Strip 32: The Orbital Assist Deck

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? If you’ve been following us on Facebook (which you really should do, since we don’t have a dedicated news page), you’ll already know about our artist’s burnout after strip 32. Well, after giving him about a year to recover, we got back to work, only to finish one strip and then lose contact with mecha.red again, seemingly forever. Since it’s been over six months with no word from him, we have regretfully decided to move on and find a new artist. Fortunately, we have an extremely talented and passionate new artist in Kenan Halilovic, whose sample panel can be seen here.

This post is bittersweet, because it is the last strip we received from mecha.red, but it is also the first time in two years that we have made progress on Steel Salvation. The good news is, we are officially back in business, and once we build up at least a month’s worth of strips, we will begin posting new material with Mr. Halilovic at the helm. We apologize for the long, long wait, and if you’ve actually stuck it out for two years, then there is no way to properly thank you for that kind of patience. The best we can do at this point is reward your patience with new comics, and fortunately, that reward is now on the horizon. Anyway, here’s the commentary I originally meant to post for this page...six months ago.

I feel like now is probably a good time to explain the design of the spaceport, since it’s going to be pretty important for the rest of Part 2. Basically, there are two kinds of spaceships that dock at the spaceport: those that can enter and exit a planet’s atmosphere under their own power, and those that can’t. The ones that can’t, usually smaller vehicles like dropships and starfighters, need to be launched back into space via a mass driver, or a magnetic cannon. That huge generator in the room below powers the magnetic force that launches ships through the tube that Dy-Gar is about to enter. You can imagine why he doesn’t think this is a very good idea.

- J.S. Conner

September 17th 2017