#and then my first editor. well. ancient spanist LOL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

man-destroyer · 7 months ago

Note

tell us about ancient spanish?

Yeah!

so. In the beginning of my comic (I'm assuming you havent read it, if you have I'm sorry) the main character is getting established as sort of a "master bullshitter" and very lucky. He's not stupid, the reason he's alive is because he reads situations quickly and lies very well... and at this point my editor had been repeatedly treating him with this sort of bumbling idiot trope, so I was already a bit frustrated.

He's caught as a stowaway on a pirate ship, and is bullshitting a treasure hunt so the pirates keep him alive long enough that he could escape. So, he makes a fake treasure map in Spanish, hoping that the pirates won't know any... because if they can just kill him and take the map, they will. And one of them knows Spanish!

So, the joke I put in to resolve the situation (which I kept) was "but can you READ Spanish?" where he's banking on the pirate's illiteracy, and he lucks out because she can't read.

but my editor wanted him to say "but do you know... ancient spanish?" which makes no sense and isnt funny LMAO to me.

There were a lot of instances like this, but this is the one I remember the most because my editor like. argued with me on putting ancient spanish in there... It was a back and forth for a good bit.

#like. they can see the map. in his hands.#if she knows spanish and can read it. she will know he is lying #and they will kill him #it doesnt resolve the situation #and its also not funny. like. what the hell does ancient spanish even mean. its nothing.#like I would have much rather resolved the situation by no one knowing spanish.#cause that requires him to stay alive to read the map. which was his goal. this whole time...#so her joke wasnt funny. makes no sense like. historically. AND doesnt even address the situation.#like a good edit understands the intent of the situation.#she gave a lot of what I like to call 'lateral edits' where they dont fundamentally change a scene at all #but they dont really make anything better. like it's not getting worse but its not helping anything either?#but then she had some edits that made things worse...#so I would do some of the lateral ones to sort of appease her and then she wouldnt notice that I didnt do the ones that made thing worse #but this was in the very beginning so I was combatting all the things I didnt want to do. instead of just not doing them #I'm not even getting edits anymore at this point in my career LOL #my second editor was amazing. she was sometimes slow to understand the point of a scene but she offered some really amazing edits #my current editor does literally nothing #she has not given me one note. like literally not even one. she sort of offhandedly said “enjoying reading it!” like ok... great...#and then my first editor. well. ancient spanist LOL #there were a few things I said I fundamentally refuse to do and she kept. asking. me. to do them #one time I had to argue with her that I wouldnt make a joke making fun of hairy men??? like I like hairy men what the hell???#ANYWAYS. yeah. thats ancient spanish #tried to be short but all my jokes are like extremely contextual so its hard to get enough context for them to make sense

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