Highlights

1-5: Dreams: This page marked an early turning point in the look for the strip.  The whole look is supposed to be minimalist, but the first ones overdid it a bit.  This is also the first strip that features the woodsprite in any major capacity.  All the strips are important to the story, even if only in the slightest of ways (hence the ever-present "to be continued" the bottom), but this one is quite important in the overall scheme.  On the negative side: the ordering of the panels is kind of chaotic, as it often was in the very earliest strips, and the last panel-like blob is kind of forced.

1-7: Interrogation: This is the first strip I'm not generally embarrassed about.  There are still some problems with the arms (and I still have them, elbows are my eternal bane, and I have trouble getting the lengths right) but in general the characters look consistent from panel to panel and their features don't warp around too much.  This is also around the point where I started paying more attention to coloring, and introduced actual shading.   The panel layout is still chaotic, but it's not as difficult to figure out the procession as before.  (Or rather, the procession isn't as important as before.)

1-11: Fiction: The coloring continues to steadily improve in this one, and for a change the arms and legs aren't so bad.

1-12: Downpour: This is probably my favorite strip so far (as of 6/19/2001), and I really like the coloring on the lightning.  If you think it looks amateurish then it is possible you're missing the point.  The ending isn't pithy, punny, witty, cynical, sarcastic or satirical, but it's still funny, in a quiet way, which is what I think Hidden Glade is about, in the end.

1-15: Marshmallow: The idea here is slightly obscure, but not as obscure as you'd think.  It's always nice when I can inject a little quantum physics into the story.

1-20: Peril and 1-21: Relief: This two-part installment shows a very different side of Milen the woodsprite.  It is very difficult to convey the types of things that are going on inside the heads of Aaron and Stella here using artwork and dialogue alone, hence the regression into narration, which I try to avoid whenever possible.

1-22: Forest: Such a mixed bag, this one.  I like the idea, but I think the artwork (especially the hands and posture in a couple of places) is lacking.  But I do like the idea.

1-25: Duty: Every four years the very air of the United States becomes poisonous with the rhetoric of two opposing sites desperately trying to convince its citizens that they are better than the other.  At various times in my own personal life I have agreed with one side or the other, but every once in a while it seems to me that the only sensible attitude to take is Milen's.

1-26: Retreat: Still needing work to keep the characters looking the same from panel to panel (and I have problems with arms at one's side, you might notice), but I like the way the background changes from start to finish.

1-31: Boo: I'm of two minds about this one: I don't like how the circles of light look in this one and think I could have come up with a better illustration for the strung-up flashlights at the end.  On the other hand, I like the little girl and her angel costume, and Roy too.  We'll probably see more of them later.  And of the ending I'm kind of proud.

1-32: Imagined: Year One has some places where, regrettably, Milen makes some fairly blatant displays of whatever it is she does.  (She doesn't seem to like it this way either.)  This one is a particularly egregious example of that.  But I think the last two panels make up for it, but I'm still trying to avoid this sort of thing.

1-39: Chill: Things get just a tad dark in this one...

1-40: Humiliation: ...but I still managed to get in a little more humor before...

1-41: Home: ...the final episode of the first year of Hidden Glade, finishing up on a somewhat mysterious note.