09/12/12 Exiting The Ship



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One thing I like about the comments y’all give is that it can give me some objectivity which I don’t get on my own working alone in my office. For instance, @zb asked how Hein got on the ship, and so I added the first line in today’s strip. And a few strips back, @War_Pig asked about the stars not moving despite King-and-gang going greased dark light speed, and in Monday’s strip I tried to establish/remind that they were on a space station by starting with a outside shot of the Keep. Thank you all!

Hey, InterventionCon schedule is up (September 21-23 in Rockville, MD)! Here are the three panels I’ll be on.

Friday 5pm: “Designing Your First Book”
Panelists: Chris Flick, Barb Fischer, Christoper Baldwin, Chris Impink

Friday 7pm: “How to Survive as a Writer in the Business of Webcomics, Comics and Other Visual Media”
Panelists: Tony DiGerolamo, H. Caldwell Tanner, Christopher Baldwin

Saturday 3pm: “Back in my day: The webcomic veterans panel”
Panelists: Christopher Baldwin, Shaenon Garrity, Jennie Breeden, Danielle Corsetto

33 Comments

  1. Prior Semblance

    If a single bullet is enough to kill one, they really aren’t much worse than any other predator are they? I mean they’re focused and can hold on to a spaceship, but thats not really that huge of an advantage if you have weapons and know they are coming. Unless its not really dead, I guess just showing it get shot doesn’t really confirm a kill.

  2. Mic

    @Captain Jack: Actually a better question would be why does a Spaceship have an ejector seat? It’s clearly not common practise to wear a space suit when flying the ship, and it kinda ruins the ‘quick escape’ aspect of it if you have to suit up first…

  3. TB

    @Mic: The Space Shuttle had ejection seats for its earliest test flights, when there were only two pilots in the front cockpit. This was impractical for the “downstairs” middeck seats later, so the front ejection seats were removed. The seats were only useful anyway for very limited parts of the flight in the atmosphere, at low speeds. The Gemini capsule also had ejection seats.

    A spaceship can have a setup where the entire pressurized cockpit can be ejected. The F-111 aircraft did this in real life, but this was impractical for the Space Shuttle. Space capsules, like Mercury, Apollo, and more recent designs like the SpaceX “Dragon,” all have systems to pull the entire capsule free.

    On “Star Trek,” it was established in the first series that the entire saucer section could be separated from the engineering section in an emergency, but this was never shown for model and budget reasons. On “The Next Generation,” in a new age of special effects, the writers lost no time in showing the separation process on screen.

    In the case of this comic, the ship has an ejection seat because…well, because it’s cool. Works for me, but I agree a parachute would be nice. Along with a cover over the eject button.

  4. Christopher

    @Awesome, sometimes things don’t always read 100% perfect. The action is that Pierrot just went between the seats to go to the backdoor, and Emily is moving over from the “passenger seat” to the “driver’s seat.” 🙂

  5. Awesome

    Chris, thanks for the explanation, but that brings up another point… pilots generally fly from the right-hand side of the plane, contrary to what you see in movies. I personally flew from the left-hand side, but that’s not usually the case.

  6. Muzhik

    @Awesome (or is that “Captain” Awesome?), they’re in a Mihrrgoot-designed spacecraft. Maybe the Mihrrgoots are all secretly British and force everyone else to drive on the wrong side of the space lanes.

  7. Vincent G

    @Awesome: what type of craft do you pilot? It is only helicopters that are flown chiefly from the right seat; every fixed wing aircraft — including the space shuttle — has the pilot on the left and the copilot on the right seat.

  8. Bigbenhoward

    @Captain Jack: If it’s anything like an aircraft’s ejection seat, then the parachute is strapped to you, not the seat. Also, ejecting from a seat without wearing a proper harness just means you’re about to be a very ragdolly ballistic projectile, because you’re not going to stay on the seat for long.

    But what the hell? It’s a web comic.

  9. stevegallacci

    A second on left seat is the pilot’s seat, at least on Earth and through most of aviation history, regardless of nationality, at least for fixed wing types. Dunno anything about helios.

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