FP Backstage: Alternative Louis

Welcome to the 10th and last in the current series of Fort Paradox Backstage: Some Alternative Versions of Louis's Return to the Main Group in Episode 46, and Other Random Stuff.

By the time we got to Episode 30 or thereabouts, we'd realised that one of the original three snails had gone missing along the way, and by a process of elimination we figured out that it must be Louis.  So we decided that we'd write a chapter which showed what he'd been up to while everyone else was on the Bridge.  The result was Chapter IV, Louis' Side Trip, Episodes 39 to 44.  Chapter V wasn't really a proper narrative segment, more a bunch of largely unrelated episodes that happened around the same time, and its one significant objective was to re-unite Louis with the rest of the group.  Before we settled on the final version, set up in Episode 45 and shown in Episode 46, I came up with a couple of alternative versions, which looked a bit like this...

Yes, French people plural.  That was embryonic, that was.

A final few notes re: Chapters IV and V:

• In Episode 39, I had the idea of a long line of toilets with increasingly strange and confusing gender symbols, but the credit for the (I think rather inspired) Hangman toilet goes to Tim.
• Episode 41 remains one of my personal favourites.
• Episode 44 reminds me of peppermint cheesecake.
• You may or may not have noticed, but Chapter IV was the first one to be illustrated entirely by the same person.
• Episode 45 contains a Pixar joke.  If you're enough of a Pixar junkie to get it, then you probably already spotted it, so me bothering to point it out is a bit redundant.
• That plasma grenade in Episode 46 may or may not be important.  We're not going to tell you yet.
• Episode 47, of course, was the first to be illustrated by a guest artist!  So long as you ignore the fact that Hannah drew Episode 48 before 47, that is.  In terms of the narrative order, 47 is the first, so it gets the accolade.
• The Pixar joke comes back in Episode 49, in case you didn't spot it the first time.
• You should have seen/heard Tim and I singing Darlan's This Old Man variation in the small hours while we put Episode 50 together... man, that was fun...

And that neatly concludes the Backstage posts for the first narrative day, just on time for us to temporarily go back to posting episodes on Tuesdays.  Last week's post (Episode 93) concluded Chapter IX, The Golf Tournament, and this Friday we kick off Chapter X, The Second Evening, which will be published on a twice-weekly schedule over the next few weeks.


- The Colclough (on behalf of itself & TMJ & SRJ)