrap my mind around visually. That and it was extremely nerdy.
- After the death of Lu Sei, you can see that she and the minions lose their electric limbs.
- And, since he daydreams in anime, of course he walks into a Japanese sunset.
Thanks so much for reading and hopefully I'll catch you later.
- Hai Pham