The original design for Wezzle was similar to this, but something about him from the neck down didn’t really sit right with me. I had even pencilled this entire strip before I finally admitted to myself I was unsatisfied. I’M SO GLAD! Because now I love his design. And his personality. It is such a good feeling when a character turns out so solid. With Pilot as well, I feel I’m on such a good roll! Whoot!
That last panel made me laugh so much I nearly woke my wife.
Boy, would that have been awkward…
WAAAA-HAHAHAHA-HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He’s got Wallace’s wrong trousers!
Sycophants understand parasitic raving killer lunatics.
Chris, i have to say, I love your interiors.
How do you plan them out?
I’d love to see some behind the scenes stuff 🙂
A triped strapped into a mechanical bipedal walker for locomoting on land like a cyborg starfish. While piloting with two, that leaves Wezzle with one tentacle to put feed into [universal-possesive-gender-pronoun] nozzle(?) (or to scratch baleen plates(?) with).
Divine design.
It does seem that the simpler the solution, the longer it takes to come up with it and the more circuitous the route.
ps
btw I love how pilots form the backbone of each crew in Spacetrawler. And how everyone is rocking vintage steering wheels with whatever they got (tentacles in Wozzle’s and Krep’s case). Whereas the self-driving car hype is still quite science-fiction, it’s uplifting to see actual science fiction that has no truck with it 😉
pps
then again, perhaps the steering wheel is not actually a 19th century technology from Earth, but a common apex technology found throughout the galaxy that some steampunk human engineer applied to measly cars after getting a glimpse of an alien spaceship while shanghaied in Spacetrawler -2 (the official prequel’s prequel).
The steering wheel thing is kind of neat. Originally, you needed steering wheels (in ships and planes as well as cars) to give the driver the leverage to mechanically operate the linkage that turned the front wheels (or rudder).
Power steering made this obsolete, but the control interface was so familiar to drivers, they expect it. Some attempts have been made to replace car steering wheels with small joysticks and the like, but they never caught on.
In the culture of this comic, once spaceships were developed advanced enough that you could actually steer them like a normal vehicle, it’s possible pilots liked the idea of adapting steering wheels (which would have evolved normally on mechanically-steered ground vehicles like on Earth) to piloting them.
Most SF spaceships in movies and TV do not have steering wheels, although Harlock’s “Arcadia” is a notable exception.
P.S. If you think the steering wheel is funny, check out the 4-speed stick shift.
But … but … where’s the clutch? Where’s the accelerator?
And more importantly, where’s the space to hang the fuzzy dice?
Normal speed, lightspeed, ridicilous speed, Ludicrous Speed?
Wouldn’t be too much out of place on a spaceship gearbox.
They’ve gone to
plaidtartan!Jessica Cox, the first person with no arms to become a licensed airplane pilot, flies a light plane called an Aircoupe. The original manufacturer called it the Ercoupe.
What’s unique about this plane is it doesn’t use a separate rudder control. It has a steering wheel and the rudder and ailerons are linked so that turning the wheel makes the plane execute a proper banked turn. No opposite rudder stunt flying with one if these.
Jessica flies hers with one foot on the wheel and manipulates throttle and other controls with her other foot.
I’m sure Weasel is totally on the up-and-up. No name screams “Honesty” and “Reliability” quite like ‘Weasel’!
Er…. Wezzle.
I appreciate the detailed artwork and the humour plus all the extras different people have already pointed out in these and past comments. (I also love reading others’ comments and how they view Spacetrawler.)
What I appreciate the most though, and what has kept me faithfully reading, is the exquisite character development of the cast. I’m really enjoying following Jabby’s recent changes!
Computer control as back up and aid since you would need attitude jets for making maneuvers outside of straight ahead. (Or some reasonable facsimile to use.) The faster the speed the faster reaction one needs and simple human reactions are too slow. I was always annoyed about Kirk talking about “pivoting at warp 2” would be impossible for any living being and get it right on the dot.
A fusion of living and non-living machinery in some way needed for space travel the better the ship.
Jabby is becoming more of a human sentient, and a bit blasé to his infernalities. Borderline psychopathic killer? Could be since he was designed that way.
“Borderline psychopathic killer?”
Nothing borderline about it.