043 “The Joy of X”

POSTCARDS FROM MALAYSIA [2 of 4]

(You’ll have to read the commentary for #42 before attempting this)

Continuing the jam arts, we have, of course, a Madame X one, and one of the best, thanks to Zid!

We were in this huge shopping mall shaped like a lion, where I met the local artist group. This was a fantastically huge and clean mall. It had an indoor hockey rink, which I nearly cried when I saw. Being Canadian who doesn’t get to see ANY hockey, this was like heaven.

Anyways, I sketched this one out, and everyone wanted to do it, but NOT the last panel. So there are three wonderful panels. The first is by Pixie, who, as you can see did a wonderful job. The second panel is wonderfully dark and drawn by Adee. The third panel is by Eisu, who wanted to show a Katsura Masakazu thing in the butt of Madame X’s dress. No one ever complained that Touro’s clothing changes dramatically from the first panel to the second. We noticed it, but we didn’t care, we were having a good time.

But the last panel. Looks like, once again, I would have to do my own dirty work.

But then, from out of nowhere, Zid! comes over the horizon, with a gleam in his eye and says, “I’ll do it.” And he takes that panel, and hits an out of the park home run out of it. Zid! came through for me, and HOW. All this done in a shopping mall. A MALAYSIAN shopping mall no less.

One point is that I wanted Madame X to never be seen naked. It was a thing I wanted — that the main female characters to never be seen naked (Dr. Lovetalk and Yuuko Ishida have yet to be seen naked, for example, and Madame X, though unclothed sometimes, never showed her goods until now). I drew her with a bra on in my layouts, but Zid! went the extra mile. So in the strips with Chie Sakamachi, you’ll see X naked, and you’ll have Zid! to thank for that.