How I Killed Your Master: Page 025 to ~046
 

We're http://"http://www.nuklearpower.com/...]back on track after a brief hiatus.

This page marks the beginning of the second chapter, so I figured it was time to start up a new thread. Discuss the hell out of HIKYM!

Yay, more assassination tea-pot action!

But no, I was just about to wonder both if there was a hiatus of sorts going on and when we were going to see the story interrupted by claims of "Yer stalling old man!"

I believe the hiatus was announced. But maybe I'm imagining things.

Something tells me that beatings are about to occur.

Do you suppose old Wong is pulling a Scheherazade on the guy?

The hiatus was announced (my trip to Italy), it was just longer than expected (my Italian plague followed by our letterer, Jeff, needing to finish up some work for Marvel first).

Yeah, I totally missed the announcement.

Although HIKYM was on hiatus, I was not.
 

I suppose the good thing about the hiatus is that it sorta helped build up another buffer. We're back to about 3 weeks now :)

I thought I had a good idea about how 8-bit would play out, way back when I started reading it. I believe I started reading comics when the ogre ambushed Fighter and BM while they were searching for the Cave of No Return.

Suffice it to say, I'm just going kick back and enjoy this one without guessing anything at all.

I like how you can see two of Chan Sen's men in the first panel, especially that one guy yawning. For some reason it makes me feel as if the story going to turn into a twisted version of the Princess Bride, except the audience is a bunch of blood thirsty men.

is it just me, or is the link broken for everyone?

Page 26
 

That last panel is gorgeous. If it was printed as a wall poster, I think I might buy it. I think it might be my favorite single frame of this comic so far.

Those two are so dead.

Also, what's this about the Five Dragons?

Dun dun dunnnnn is what!

What a bunch of suicidal idiots.

My only hope is that Fei insults them thoroughly during the beating.

This. Except I hope that Fei beats one with the other one. That is to say I hope he uses the skinny one as a club.

Heh, not outnumbered, maybe he'll get Wong in with a motivational "Go and distract Ji Bao, I'll kick your ass after you survive and i clean up this mess YOU made.
After that, bring me some tea!"

I could probably cook up a print from the full size original art of it..

That would be an awesome Desktop I would wholeheartedly use :D

The good thing is that the panel's dimensions are about "wallpaper size".

I wonder if a colored version of that panel would be a good wallpaper if we meet the 500$ monthly goal.

Someone has seen Darkplace.

Someone is awesome.

If this was 8 Bit Theater I would expect an anti climatic interruption right about now, but seeing as it isn't looks like it's time to rumble!

Brian recommended Dark Place to me and I am now a fan :)

yes indeed it's awesome :D

Sanchez!

DR. SANCHEZ!

So it looks like I'm still right on track. If Fei berates Wong after this and tells him to clean up the mess he caused, I'll have actually nailed this bit completely.

From the old topic:

2. Wong runs off. The attackers are surprised at his speed, etc, and Wong reaches Fei in time to get berated for not fighting the guys and possibly taking too long with his running. Fei beats them to a pulp, then tells Wong to clean up the mess and then keep running.

It'd be awesome if it turns out that Xu Li isn't just a rival master: he's also a high-ranked Imperial Courtier and/or Eunuch (or suddenly became one after the current fight --- most Wuxia stories often have Eunuchs or ambitious officials with powerful hidden Martial Arts skills), and Fei's interference would end up having *serious* repercussions as Xu Li memorializes him as a traitor to the Imperial Dynasty.

I think that sounds like an interesting idea. Too bad I'm not the writer :p

Request with no specific deadline!

Were the names chosen for characters specifically or just because they sounded cool?

If it's the latter could you please give us the characters for them? Silly tonal languages.

Would be much appreciative!

Yep, Fei's a badass. Though there seems to be a lack of yelling and berating his victims.

Look at Fei's face! It's like he's not even trying. I'm half expecting the next page to be him saying "Right, done my morning exercises, now I'm gonna beat you two- oh, oops." Seriously, the guy looked like he was trying harder when he gave Wong a pasting. Fei's hardcore!

I bet they're almost done regretting their actions by now.

Panel 3: "There's a caterpillar on your face - here, let me get that for you."

They might need just a biiiit more "convincing" before they're ready to do so :D

eh; rather than looking like an awesome martial arts move, that final panel looks more like master fei's just broken his own arm several times.

just saying.

One reason I'm not an avid comic book reader is that I have trouble following the action. This, on the other hand, is the most well-drawn martial arts still I have ever seen. Thank you so much for showing how it is to be done!

Dunno what you're talking about. I can easily turn my arm that way, in that position. Just twist at the shoulder.

not with any real force though; the arm would be completely at the edge of its range of motion.

1) If you are using arm and nothing else to generate force then you are doing something wrong.

2) In that particular area there are many soft squishy and painful things that don't need much force. I've actually been nearly knocked out when my Sensei decided to give me a rather light tap in that general area, though maybe a little more into the neck area, to demonstrate the power of knowing weak points.

3) Looks to be more of a grab than a strike possibly followed by a seriously kickass throw.

Also, totally forgot to draw thumbs again. :p

All your points are exactly correct except for the part about me forgetting to draw thumbs! They're just obscured by something (in most cases another part of his hand).

(also I'm not going to say he's setting him up for a "throw" but he's setting him up for SOMETHING -- which will be revealed on Friday :D)

On a minor note I think the page would work better if you didn't use the action lines for Fatty McMook's club that you use for Fei's unstopable five-fisted mantis strikes as it would emphasize that Fei is Swiftyblur Unstoppableguy and the other guys may as well be standing still.

Come on now, Fei isn't even trying. Look how not over the top pissed he is; that's the secret to his strength.

Edit: That and tea, like Popeye.

Breakin' bones and crackin' jokes.
 

But he's still mostly pissed, I think. I mean, his expression is the same the whole time: Displeased.

It's almost funny, but I'd like to see the bald lil guy smile someday.

It's hardly worth being able to kick ass tith 5 Mantis Fists if you can't smile about it later.

The fight scenes don't look right to me. I'm no artist myself so I can't give detailed criticism, but I'm just not believing the force and motion.

I thought this comic was beautifully executed (and completely awesome) up until this point, so I'm kind of hoping that this is either a.) the artist warming up or b.) a style that will grow on me. I do agree that 28 looks better than 27.

You mean Fei? I thought he was supposed to be enormous?

A smug smirk at some point wouldn't surprise me. I actually thought he had smiled some after he saw Wong use one of his forms, but looking back now it appears that his visage was just substantially less enraged than one would expect, creating the illusion of smilitude.

Well so far so good with Brian's opinion on the fights.. John hasn't said anything but I generally never hear from him one way or the other. (Though when I do it's always polite!)

Keep in mind it's not over yet, there's a kind of rhythm here. But then again some people don't like certain kinds of things purely on genre no matter how well they're executed.

Hopefully the style will grow on you (or I guess you can skip the subsequent fight scenes :p), because unless I get orders from Brian n' JohnThe Powers That Be to change it up, it's going to be this way. I've drawn a lot of fight scenes, but then again I haven't drawn one in like a year or more, so maybe there's some rust.

Anywho, I'm satisfied w/ the way they look so far. Except I wanted Fei to kick one of the guys in the nuts, but he never does :D


Maybe that'll be for the NEXT fight.

We only nitpick because we love too much, is that so wrong?
 

Just to add from today's comic that it looks much clearer when we can see the face of the punched assilant; in the last few pages it was a great big explosion over where the point of contact was. Personally I prefer seeing their pain and suffering, go voilence go!

Also, shouldn't his face be going the other way from the strike in the last panel? From first glance the movement lines look like Fei's hand is going in a haymaker arc but from the panel before it looks like that it could be exploding as some form of backhand from his mid torso, which would explain why his jaw is going that way!

/nitpicking

Well to my eyes it goes: Fei pulls Jiao's arm down and then punches him in the right side of his face. (that's why his cheek looks all mushed up and his head's moving off like it is).

and you misspelled "violence"! /nitpicking ;) :p

Ah yes, I can see that now. It's just the motion blur looks like it's coming from the right to the left, making it quite confusing.

Also, voilance is totally a word. Like Feilance.

I like it. The way the action flows is nice, and I only have one complaint; the complete lack of a face via special effect on #27. Your art is pretty superb normally but that was like, "Wow, Fei must kick a lot of ass to punch his head off so hard it explodes."

what the heeeeellllllllllllllllll are you talking about, brutha? Who doesn't have a face on page 27?

All of 'em have faces except Bao in panel 3 and that's only cos his head is wrenched really far back since Fei's poppin' him inna face.

Is that Bao's face under the punch effect? I can't really tell, possibly cause Bao is such a recent character addition. Is that his bearded jaw?

Yop, that's his scraggly "under beard".

Ahhhh, okay, looking at it now it makes sense. I think I just blanked it out cause he's so new and he's got that turtleneck thing going on.

Maybe he's saving that for Wong. :D

All I could think of when I saw "The Master's Rebuke" was Rick James. ^_^

Pretty much what I thought. Could you imagine all those little Wong and Wongettes running around spilling tea all over the place?

Fei really has no choice but to perform a vasectomy, with his foot. Because that is how Fei rolls.

Yeah, I saw that and though “What a masterfully executed back-hand!”

I certainly don't recall seeing any strapping young bucks defending their wizened old father from his attacker in the "present time" parts of the comic.

Could have outlived them over various ways as masters tend to do so from their pupils time to time.

The fighting style is new to me but worth watching as it's enjoyable and in a sense as there's more of the comic itself, that too has room to grow and could actually mature into something else. It's a major part of the story if you think about it for detail, but I'm sure that much is covered currently.

Btw, looks like Fei had to keep his pimp hand strong, and I do see some punishmenttraining in store for Wong in the near future.

So after watching some of these fight scenes, I do have to ask: did you guys go through all the fighting styles until you landed on the one that looked the most outrageously arrogant and showed the most distain for its victims and then give that style to Fei? How he manages to remain frowning while executing some of these moves astounds me.

Nope. Fei ended up with Mantis Style 'cause John and I think it's cool and relatively under represented in kung fu media.

Plus it's a good defensive but flashy style to start Wong off with.

All the really cool peoplehttp://tintintwinkling.files.wordpre...08/08/toph.png use mantis style.

This should probably have been in "Behind the Punch" but there were some messages about Fei never changing his expression and that made me think of this one instance where I drew him with a smile in the comic (the only instance outside the comic was this)

I don't know if he'll ever smile again, but I guess time will tell. His expression might change to a grimace or to something more strained if he fights someone who challenges him (like if somehow there was a time-warp and he fought with Chan or Old Wong).

Anyway, this is the only time Fei ever smiled in the comic, on page 8. However, this panel was altered because it made him look too sinister.

Suddenly I'm glad Fei never smiles.

That image would make a hell of a desktop. The simple black and white image is awesome.

Fei's smile reminds me of Scar from the Lion King.......

The REAL question is:

What will happen first, Fei smiling or Po opening his eyes?

Probably Po opening his eyes. His character in general is less scary and I think even if Fei did smile most people would go into hiding before he reached a full smile and never see it.

If Fei smiles and no one is around to see it, does it make a grin?

I'd say it makes it a smug grin, but with Fei, is there really any other kind?

It looks like he's still beating the eyebrow brothers. I thought page 28 would be the end. After what looked like he broke one's arm and stomped the other's head into the ground, I figured the fight would be over. Is Fei drawing out the fight to show off?

I liked the red sound effect. Effective.

Is the "Striking Hook" just too gruesome to be drawn?

Judging by the (red) crunch sound the target made, probably.

I think I might be glad we can't see beyond the right of that final panel.

Nevertheless, great art as always.

Is it wrong that I assumed that Fei had then turned to hit Wong, after having finished with the others?

Hmm. It would make sense.

I think it only seems like it's long because of the way the comic is updated. He's only been beating them up for around 5 pages. Compared to some other comics that's pretty brief (DBZ for instance :p).

Only 1/6th of the pages have fighting in them, I think for a kung fu comic that's pretty light. And when you go through and read them in succession it doesn't seem that long (to me it seems really short, actually).

Also I may have not drawn it how I meant it, but Fei was supposed to be hitting Jiao in the ulnar-nerve (or the funny bone ;) ) to cause his arm to spasm and drop the sword. I'm not sure if that would really work or not, but it seemed like it would (maybe one's knee would be too large to actually hit that nerve). I also think the sound effect makes it seem like it was being broken, but that wasn't my intention (I don't have a say on the sound effects).

I don't think the problem is necessarily how long the fight is going, so much as that it seems pretty much like a foregone conclusion how it's going to end. There's also the fact that so many of the pages end with what kind of look like should be a fight-ender (the face stomp, the arm thing, the crescent heel to the jaw, and judging by the sound effect, the striking hook)

For all that Wong talks about how efficient Fei is, it almost seems to me like he's intentionally stretching out the fight, either to show off for Wong or because, for some reason or another, he's trying to avoid hurting his opponents too badly.

if anything Mortal Kombat has taught us (aside from how to horrendously botch the pronunciation of Chinese names), it's that you can't use your ultimate finishing move until your opponent(s) are sufficiently damaged.

Gee, and I thought Fei was literally beating up the goons for two-and-a-half weeks.

Seems like the kind of thing he would do.

I dunno if you wanna base your pacing off of DBZ. ;)