Comic Report #67 - The Lads

Hello again!  For this week's work report I got the sketch phase of the next comic page all drawn up and ready to ink.  Since I don't have as many obligations on my plate at the moment I'd like to push forward and try to get another page up as quick as I can.  At my usual pace I can jump from pencils to a finished page in about a week and change, so we'll see where I am next Friday, but for now let's jump into today's write-up!

When I write Dead Winter I tend to write in waves.  I'll spend a bit of time writing the low points, where establishing social connections and events happens, so that I can build up to a pay-off segment where I get to draw a burst of action that has some established context behind it.  Given how long it takes me to make pages at the quality I want them I sometimes worry about the low points dragging, but they're necessary for the high points to have stakes, so I gotta keep my narrative rhythm to make sure the archives read well.

After the previous page went up some readers had some questions about who the big dramatic-reveal guys actually were..  It's absolutely understandable that they would be overlooked if you're following the comic purely because of how long the timescale of the narrative has been- they first popped up around 2015ish and they've kind of sparsely occupied the low points of the narrative waves- over the past 100 pages I've really been trying to establish Tombstone as a community and a social system so I had to make sure I cover and set up a significant number of places and people, and these boys, while important in the long term, haven't really taken center stage in a significant way until now.  I didn't want Dead Winter to just be the crew wandering the streets fighting zombies forever, so putting the effort into establishing Tombstone as an autonomous community was important to me, but now that the foundation is laid it's time for fun things to happen, like the Poncho encounter outside the city walls during the 590-page block.

So, who are these guys again?  Have we seen them before?  For the benefit of Patreon supporters and anyone reading these posts, here's a general overview of the lads lurking beneath the surface of the narrative.

Back on page 511, after their big reunion, Stacy brought Lizzie and Alice to the Jade Garden for a hot meal.  The scene opens with an establishing shot of the restaurant, with power cables and entertainment items set up to make it more of a social entertainment hub for the town's populace.  In the back of the restaurant is a big round table with a booth seat, where a couple scruffy-looking dudes could be seen playing cards.  That's the first hindsight look at our boys.

On page 526, when Monday and Lou are getting settled in, their new roommate Randy- the town's armorer- they learn about the Gravekeepers.  Described as the Mayor's personal goons, they carry weird custom weapons and basically do and get what they want within the town.  There's a core group of four Gravekeepers, and their satellite crew of friends and hangers-on who are drawn to the allure of that kind of power.  Based on some visual cues an intrepid reader could trace them back to the scruffy dudes at the back of the restaurant from an earlier scene.  So at this point we have a safe town, but the town has this aggressive element to it that has been causing poor Randy no small amount of stress and anxiety.

Later, on page 538, Sheriff Tanner and his deputies sat down with Tombstone's mayor to settle a dispute about the boys at the back table, who reach for their weapons when they see the Mayor getting hassled.  The core of the Sheriff's dispute is that the Gravekeepers keep doing what they want and getting in the way of him maintaining order in town.  This is where I wanted to underscore that the Mayor has a gaggle of goons in his pocket who complicate the safety of Tombstone.  It's putting into practice what Monday learned- it's just Lizzie hanging around in this scene, though, so she doesn't have the backstory, but she's an observant person so she's got half a clue about who these boys are at this point.

We don't really see much about the Gravekeepers again until page 551, where they've got Randy cornered pressuring him about some new weapon designs.  Here we can see them actively bullying and using their influence to pressure Randy into giving up the goods.  Monday is not a good guy but he has a code and he goes to bat for people who can't stand up for themselves, so when he hears Randy in trouble he and Lou step in to intervene.  It's safe to assume this is the first time the Gravekeepers have been directly confronted themselves, meeting force with force.  Randy's got a new friend, whether the Gravekeepers like it or not.  And being the bullies that they are that kind of show of force isn't going to be forgotten.

And that brings us up to the present.  The crew's old friends from the Omnimart are in town, and the only people who have clearance to go run missions outside the city walls are these guys.  They have an established disposition and Monday's already clocked one of them in the back of the head and told the rest to shove off, but they also now know that Monday and Lou have friends other than Randy, but the Omnimart crew don't know anything about the Gravekeepers except that "Liz and friends sent us" and they have an invitation to a community that actually has electricity so they seem like good guys to them.

On this actual page I'm working on now, the Gravekeepers deserve a proper introduction into the forefront.  They haven't really been specifically named up to this point so I felt like a row of flash title cards would be an efficient way to introduce them.  Their designs have sort of evolved over time, so this is me cementing their final forms for the long-term.  A few of them have gear upgrades since their previous appearances, specifically Chip and Spade sporting a more menacing-looking shotgun or an entirely new electrified polearm, respectively.

The next paragraph panel is a shot of the crowd gathering around this new truck.  Here I want to spend a moment and let the townspeople themselves speak their thoughts or reactions about the Gravekeepers, and then on the far right corner we can see Lizzie quietly listening and taking notes, as that may be relevant to the sleuthing mission she's presently on.

Below that big panel I wanted to spend three panels giving the Gravekeepers time to interact back with the crowd.  We've seen them bullying Randy before but if they're that bad then why wouldn't a town as armed and rough as Tombstone have just deposed by now?  They need to provide actual value to the town and put on at least the facade of service to the townspeople, enough to give the crowd mixed feelings about them rather than unanimous contempt, so that's what I want to establish on that panel.

The final panel is the important note of the page.  For this one, here they are telling the crowd that they're here to look out for everyone, but in the last page we get an up-close shot of the guy Monday specifically clocked in the head leaning in to emphasize that they'll be "looking out" for their new friends as well, implying that the Omnimart crew are in some sort of danger that can't be immediately shared yet.

So that's the current narrative wave cycle brought up to speed.  I know I can keep track of things since it all exists in my head but it's been spread out across multiple actual years of comic posting, so I understand that people might not remember all these little details.  If you're reading this far, I hope the quick refresher helps make more sense of the current pages and the direction the narrative is moving in.

This week I'll be working on just the comic, so I should have a good bit of progress made by next Friday's update.  As always, thank you for supporting my work.  Be safe out there, and I'll see you next week!