Comic Report #111 - Examine the Scene (Patreon)

Hello again!  This week I've got the sketch phase blocked in for the next comic page, so I get to share a bit of story progression with you today.  I have also been making headway on gamedev animation work so I'll be putting a progress shot of that up after this.  For now, though, let's jump into the page and go through what we've got set up today.

Over the past few pages Liz and Alice managed to connect their book discovery on the bus to a real person in town and through their friend Lou managed to get a sit-down in their office.  He revealed that he's appreciative of their gesture and that his late wife's books meant a lot to him, so he was grateful for their return.  Liz prompted him to check his library check-out listings and he ended on the discovery that no one had signed out Scarlet & Herringbone, and that brings us to today.

This one is an Elizabeth Cooper Internal Monologue page so I'm prepping it for thought boxes.  She and Alice examine Marty's office for any sort of clues they could build off of while they have the opportunity to be there.  The first panel has Lizzie establishing Marty's probable innocence, since he seems genuine in that he'd never leave a piece of his wife's legacy behind in a random schoolbus outside the ex-Sheriff's house like that.  It wasn't him but it may be someone close to him, someone who had access to his books.

Panels two and three have Liz examining details around the office for any idea of who else might share this space with Marty Mulgrave.  He mentioned he encourages his guys to read more, and his reading list seems populated with books that might appeal to them- none of them are really romance novels.  Behind her are a couple old trophies, she can't really make out the name but one of them is a Little League trophy.  She'll have to take a look at that one on the way out.

There is a pistol on the table behind Marty's desk and a box of bullets on top of one of the filing cabinets.  Liz famously doesn't know anything about guns but she remembers back on the rooftop where she roped Alice in on her investigation, Alice had mentioned pulling some bullets out of the Sheriff while learning how to perform an autopsy.  In the fourth panel Liz looks to Alice and gestures with her hand, like, is that the gun the bullets came from?  Alice just shrugs- bullets don't really work that way, you can't just "tell" what gun a bullet came from by looking at it.  Liz learns something today.

Panel five is the crucial panel of the scene.  Liz examines the cup on Marty's desk- it's on her side of the desk, not Marty's, and it's handle was facing her.  It wasn't steaming so it'd been sitting there a little bit, this wasn't fresh.  Liz uses her Diner Sense to place whose coffee this is, since someone else has clearly spent enough time in Marty's office that they'd have a ceramic mug of coffee for themselves.  The cream and sugar composition didn't match Marty's order, he wouldn't drink this kind of coffee.  Liz has taken someone's order for this blend at the Jade Garden, though.  When she realizes who it is, the door to the trailer opens and someone announces their return.  And the page ends right on that note.

That's my progress for this week!  I've gotta do a little prep work but a gamedev page should be coming up after this one.  I expect to make progress on this comic page throughout the week so I should have something to share next Friday.  Thanks for reading!  I'll catch you again next time.