BOHICA Blues Downrange! (Patreon)

Here we see that the character designs of Rock, Glass, and Ricardo are pretty much solidified, and I use corny old humor to put them on display. From this point out they mostly retain their visual appearance, although personal history, backgrounds, and intents for my characters changed. 

I always intended for Ricardo to be smarter than Rock even though Ricardo also has enough self-awareness to be hobbled slightly by self-doubt. Rock is smart but not as "book smart" and logical as Ricardo, and ends up being less concerned by self-doubt. He ends up accomplishing more and getting promoted, since he "goes for it" probably even when he should be more cautious. 

Originally, I intended Rock and Glass to be a couple if I ever developed BOHICA Blues into something else post-war. That was actually my operating theory for most of the development of the comic, and while I had a female Asian character, she was less well-defined and anonymous and I had no real plans to develop her much. 

When I started doing the full-color comic I abruptly switched gears and made Juni Okuda a fully realized character-- oddly enough, I was thinking she'd be a temporary girlfriend or crush for Rock and he'd eventually go on to have a serious relationship with "someone else" not necessarily guaranteed to be Cecelia Glass by the time I got the full-color webcomic started.

I think about these things because I always try to bear in mind where I'm going to take a character and what will shape that character's environment and the influences other people will have on him or her. Where the person is coming from, in their past, will shape how they approach the future events in the comic as I unfold them. 

Here's another appearance of Cecelia Glass, although this time she is just an anonymous cutout-- I could use any studious soldier in place of the first panel. This was one of my comics that wasn't intended to build a story or develop characters; this was one of the "stand-alone" gags that reflected my observations about human nature. 

It seems like in every group dynamic, there is always that one person that just has to learn things the hard way or they don't learn anything at all. If you can't figure out who that person is in your social group, then you're probably it. 

God knows I was.

Until next time!