As you may already know UDON is right smack in the middle of a Ibuki mini series. The writer, Jim Zubkavich, has been doing the fans a huge service by providing commentary of each issue on his blog. Here’s a snippit from his most recent on issue #3 …
PAGE 1: Another big opening page that Omar delivered the goods on. The background here is Ibuki’s stage from the SF3: Third Strike video game.
PAGE 2: Omar’s storytelling is stronger than ever here. A beautifully paneled action page.
PAGE 3: Having narration carrying over from the night before when Ibuki was told about Oro helps connect it clearly to the mission and allows us to move things forward and impart information without just having talking heads for art. We get a relevant action scene while simultaneously getting the reader up to speed. At the same time, we show the stressful things Ibuki is thinking about and the effect it has on her performance.
PAGE 4: The post-fight sleeplessness and school scene next day show time flying by and also kicks in to gear how much the impending battle is hampering Ibuki’s day-to-day activities.
Makoto does a call-back to the Oro back-up story from Street Fighter II Turbo #9, confirming, what many fans suspected, that the martial arts master who challenged Oro in that story was Makoto’s father.
PAGE 5: I wanted to make sure Ibuki’s breaking point was built up quickly at the start of this issue. Juggling school, social expectations, ninja training and her post-secondary ninja exam all at once takes her right to the edge.
PAGE 6: When I wrote this page I tried to carefully balance her teenage emotional state without losing track of the fact that she’s also a capable ninja. No matter how professional and confident she wants to be, like a young Olympic athlete before a Gold medal performance, she’s vulnerable.
PAGE 7: Another incredibly difficult page that Omar did a fantastic job at pulling off. If this scene didn’t work, the whole issue would have way less impact and one of the themes I wanted the mini-series to have would be totally lost.
PAGE 8: Another call back, this time with the Geki ninja Ibuki kicked the crap out of in issue #1.
The Edgeworth comment is, of course, a little in-joke from Capcom’s Phoenix Wright franchise.
PAGE 9: The ninja conversation about “the girl” is left purposefully vague. All will be revealed in issue #4.
To read the rest just head over to his blog. Also if you haven’t already check out the exclusive interview I did with Zub a while back.
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
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