Quote Originally Posted by Dave Rapp View Post
When Leonardo da Vinci set out to paint the big ML, he had an idea. His method of applying the idea was to put some colored oil onto a poplar panel.
We don't know that. In fact, very litle is known about the Mona Lisa. There is evidence that she had a different smile that LdV overpainted later (can be seen in Xray)

Normally, I would respond by saying that art is created in many different ways, and there's no certainty that this one piece was intended from before the first word was written to proceed to this point, but...

This, though, isn't a normal comic. It isn't one where proceeding without a plan is possible. You see, the problem here is that Parson is supposed to be really smart. Have you ever tried to pretend to be smarter than you really are? Seriously, do you think it's possible?

Some authors proceed simply by setting pen on page and writing whatever comes. These writers rarely can portray a smart character. The problem is that it takes time for someone to think up to par with someone smarter than themself, and rarely does it work. DO you think that you could beat the world's best Chess player if he had a 5 minute clock and you had all day? No, you'd get slaughtered. So, how do you include a Chess Grand Master in your story?

You study. If you want to include a great chess match, pull one from real history. You fake it. But this isn't something you can pull to order, so it must be done ahead of time. That means you have to figure out what that character needs to do before you get there.

So, Parson is supposed to be brilliant (inside his field of study). That means his actions need to have an air of brilliance. Unique plans that others wouldn't think of. Strokes of genius. To get those, you need to plan the story out, because if you have 2 days to think of something brilliant, you're not guaranteed success, unless you're a genius.

So, yes, I fully expect the basic plans and results were planned out long before the story was written. No plan survives the initial attack, so some things may change as the story was written, but no change would be direction changing.