Deep Dive Five

Hindsight is a double edge sword.  Its easy to be critical of my own work and kick myself for a few things that I should have executed better.  Sometimes its best to walk away and chalk it up to experience but in this case I always knew I needed a better Logo for the cover.  The logo and font slowly evolved over the release of the webcomic.  Each page of the comic was slightly reworked for social media image formats and the title was long and designed to react with the image beneath it.  The whole idea just got in the way.  So, as I start to spread the word about this project’s existence to different outlets that might “bite,” I figured I better put my best work out there and make no excuses.  So a little surgery was necessary.  The cover was not a drastic change but it definitely feels more dynamic and the DEEP DIVE 5 title does not look like an after thought.

One other page has always bothered me.  Its actually 2, because its a double page spread.  I’m not sure how it slipped through the editing process but it’s fairly glaring.  Once V and Sam rescue the whale, we turn to a double truck with the whales jumping out of the water happy and free.  No problem with the main panel.  Captain V’s inset panel is the issue.  She is looking up off the page – bad.  You want to know what she is looking at but there is a disconnect as you assess the page.  I was probably looking for a strong diagonal layout so your eyes went from V to Whales to Sam to Tentacle.  But you look at the main panel first and see the whales then go to Captain V and then to Sam so it doesn’t work.  By rearranging the panels I have a distinct triangle layout and it keeps my visual information tight and connected.  I added the net to help justify my reconstructing the image to include both above and below the water line.  It also serves as reiteration of the dialogue.   I suppose its debatable how strong a layout this new version is but it assists the story better and that is what tips the balance for me.