Comic Report #79 - A Real Eye-Opener

Hello!  I've got the next page penciled for you this week.  This is a fun one, so I'll just get right into it!

While I've been working on the minicomics there's been a recurring sub-theme of scenes at Alice's job in the Tombstone medical ward.  I'd been planning this scene for a while, but now that the diner arc is a wrap the comic gets to be a hospital drama for a short while, focusing on Alice taking care of one of her new patients.  Due to how long it takes me to make pages at my current capacity I am hoping people remember who the man in the bed is- sometimes I'll reference moments that people don't remember, but I always try to write for the archival read.

Anyways, remember the three yellow poncho raiders Lizzie, Alice and Stacy met the night before?  This is Marv, the leader of the team.  He has awakened from his quickdraw loss to find himself in the care of a working medical facility.  One of the important themes I want to write in fleshing out this mid-zombie post-old world new-world reconstructed jury-rigged little town is that they aren't there to just rebuild the same system they had before.  These three showed up to scout the place and knock it over but they're still going to be treated with care.  

Alice has her clipboard at hand, and she wants to confirm some information real quick.
After the opening shots, the second panel row establishes the scene, with Marv in a comfortable makeshift bed and Alice here in her scrubs to give a line about what a rough night he must have had, and to assure him he's in good hands.  He's also advised to relax, since he's sustained extensive injuries.  The next row of panels below this one he tries to sit up and just collapses back into bed- he's not cuffed to the bed or anything, which is something I explicitly wanted to avoid, but he's definitely weathering the aftermath of the previous night's fight scene so he's not going anywhere.

Holding his license up, Alice reads off Marv's government name to confirm that that's his correct information.  She's her normal chipper self throughout the strip, but after confirming his ID in the license shot in panel 6, she moves to panel 7 and is like... "or should I put you down as 'cowboy breakfast'?"  That was Lizzie's nickname for Marv, remembering him as one of her regulars from Frank's Diner.  She called him that at the beginning of the fight scene and then when Marv forced her into the quickdraw she was like "oh, right.  Cowboy Breakfast, how'd I miss that one?"  That was a moment where Lizzie tried to resolve things peacefully but the trip forced her into a confrontation that culminated in Marv pulling a gun and firing Lizzie, who is a spectacularly poor shot.  Alice knows this since she was trying to teach Lizzie to shoot back at the Omni-Mart, and she was right there watching that whole exchange unfold.  Alice remembers that Marv is specifically the one who could have gotten Lizzie killed, and I wanted to reflect that feeling for a brief moment.  The penultimate panel is Marv going like, mmm mmmm mm that's fine-- but then he realizes what the implications of a) who calls him Cowboy Breakfast and b) how this woman would also know about that nickname, so the last panel is him like, ohhhhhh no.

I'm back to indoor scenes so this page should be a fair bit easier for me to paint, I'll be working on both this and some minicomics this week, so I expect I should have some good progress by next Friday.  I'm going to be getting my second COVID vaccine in early May so there's a bit of an incentive for me to get a page wrapped up before I get knocked out by the big hit.  Thanks for reading!  Have a safe and restful weekend.