Comic Report #58 - Big Rock Finish (Patreon)

Hello again! This week I've got a lot of stuff to share, but I'll start off with a look at the next comic page.  These past few pages have been coming along quicker than normal, I don't know if it's just due to having them all planned out or them being tightly-cropped action shots, but I'm really happy to have an eight or so page action sequence not end up taking eight or so months.  I've managed to keep the pace up through to the end, and I think I managed to hit all the points I wanted to without dragging the pages on for too long, so I'm real happy with how this one turned out.  There is just one or two more pages to go, however, and then I can wrap it up and move on to the next arc.

The last update was sort of the high point of the song, the big climax of action leading up to a big impact solo shot.  On this page I wanted to extend the moment a bit and then wind it all down to a calm final shot, closing out the fight.  There is one more beat to resolve in the page afterwards, but this page wraps up the human threat and the piles of undead Alice helped amass in the outer perimeter of the fighting space, so I wanted to kinda recap all of that action in the final shot and let Lizzie catch her breath for a moment before moving on with things.

I'd actually been rereading my comic's archive lately, which is something I honestly don't do often enough, and I noticed that the shot I had planned for this page where Lizzie and Marv are crashing back onto the ground after the big overachieving kick is similar to the shot I had set up on a previous overachieving Liz kick, back on page 324, when she bicycle kicked a soccerball at Clark in the Omnimart.  Lizzie doing a big kick and then not sticking the landing has ended up being a kind of aesthetic for her, it's a detail I included in a few of her game attack animations- strong and capable but not really professional grade.  I realize I'd "done" the shot already, but I think it fits here too, so to turn it into character development I decided to adjust Lizzie's facial expression from what I was originally thinking.

In my original plan I had thought of her making kind of a stern face mid-kick, and then crashing with an "oof" kind of impact on the ground, but that's more or less what happened in the Omnimart.  Over the course of the comic since then the whole crew has been through the crucible fire, and one of the big notes from the Rescuing Patrick arc in the car was "hey you guys are kind of nuts", like one of the tolls the comic took on the characters is this normalization of very reckless behavior, like oh, just another day of doing this sort of thing.  Page 324 Lizzie was still being shaped by the events of the story, page 594 Lizzie is wholly a product of her new world, so I thought I could highlight that difference between the two similar shots by changing how I present her facial expression.

On this page Lizzie had just been through a whole affair with a bunch of people who wouldn't be civil and has had a gun pointed at her for the umpteenth time, forcing her into a situation that goes against her morals.  She ended up coming through it without killing anybody, so she's got this kind of sense of satisfaction about that result about her.  Like "you want me to pull a gun? Okay I'll pull a gun... " and then flashlight kick one of her old regulars into the stratosphere.  The fourth panel Lizzie expression I tried a bunch of things to get just the right exact blend of endured physical pain and smug satisfaction at getting her way without compromising her no-killing code, and I think that shot in particular really sells the difference between the crew from Then and the crew from Now.  "That'll learn 'em to bust my tomater". 

On the Marv end of the page,  I wanted to give him a very specific expression as well.  I wanted to dial the kick impact up to 11, like Lizzie had put all her momentum into it and she's not really a martial artist but she's been established as an old soccer player who is good at kicking things, so while she has never bare-knuckle punched anyone she is definitely above-average good at kicks.  The last page kinda implied that Marv had been lifted up off his feet from the force of the impact, and this page puts him up in the air- high enough that Alice can see him peek overtop of the bus wall, so when he hits the ground its just a big overblown impact signaling the end of the fight.  

Marv had always wanted to be the protagonist of the western. He wanted to be Blondie facing down Angel Eyes, but in the end he realizes Lizzie is Blondie and he is Tuco, and that realization hangs in the air like drifting snowflakes as he ascends off the end of Lizzie's boot.  There was a specific movie quote I had in mind for Marv, from Shogun Assassin, something like "when cut across the neck, a sound like wailing winter wings is heard, they say.  I'd always hoped to cut someone like that someday, to hear that sound.... but to have it happen to my own neck... is ridiculous."  Marv is that quote, embodied.  I always wanted to gunsling someone, to feel what it's like.  But to be outslung...   I dunno.  I think it's a neat parallel.

This week I'm gonna keep working on the comic and have a more complete version for you for next week.  I've got a bunch of gamedev stuff to type up and share as well, so I'm gonna move on to posting that on here- there's really just a lot to post today!  Thank you for sticking with us into 2020, this year has big things on the horizon and we can see it through together.