Pantagrame

You can ask questions on Oasis’ Tumblr. If they are interesting enough, they may end up on this page, with the corresponding answers. If they aren’t, demons will devour your soul, leaving only shattered remains of your pains and a neverending scream.

 

 

 

1 – What the hell is a Pantagrame?

A webcomic, what else?

2 – No, wait, what the hell is a Pantagrame?

A webcomic using sprites, with audiovisual/interactive parts (generally playable levels and boss fights).

The story is about Vitriol Tenebrae, a kinda silly boy who believes he’s a true satanist, and will try to summon demons and darkness to destroy the world, because life is worthless and full of pain and you can’t understand how sad and despaired he is. It is also about various individuals and factions which will try to help or to stop him.

3 – I mean, what the hell is a Pantagrame?

Same thing than a pantakle I guess?

4 – What are all the character ages??

Jovy is 19, Klow is 24, Tilda is 22, and Vitriol is 16.

5 – I love your sprites! What game are they from?

No one. All of the visual content is done by myself and is my exclusive property. All of the sprites, tiles, backgrounds, and basically everything you’ll see is from my hand, and produced from scratch for this project (with the exception of one or two details which are public domain).

This is not a fancomic, I don’t pay homage to any game in particular.

6 – Why the musical sky?

It has to do with the cosmogony and cosmology of the Tetracosmos, the world of Pantagrame. It is similar to the creation of Arda, Tolkien’s setting: everything was born from music.

Two important aspects:
● The inhabitants of Nelphis do not see the sky the same way we see it. Musical scores are not written the same in their country, just like they don’t really speak English – all dialogue, writing and cultural references are assumed to be translated.
● The staves are not physically here. When cameras take pictures of the sky, it shows a strange, uncanny bedlam of intricate, moving, carved prisms instead. Such is the harmony of the Tetracosmology, such is the creative score of the universe… A complex, neverending structure with a perspective extending in more dimensions than we are used to. This mystical vision cannot be understood by the human eye, and it conveys the prisms into the closest equivalent it can find: music notation.

Oh yeah, and it’s pretty, too.

7 – Can you explain to me how each characters’ powers work again? I know how Jovy’s powers work but I’m kinda confused about the rest.

Each corallian herald received their power from the World-Coral. It’s a blessing as well as a redistribution of energy: when the organism “died”, it tried to prevent further destruction by delegating its magic to the 99 sentient beings who were the nearest. At the time of the story, the remains of the World-Coral are still active, and channeling energy towards the 99 heralds.

● Jovy’s power creates temporary, luminescent blocks seemingly out of nowhere. These blocks are not necessarily platforms; he could, for example, shape a weapon out of it. The matter is quite sturdy.

● Klow’s power opens portals to another place. Klow generally makes entire series of portals to jump from one place to another. He can’t use this ability as quickly as, let’s say, the hero of Wakfu (getting from a portal to another one isn’t really instantaneous), but it’s still extremely useful in a number of emergencies, fights, not to mention everyday routine.
When one jumps through a portal, they experiment a feeling of speed and nausea, and confusing images get printed in their eyes. Some people get used to it, other ones… don’t. Jovy never got used to it, that’s why he can’t go through entire series of portals like Klow.

● Vitriol’s power animates lifeless matter. It can project energy, “life”, and a rudimentary soul, in various objects. You can think of his creatures as feral golems. There’s a flash of red light (such as the one seen in front of the museum in Strip 3, which animated the heraldic sculpture), and at the same time Vitriol says a word, a verb, which will give purpose to the newborn being. For example, his graffitis (the checkpoints in Level 1) receive the instruction “React”, and so they turn to bright white and red when someone approaches them (see Strip 21).
Vitriol’s familiars usually display stained glass shards.

● Tilda can attune herself to other powers, and so, she’s able to alter them. She can reinforce them or weaken them. She can make Jovy’s blocks bigger (…) or decrease their existence to the point of erasure. It’s all a matter to get in tune with the flow or energy. She doesn’t have a particular power for herself, but she can face almost any other corallian herald.

These powers are likely to evolve and to grow with time and training. At first, Jovy could only create very tiny blocks, dice-sized. But… back then, it was already a deadly power: if he wished to, he could materialize one of these tiny blocks in someone’s brain, killing them immediatly. Something to keep in mind is the way the power will be used is as important as its sheer might.

We’re also missing some key information about the corallian powers for now. The exact way they work will become clearer later.

8 – The fact VT animated this platform brings his abilities into question: what are the natural limitations to the animation process? In the Floreals’ example, the limit seems to be obvious: the statue. However, would it possible to Vitriol to animate, let’s say… a 6-miles-wide mesh platform?

No, there’s a limitation in both volume and reach. At best, by concentrating his power for half a day, Vitriol could animate a big house.
His power also follows other rules which cannot be disclosed right now for they are extreme spoiler material.

About the Floreals, one can notice they were animated with some added fragments of matter. The claws on the paws and the sting on the tail aren’t part of the heraldic animal: those are shards from the stone frame. Vitriol’s power is not “smart”, and the results are often rough.

9 – Can Tilda force someone to use their power?

No. Right now, she can only temporarily reinforce or nullify powers.

10 – Why is the statuette “obviously” imported from Cindralia?

For cultural reasons, cindralic sculptures always look like this deer – carved out, reduced to curves, silhouette and movement. They never detail the shape and texture of the subject matter.

11 – I read your previous works and now I’m afraid of possible bloodbath!!

How rude of you! Haven’t you heard? I am a sweet little fairy, I live only to make your dreams come true. Clap your hands and say “I believe in fairies”.

12 – So, concerning Jovy’s overpowered ability, can he move the created matter at will? Like, could he give himself wings? Or does he just create a “solid” block he can then work with?

Second answer. The phosphorescent, pulsating matter cannot follow Jovy’s orders. It doesn’t even “form”, it isn’t like “growing clay”: it appears out of nowhere, fully shaped, carved in the substance he makes all of his blocks in. Jovy’s power work with it as if it was selecting a part of a stone block. Once the “sculpture” (let it be a platform, a sword, a barricade, a spike, anything, really) is extracted/materialized, he cannot act on it anymore. The process is instantaneous.
As with Vitriol’s power, the shape isn’t perfect. Jovy’s power generally pollutes the result with some stalactites.
If Jovy was to move in a really supernatural way using his corallian gift, it would probably be by building pillars under himself, piling up block on block. He would have to be supported by Tilda’s power to accomplish such feat. Worse still, our shining hero would have to focus entirely on the task at hand. And since Jovy has the attention ability of a corgi on drugs…

13 – Is there a limitation to the volume of matter Jovy can create? Is that why he can only create one platform at a time in Level 1?

The Level 1 limitation is only there because we didn’t want Jovy to explore the sky instead of the city. In extradiegetic terms, he isn’t interested in creating more than one platform at a time because he wants to go further, not higher.
There is a limitation to the amount of matter Jovy can create in one shot, but it isn’t this tiny. He can also let blocks he already created exist in this world – he’s like the most fabulous 3D printer you’ve ever seen.

14 – Don’t make fun of dyslexia.

Vitriol is not dyslexic, nor autistic, nor trisomic. Such jokes would be in bad taste.
Vitriol doesn’t lack instruction either. He is not neuroatypical. (He does have learning difficulties.)
To make fun of bad orthograph is potentially problematic (mainly classist), however I think the surrealistic quality to Vitriol’s orthograph puts it aside of reality and allows a lot of wordplay.

15 – Is Klow DEAD?

Yes. He’s dead meat.

16 – Given it looks simple to kill those Lustral creatures, why are Tintin and Klow the only survivors? Are the other ones NPCs who don’t know how to use a weapon or cover?

The current strips never formally indicate “Tintin” and Klow are the only survivors. And indeed they aren’t. There are numerous survivors, amongst both cops and citizens. Does the city look like a necropolis to you in the present, four years later?
It’s also worth mentioning we only get short glimpses of the entire tragedy. All of the Purple Twilight is full of timeskips, for the narration focuses more on what happened to Klow, and the way he dealt with it, than on events themselves. We’re learning Klow’s story here – a “soldier” who saw one of his comrades die and stayed on the front line more because something broke in his head than by heroism. It is a story which could happen in any war, and probably happened countless times in real life.

P.S.: Congratulations for spotting the cameo!

17 – Jovy seems to have gotten quite better at using his power, since he’s now able to create multiples blocks at the same time – enhance the platform which saved his life in the igniplasma room and the block barricading the exit.
Did the idea of in-adventure progress not occur to you or did you plan for your characters to gain and to invest experience points during the story?

Good question, calling for an exhaustive answer!

First of all, since I have no way to know if you meant “got better since Year 3500” or “got better since he reached the museum”, I’ll answer to both.

● Did Jovy get better at using his corallian power since Year 3500 (the flashback where we see him showing a little dice of phosphorescent matter for Klow)?
Certainly, yes. Multiple strips show he submitted himself to a long, patient training. The results speak by themselves: once (3500) he had to focus for one minute in order to produce a little dice, now (3502) he can create a mass bigger than himself.

● Did Jovy get better between “The museum is this way!” and the museum itself?
No.
Jovy can create multiple blocks because he was always able to do so. And he doesn’t need to put in any effort to maintain their existence: as long as he doesn’t want them to disappear, they don’t. Back home, all of Jovy’s furniture is made in this phosphorescent matter he creates ex nihilo.

● Finally, no, there are no plans to include any experience points system. The characters will effectively progress in power and abilities during the adventure, but it won’t be linked to progression trees. It will be interwoven with the story.

18 – Wait, if Jovy was always able to do the multiple blocks thing, why can’t we make more than one in the levels?

Gameplay mechanics.
I already answered this one. Look for Question #13 in this FAQ page.

19 – Seems like you thought about everything. Here’s a hard one: if I don’t stop underperforming, Jovy DIES in the level 1 (Game Over). And he’s still alive right after this. Explain yourself.

There are a lot of possible explanations. I have two of them, and I won’t tell you which one is canon.

● Jovy, like most corallian heralds, occasionally has hallucinations. When he’s very close to a danger, he’s possibly struck by a vision of death.

● When Jovy dies in a level, he actually gets badly hurt, and the little angel flying towards the sky is just a stylization. We systematically skip the part where he goes to the hospital, is cured and comes back to the last landmark he saw – a piece of Vitriol graffiti.

Let’s face it, the second explanation is downright ridiculous, and therefore the perfect one.

20 – You’re joking. What if Floreal eats Jovy?

If Floreal eats Jovy, Jovy goes to the hospital, is cured and comes back to the museum, and since he’s as smart as a corgi, doesn’t bring a bazooka with him. And ends up in the exact same situation.
I now hereby declare this to be the canon explanation.

21 – Really? Most corallian heralds have hallucinations?

Yes.
It hasn’t been explored at all in-story for now, but it’s a big problem for them. By 3502, three heralds are held in a psychiatric hospital, and numerous other ones have psychological difficulties caused by the doubt they now experience towards reality.

22 – Is the phosphorescent matter (Jovy’s power) really created ex nihilo?

No. It doesn’t come out of nowhere.
Corallian powers can look quite overpowered, but there are explanations and implications, causes and consequences of crucial importance.
I cannot elaborate right now, since it dives into full spoiler territory.

23 – Solworld? Wasn’t the Pantagrame world called Tetracosmos?

TETRACOSMOS is the name of the entire universe, the overall cosmic structure. It is a hyperdimensional tetrahedron (a pyramid made of four equilateral triangles). It does not have any general geography and cannot be embraced by the human gaze or reached by human actions.

 

SOLWORLD is the name of the human realm, the physical facet of the pyramid. Everything you see in Nelphis and the other countries exists in this place. The crust, oceans, atmosphere, ecosystem are all part of the Solworld.

To be frank, since the complete tetrahedron does not have any physical existence (or at least not the kind of existence we can grasp), it did not have to be triangle-shaped at all! It could as well be a sphere, such as our Earth. But I have decided to no longer design any kind of round planet when it comes to fantasy or sci-fi/fantasy projects, as well as any kind of reality-like sky. Those are elements which don’t interfere with the idea of physical laws at our human scale. So, as long as one implements laws allowing for similar geology, phylogenetic tree and sentient species, why shouldn’t one change the workings of macrocosmos and microcosmos?

It was funny for me to design a triangle-shaped world. It also provides a direct visual link with the concept of the Solworld being merely a triangular facet of a larger tetrahedron.

24 – Okay, so, if everything is so logical, where does Jovy stock the bonus items?

In his pants, obviously.

He has very large pants.

25 – Well, the files in level 4 are nice-looking, but we don’t learn much from them. Or did I miss something?

Meaningful exposition is not the point of the museum’s infopoints. In the future, we will have a lot of direct exposition, but here I wanted to do something else. I wanted to provide detailed focus on random parts of the setting. The process is meant to inject tangibility into this imaginary world.

On the other hand, the infopoints in the upcoming level will almost entirely be about straight exposition. They will unfold a lot of groundwork regarding the Worldcoral, Corallian Champions, corallian heralds, the musical sky…
The plot will stay understandable without reading all the files – I don’t want to force anyone to hunt the important information down. But it could possibly feel less enjoyable to some readers. I plan my settings and stories as finely crafted machines, cyphers you can partially decrypt if you are into their mysteries.
[insert incredibly long, heavy, boring and spoilerish explanations about narrative mechanics here]

Still, in level 4, you can learn some things about the world. For a start, through various texts, you can discover that Nelphis is a quite arrogant city-state, that Cindralic citizens generally have blue skin, or that the written langage used in Nelphis City is a sinusoidal ideogram-calligram system. In reality, you can find out NUMEROUS things. Hard to digest, maybe (again, it was not intended as meaningful exposition but as incidental details), and it may never become the most relevant data, but in pure worldbuilding terms, those paintings and infopoints are quite heavy.

26 – I noticed Klow is called Klow in English and Korba in French. Any thoughts on the translation process?

● The word “translation” would be misleading. For these versions, there is no translation: I write the English and French dialogue, files and interface text simultaneously. Sometimes it is first redacted in English, sometimes in French, depending on the inspiration: some ideas and concepts come more naturally to me in one language or another.
● I tend to favor natural phrasing rather than perfect equivalence. My goal is not to obtain the same exact sentences in both languages, that would give the dialogue quite the rigid feeling.
● I also aim for localization. The cultures and languages of the Solworld are not our own, they are neither French nor Anglo-Saxon. The dialogue is meant to be an adaptation of the “real” dialogue spoken by the characters, and the same goes for the writing and cultural references. That is why Klow is referencing respectively Superman and Spirou in the English and French versions of strip 7.
● Some places, characters and other elements are not going to be called the same way in various languages. In some cases, as for Klow/Korba, it has to do with the name’s origin; in other ones, like Feuille/Brindille, it’s more a question of musicality, how well the name will sound.
● We will have insight of various Solworld languages, but we will never know Etamen, the one used in Nelphis. The idea is comparable to Westron in Tolkien’s works: Etamen is fully translated, period.
● THERE IS NO “TRUE” VERSION. The French and English Pantagrame are two versions of an unreachable story, which [practically] happens in other tongues, with other names, other cultural references and other symbols. Even Vitriol’s “Satan” is not really our Satan, and isn’t called Satan: in-story, it is just a similarly ridiculous idol, another pop culture incarnation of evil.

27 – Satan isn’t Satan? Oasis, you’re breaking my heart!

Think about it from a pure, serious, hard science-fiction worldbuilding perspective. Another world, with a different history, a different geography, a different ecosystem, and therefore different cultures, has NO WAY to turn out having the same religions and languages than Earth. There is just no way it could possibly happen. To illustrate better how unlikely the possibility is, it is already a stretch to the suspension of disbelief to presume a setting like the Solworld would contain humain beings… but that is another debate for another time.

Vitriol’s childish belief was always meant to be “translated” as satanist for multiple reasons:
● Vitriol announcing “I’m going to bring forth the reign of Keldochoen and the third realm of green-yellow doom” would not be as funny.
● It would take at least ten strips to expose Keldochoen correctly. At the beginning, the reader would know neither the fact Keldochoen does not exist nor the fact is is discredited, not to mention the fact it is supposed to be the Ultimate Evil Entity. All of these facts would need to be repeated at regular intervals. The process would be quite heavy and annoying, and would take a lot of dialogue/visual space which are quite precious for other exposition, plot advancement and overall entertainment.
● There would always be a doubt in the reader’s mind: “Is Keldochoen real?”. (It is not.)
● It would also mean to reinvent the entire goth/metalhead/emo/satanist decorum surrounding Vitriol: the character would not look as a goth boy to us, the design of the Pantagrame website would drop the red pentacles on black background for some unrecognizable Solworld codes, etc. Even the title of the project would not be the same! How can you call it “Pantagrame” if the Keldochoen cult does not revolve around pentagrams?
● The ultimate problem: Keldochoen would basically stand for “Crystal Dragon Satan“, turning this entire chunk of the setting into a masquerade, useless in its complexity and artificiality.

Are you asleep yet?

28 – LEAVE DRAGON-CRYSTAL SATAN ALONE ;o;

NOT ALL DEMONS

29 - Are you going to publish Teliam Vore in English? I’d like to read it very much, but my French isn’t good enough…

We would definitely like to offer an English version of the novel, but I cannot give any delivery date. However, be assured the translation would receive our utter attention. Both Vincent Mondiot and myself love English language and we would communicate extensively with the translator to ensure the needed quality.

In the meantime, you can find some of our other projects available in English: Pantagrame when it comes to me, of course, and Vincent’s short story They Always Come in the Autumn.
Plus unlike Teliam Vore, both works are free. How cool is that? RADICAL.

(Little known fact, France actually stayed stuck in the eighties.)

Thanks for your interest, that’s heartwarming!

30 – Is Teliam Vore set in the Pantagrame world?

No!

The two works are very different and should not be confused.

Teliam Vore is part of a setting named MIRINAR. It is indicated in the original title of the book… Les Chimères de Mirinar : Teliam Vore” (Chimaeras of Mirinar: Teliam Vore).
Mirinar is a huge universe and the project extends far beyond the book, with plans for sequels, short stories, tabletop roleplaying games and comic books, an encyclopedia of the universe, newspapers of this world, and above everything, loads and loads of concept arts, maps, paintings, symbols and illustrations by Matthieu “Arkelwan” Leveder. A gargantuan amount of material was produced for Mirinar.
Matthieu, Vincent and myself worked in equal part on this project, and the Mirinar world is as much Matthieu’s property as it is ours.

Pantagrame‘s setting is called the TETRACOSMOS.
It is similar is scale (part of the project is still to develop and to explore a meticulously crafted fictive world) but the approach, support and tone are not the same. The atmosphere itself is explicitly developed in contrast to Mirinar: Mirinar is a work of dark fantasy, nightmarish, muddy and bloody, Pantagrame is meant to be (mostly) light and colorful.
My collaborators on this project are Arkh, Oraziel and Bica.

Both extradiegetically and intradiegetically, MIRINAR and the TETRACOSMOS have no direct relationship outside of yours truly.

31 - I notice that contrary to her rodomontade, Tilda cannot cancel Klow’s portals.

Technically, she CAN.
In-game, she doesn’t, for gameplay reasons. Arkh and myself had multiple brainstorming sessions about the mechanics of the Klow boss fight, and once, we considered allowing the player to cancel the portals, and giving Klow a special attack where he focuses and throws a giant portal at Tilda to cut her in two, as for the boss 1 finish move. It would have been a funny QTE.
Ultimately, we decided against it, to keep the battle clear and efficient. There’s a lot of other things we thought about doing (at some point, Floreal 2 was supposed to appear mid-fight and smash things up!), but the goal for this sequence was to develop a sober, solemn atmosphere. Some interesting ideas had to be crushed down for this to happen.

Tilda DOES cancel portals in the game, though. When she focuses on Klow and you hold Space, she is not deactivating Vitriol’s power, unlike what she does with other familiars. She is actually closing down the two channeling portals, putting him off-balance. There are visual cues she is attuning to Klow’s power, not Vitriol’s.

P.S.: Rodomontade? Careful there, with great thesaurus come great responsabilities.

32 - Why does the room get so catastrophically damaged each time we punch the enemy right in the klow? Is he a load-bearing boss?

Well, to shoot matter-swallowing portals everywhere without looking at what you’re doing is a good way to get your architecture completely destroyed quite quickly.

The fact two giant Floreal familiars previously ran right through most of the museum’s walls certainly helped, too. Floreals are the worst pets.

33 - Why didn’t Klow cooperate?

First, as a Sedater, a Nelphis police officer, Klow is trained to resist coercion. It is probably a kind of reflex for him at this point.

But the main reason is his entire motivation in life is now to follow his own will, and nobody’s else. Rejection of the rules is just a part of it.
To submit to Tilda’s threat would mean to deny his own newfound resolve. Klow keeps repeating “No” because he’s put into a corner between his existential fear and his urge for freedom.

34 - No safety barriers on the elevated roads?

Most of these roads aren’t built to directly support pedestrians or vehicles, but to guide flying cars and motorbikes, so they do not really need barriers: people usually follow the tracks.
When the footbridges are supposed to be used by pedestrians, though, they come indeed equipped with barriers. On the Roads concept art, you can see the pink road’s side is castellated. It is a barrier.

35 - What is there under the elevated roads?

Vast pedestrian squares, parks, ground-level footbridges, waterways and short buildings. The latter is quite rare, and the waterways become gradually more present the more one draws close to the anchorage areas.

36 - Did Jovy and Tilda have sex as friends? (OMG gossip)

No, their relationship is entirely platonic. While they are both bi/pansexual and open to sexfriendship, they were never attracted to each other.

37 - Vitriol 16… OK, but Jovy 19 and a Sedater? Are they aging in the same framework as ours?

Yeah, they are aging in the same framework as ours. If anything, they are slightly younger, since one year in the Lazeul calendar only contains 360 days.

It is not that uncommon in this culture to start working young.
Jovy entered the Academy at 14 and started working by 17.
Spinel entered the Academy at 15 and started working by 17.
Klow entered the Academy at 17 and started working by 18.

In Nelphis, the legal working age is 17 and a lot of people are eager to get there. The relationship to work is very different from ours, citizens do not work harder or longer to survive or to have money: they receive the necessary resources and space to live even if they do not work at all, and money does not exist in their economical system.

The Sedater training period is only one year long. It contains mainly advanced civic education, criminal psychology lessons and intense physical training.
However, as for most jobs in Nelphis’ society, it is widely assumed a Sedater learns more later, in the field, and will keep learning during their entire life.

38 - How does Tilda deduce Feuille is a corallian herald? Is her “attuning” power allowing her to detect corallian heralds? Is she the herald with a detection power Klow was talking about during the flashback?

No, the detector is another person, whose power is basically this: “detect powers”.
Some people were not lucky at the “corallian lottery”. Wait until you meet Summon-Orange-Juice Man.

39 – Economics without money sounds utopic.

How so?

● In real life, the Inca Empire worked without money, by resource distribution. While technologically a lot less advanced than the current industrialized society, it managed to redistribute resources between its citizens. Incas accomplished great things without any money… and without people dying from cold or starvation (in fact they had formidable wealth).
So it is more than viable to do without money: it is easy and actually benefits everyone. [link: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy]

● Every experiment on unconditional basic income demonstrates people do not need precarity as an incentive; actually, unconditional basic income makes people more motivated and inventive. [link: The Town Where Everyone Got Free Money]

● An industrialized society produces more food and more housing than necessary. [links: 2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics & Empty Homes Outnumber the Homeless 6 to 1]

● The current structures in real life are already at the point of automatization where most people would not need to work to produce said resources. [link: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs]

In comparison, capitalism is a ode to waste.
A third of edible food is wasted, people are lead to live (and die) in the streets while empty, up to standards homes are everywhere (and while we know Housing First is cost-effective [link]), a significant amount of people have to waste their time in literally nonsensical jobs or looking for jobs in order to just survive, in order to obtain the very thing society could give them for free.
To add insult to injury, both luxury and advertising industries obscenely waste human, energetic, material resources to produce… displays of personal wealth and products to sell products.

In the fictional Solworld, capitalism and money do no exist (nor do gender roles and racism for that matter), but I must insist that it is not an utopia. At least not in the “sweet dream” sense of the word.

Maybe you used the word “utopia” as “proposal for a highly desirable society”? If so, sorry for misunderstanding your question.

The Solworld’s societies have their own concerns and their share of other real world problems, and it is intended to be realistic. Even on Earth, economics and social categories do not always work the way they do in current Western societies. A significant amount of exploitation and many oppressions could be avoided.

40 – If you’re not taking your sprites from anywhere, why is it a sprite comic?

● The approach is meant to emulate the feeling of old platform games such as Castle of Illusion, Rayman, Sonic or Megaman. I love retrogaming, and the Super Nintendo/Playstation era is my generation.

● I was heavily influenced by Kid Radd and A Modest Destiny, two great sprite comics with DIY sprites which both tell a good story in their very own setting.

● This visual approach follows specific aesthetic and narrative imperatives. Pixel art establishes a rigid graphical chart, ensuing the following qualities: precision, harmony, consistency and… emphasis on experimentation. When the approach shows restraint, every transgression of the established rules becomes spectacular.

41 – Why does Tilda wear a fedora?

● The fedora is originally a feminist symbol. It was hijacked in the last years by misogynist individuals. But surely fedoras are happier back in the right place: on the head of heroines.

● It was a nice way to put her press card on her costume.

● Tilda’s gestures were conceived as unexpansive, matching her cerebral personality. Her typical posture is the most subtle one, hands behind the back (symbolically hiding the intent). I needed an accessory to make her more expressive.

42 – Why doesn’t Klow erase the robocop with a portal?

Klow may claim to be “freed” of rules and ethics; the truth is, he will never be as liberated as he gloats to be. Despite his violent nature, murder does not come naturally to him. Klow never killed any human being before shipping Jovy to a one-way trip and it would take a lot of resolve for him to reoffend.

43 – Wait, i just got caught up on Pantagrame. Vamuin’s a girl now? Or feminine-aligned at the very least? I’m… really shocked right now! Cool!

Yeah, the Pantagrame version of Vamuin is “biologically female” and slightly woman-coded! Technically she is not a woman because the Tetracosmos cultures are entirely apogender (alien to the very concept of gender), but from Earth western culture’s perspective, she’s a “woman”.
Alabaster Vamuin was an exploration of dominant archetypes, their paradoxes, appropriation of proletarian norms by the bourgeoisie (that’s why he was Jersey Shore style instead of Subjugglator) and above everything, toxic masculinity. Vamuin was a half-mythological, half-frat boy character, and I took inspiration from a lot of figures such as Akio in Utena or Thor in Ka-Boom to make him more exaggerated, more ridiculous. I did some mistakes but basically that was the idea.
With Team Albatross, I have no interest in repeating exactly the same thing. Here Vamuin and Ginneo have been rebuilt to fit the Pantagrame narrative and to continue the previous thematics as well as to broach new ones. There are other reboots of Alabaster characters as well… The most different you can observe for now is Facade, a complete reinterpretation of Copycat. Her original looks being impossible to re-use for obvious reasons, I redesigned her from scratch.
I’m glad you like the Vamuin change. The “sex/genderbending” (really, as already said, it isn’t exactly how it goes) isn’t the only modification, her personality has been modified as well. You’ll see it all in due time.