Comic Report #129 - Back To Business

Hello again! This week I got my new drawing tablet in, and on Tuesday I set it up and made sure everything was working correctly, and I think everything is back to normal. I was hoping to be a bit further ahead on my comic page progress this month than usual, but what can you do? Regardless, I wanted to make sure I had some comic work to share with you today, since it's what we're all here for, so let's get right to it, then.

This page is intended to be the launching point for the coming action scene, so I want to make sure everything I need is in place, the scene is set and I'm all ready to just go full-forward momentum until I reach the end. It's gonna be taking place inside that big FISH building, so the opening shots should give kind of a quick look at what the interior space actually looks like. I've made sure to include at least a look at the three major areas outlined in my previous update about the building, and I think it's all ready to go.

The first panel is kind of a double panel. I want to show an interior shot of the buildings main room, where the bulk of the Gravekeepers are hanging out, but I also need to establish the entry point for the upcoming action sequence. My initial idea was to have a cutaway of the wall separating the front office from the main room, but in my first iteration I put a jagged cutaway and it just looked like a hole was blown in the wall, which is an entirely believable state of being given the setting of the comic. I opted instead to give it a much more geometric cut, something that's obviously not true but still conveys the information I'm looking to convey.

One of the other minor complications I have to account for going into these pages is that I have a lot of characters I'm gonna need to juggle, so I prepped a quick little reference screenshot for myself: There's four main Gravekeepers and then there's their circle of hangers-on. I'm gonna be working them all into the action scene coming up, but to start out I figure I could pick three of them for front office guard duty, and the rest would fill out the main room in the pages to come. We already know about Goggles so he's one less guy to worry about, subtract three for the first room and the rest are a lot more manageable.

This is gonna be a musical choreograph scene, probably the last one for the comic. The page sets up the Gravekeepers as thinking Pat and Goggles did their job and come morning they can sweep through with part two of their plan and secure Tombstone for the Mayor, enjoying his favor and protection in exchange for their own violence pointing at the right people. Job's all going to plan. Spade comes into the middle panel with a big record sleeve- Queen's "Jazz" album. Says he found it while they were clearing out Sheriff Tanner's place; Snake-Eye's like, oh, great, you're dead on time. Throw that on the table. These scenes are always intended to choreograph with an original studio recording of the songs they're referencing, so I do like to kinda name and highlight them in the leadup to the actual action sequence. So I've got the mood in the building as being calm and confident, I've got the musical cues set up, I've got Clark on the previous page queueing up a song on his iPod and I've got Spade on this page setting a needle on a record. The last few panels has someone knocking on the front door, and one of the Gravekeeper extras getting up to see who's there. Everything's ready to go.

That's it for now! Thanks for sticking with me through a bit of a rough spot, I'm glad to be posting comic stuff consistently again. We're gonna be winding our Dead Winter gamedev work back up again, but for now I'm happy to share the lead-in to the third and final musical segment of Dead Winter the comic with you. Until next time, have a good week!