Comic Report #125 - Monday (Patreon)

Hello again, it's a bit of a short week today but I always want to have something to share here so I hope today's offering is okay. I spent the time between the comic going up and now working on pushing some final Kitsune Tails assets, trying to finish up those obligations as soon as possible. I'll probably need to focus a lot on that this week as well, but I have my thumbnail for the next page plotted, so I can share that with you today. Every now and then I share these, it's an important phase of my planning that doesn't get shown often, but today you can see how I structure a page of comics before I commit to painting it.

I've been imagining this scene playing out in a few phases to establish the tone of what the characters intend to do. The first page focused on Pat explaining the situation, on how the crew were being targeted and how he regrets chasing the kind of admiration that came from being part of the town bullies. He apologizes for bringing everyone into this mess. The second page is the group cohesion and discussion moment, where the mixed group of friends share their feelings about the situation and talk between themselves, trying to figure out why it's happening and what they can do about it. At the end of that page Monday speaks up when Amy is feeling a bit hopeless, stating that they can do something about their situation, but it's not going to be easy and they're going to have to act immediately. This page is Monday making his case.

For the first panel I wanted to have Clark and Melody confronting Monday about his insistence that everyone needs to act to fix a problem that, according to Pat, is his fault. Why do they have to get involved in a situation they're barely connected with? And what did Monday even do to warrant this kind of response? He's not keen to answer that last question, so he explains that he had some bitter old business with the Mayor, but it's everyone's problem now so they need to figure out what they want to do about it.

The stack of three panels to the right of the second row is where Monday does his Monday things. He explains to the group that the people who want to hurt them aren't open to negotiation, that they can act on their ideas because they don't think the group will pose any threat to them. Monday's view is, if they want to live they're going to have to show that they have sharp teeth, that if they don't want to spend the rest of their lives worrying about plots like this they have to bite first and bite hard enough that the Gravekeepers never entertain ideas like this again. It's the Monday Page, so we get the Monday perspective on things, but throughout the comic the Monday perspective has always been contrasted against another.

The third row of the comic has Monday looking the other way, the camera still over his shoulder but his focus turns towards Lizzie, who hasn't said anything yet in this scene. He's asserting that they're gonna have to bite first and do it tonight, but in this panel he is like, as long as there aren't any objections, putting the spotlight on Lizzie. Lizzie and Monday have been in conflict the whole comic, they don't like each other, but they've been useful to each other in different ways, so here he's sort of building off all their prior interactions, like, are we doing this? Are you gonna try to stop us again?

In our last row of panels, Lizzie looks contemplative a moment, like she's reflecting on everything everyone has said on this and the previous pages, and what they've been through both in dealing with the Hornets outside the town gate and in dealing with other dangers outside of Tombstone. This one is a quiet panel with no dialogue before the last panel asserts that, no, she doesn't object. This is meant to set up the next page after this one, where Lizzie frames things in her Lizzie way, but that will come when we get there.

As I mentioned up top, I'm gonna be focusing a lot to get Kitsune Tails work finished this week, but I'm gonna try to at least get this page pencilled for next week, or work on some Dead Winter gamedev progress. It's a bit of a crunch but Kitsune Tails is gonna have to be a focal point for a little bit so I can make sure we ship it when we plan to and I have all my tasks completed. I'll have more to share next week, I hope a thumbnail update is okay today. Until next time, have a good weekend.