Panel 1:
Shitty drawing of Tony sits at a school desk, nervous. A tapping noise comes from off-panel.
Tony (internal monologue): What the heck is wrong with my life.
Panel 2:
The dowdy teacher writes on the blackboard and lectures about who-cares. Tony stares blankly ahead, the tapping continues.
Tony (still monologuing): Trigonometry class doesn't matter any more. I don't know WHAT matters any more.
Panel 3:
The 'camera' moves behind Tony to make the blackboard visible. It features some trigonometry shit and the words 'sine cosine stopsine?'
Tony (still): Everything I've ever been tauht is a lie.
Panel 4: We see Tony from the front again, and the panel extends to the side to reveal the source of the tapping, a bored-looking Mistaire.
Tony (again): GAWD. She won't stop tapping the dang desk. There's an alien in trig class and she WON'T STOP TAPPING.
Panel 5:
Mistaire glances boredly at an off-panel Tony. Her pointed ears are hidden partially by her hair.
Mistaire (internal monologue): Guh. He keeps lookin' at me. I hope all humans aren't this dorky.
Panel 6:
Focus in on Mistaire's arms, she's still doing that tapping thing and it's getting irritating.
Mistaire (monologue): Fuck, this is boring. And I thought SPACE MATH was dull.
Panel 7:
Mistaire gazes into nothing, clearly settling into flashback mode.
Mistaire (still monologue): I blame Sargreon for all of this.




Wow, first page, shittiest page. I started this with the idea that I'd save time by drawing in simplified geometric shapes...but that's not fun, and didn't portray expressions the way I wanted them, so I gave up halfway through the page. This is an awkward transition into the flashback I need...actually, why does it even have to BE a flashback? I don't know. I've been told that Tony's monologue here is pretty emo, but that's crap. If you were given living proof of life on other planets, would you really be bothering with school the next day? No, chances are you'd spend that time running crazily through the streets shouting the truth, or maybe you'd hole yourself up indoors hoping the invasion won't bomb your house, or maybe you'd just take the day off to recover because you're clearly going insane...but you wouldn't just continue along your normal schedule because aliens are a Big Thing. Tony's wondering why the hell he's bothering with trig class. That does kind of indicate something wrong with his assessment of the situation. Oh, and, check it out, characterization is already starting. Notice, Tony says 'dang' but Mistaire says 'fuck. Also, world-building; the core difference between space math and regular math is that in space math you can divide by zero (but you should only do that sparingly because it's kind of a pain). That opens up possibilities like faster-than-light travel. How do they do it? Literally, magic. Math magic.