MATEO #2

MATEO #2

This one is the second MATEO strip I did. The art is a bit more sloppy since the first one, a trend that really continues for a while... The tail to the lettering is now done by hand instead of using french curves to produce the tail, which freed me up a little bit more than in the first one.

I tried some interesting things with the coloring on this one, and almost all of the things I tried I hated. Firstly, I tried to show escalation of conflict (no matter how minor it is in this strip) reflected through the colors. We can see everything is cool in the first panel, but as Floyd becomes more and more desperate, the colors gradually shift toward warmer, hot, and then back to cool when Mateo finally gets the money from him. Likewise, Floyd wants the money because he wants to call his girlfriend, but because he doesn't have any minutes, he's feeling fairly "blue", as reflected in his shirt. Mateo, being greedy, is wearing green, the color of money. Also, Mateo envies Floyd, he's basically "green with envy".

Not too much to say about this one. The plot comes from back when I was in Italy, and my friends would always hit up my phone because I had a bunch of spare minutes on it since no one would call me. I never really charged them, but finally one day one of the guys paid me some money to use the phone, and I (of course, needing the money myself) accepted. Unlike Mateo, however, I don't believe I forced them to pay me. Then again, they are using my minutes.

Ah, capitalism and the genuine capitalist model of supply and demand.

Matt R.