Comic Report #68 - Thumbs Up

Hello again!  It's been a half-week since the previous page went up so today's update is a bit different from usual.  Normally if I don't have enough time to sketch a whole page between an update and a Friday I'll just do a gamedev post since that is easier to make small incremental changes on that end but I've been on a good comic streak and I didn't want to let up, so this week's update is a look at the thumbnail phase of my writing process.

Before I start work on any page I always begin it with a thumbnail.  What this phase lets me do is plot the pace of the comic and make sure I can fit a meaningful chunk of interaction onto a single page.  I always want to end a page on some sort of significant note so when I draw a thumbnail I'm able to see if I can fit the lead-up to that point by the end of the page.  In my comic-making process I always stage the action and plan my camerawork first, I'll maybe have some key dialogue bits I want to remember and might jot them next to a thumbnail but the specific wording of the dialogue I write is always the very last stage of the comic process- my philosophy is if the character acting is sound and the camerawork stitches it together, the specific of the dialogue will fit around the expressions and gestures. I usually don't like to cover up characters with word balloons so I'll flex the thesaurus to make sure I can physically fit the idea I want to say around the expressive character art.  That's just my approach and my thumbnails help make sure I can do this after I've sunk the time in and I get to that last phase of the project.

As for the content of this page: the narrative focus has been on Lizzie for a while as I wanted to set up her investigative task for Deputy Mayor Martinez, so part of my goal for this big crowd-around-the-new-supply-truck scene was to shift focus over to Monday for a bit.  In the first panel we see the Gravekeepers pushing through the crowd to move on with their day and rest or celebrate after a successful night's mission.  The second panel pulls in Monday and Dale in a like, "they're not really your friends, are they?" sort of way.  I want this page to be about Monday and Dale's bond a bit, since Dale is really the only person Monday actively likes being around, so I decided to put the focus on these two.  

Speaking of friends, the third panel shifts Dale's attention from the Gravekeepers across the crowd to Lizzie, who is kinda eyeballing them, where he asks if the blonde one is still Monday's friend.  The fourth panel is her noticing she got caught looking and trying to play it off- she had her own successful night mission last night and turned up a book with a name in the cover- Ethel Mulgrave.  Where she left off before the shift to daytime she was pondering about who that could be, and it was discussed that the town has records of its people.  Around page 535 where the crew all discussed the results of their job assigments from 533, Monday is revealed to be working as a clerk inside the converted newspaper office, so he'd have access to those records, which is ultimately the reason Lizzie is eyeballing him.  Shifting the camera to Monday and Dale lets us see her sneaking around from the outside, since when the camera was on her her stealthiness was fairly cool-looking, but when seen from the outside- and specifically from Monday's perspective- I wanted to show her as being kinda goofy and amateur.  This is setting up a near-future scene so here's the thumbnail of the groundwork for that.

The bottom half of this comic is giving space to Dale and Monday bonding and being friendly.  Monday has always been a cold character by design, so little flashes of warmth like this help develop him as a character.  He shares a cigarette, they talk a moment and then part ways, staging the end of this scene.  This tiny thumbnail is my plan for the page, so you can see how it flows like a regular page.  I should probably be able to have it drawn and inked for next Friday, so the difference between this week's progress shot and next will be larger than normal.

I'm excited to get to some fun moments on the other side of this scene, and with my gamedev artwork largely in the bag for now I'm gonna keep pushing comics to get them drawn more frequently.  Thank you for supporting my work along the way!  Take care out there, I'll see you again next week.