Comic Report #85.1 - Planning

Hello again!  I apologize for not having an update last week, but today I hope to show you why that was the case.  I'd mentioned in the previous partial update that I needed to cram a lot of Stuff onto this page to keep from having to spill onto another page and I think the solution I arrived at does the job just how I need it to.  There's a lot more than last time this page was shown so let's take it fresh from the top.

One of the big challenges of planning a dense page is making sure I have room to actually put the dialogue I want without covering up my characters.  As a matter of personal taste I dislike word art covering the character art so I try to avoid it as much as I can, and part of the reason I do art first and worry about the specifics of the dialogue afterwards is because  I can use my thesaurus to change the specific wording of the idea I want to convey and find the right word combination that fits into the space I have available.

The second paragraph of panels hadn't been drawn last update so this is all new content.  The main focus is on Mayor Richardson- I wanted him to both be grateful for Monday dissuading him from reading the notes from Marv by informing him how boring it is and also set up the handshake interaction, so I rolled both ideas into one panel.  Maria is in the background reading up on the notes, that's there for future reference.  This extended handshake moves into the two-panel shot on the right side where Monday takes and then crushes the Mayor's hand with his shake.  There's no room in these panels for dialogue, meaning the setup in the previous panel is going to lead into quiet buildup to the next.

Speaking of the next panel, this was my challenge panel last time.  Here's what I had previously:

I'd thought about one panel for a close-up of Monday's eyes and one for a shot of the Mayor's reaction, but this was really space-inefficient and didn't leave me a good allotment of room to put word bubbles in.  The solution to these issues is usually to merge the panels somehow, and that's essentially what I did here.  I added a small little semicircle panel in the top middle so I could have the moment of Monday smiling before he flashes to the eye stare, so I could get that contrast which I wasn't achieving in the previous layout.  Also in this layout I have more room to fill out the space around the Mayor with flashback imagery, so it can be conveyed to the reader exactly why he is responding to Monday's gesture the way he is- he knows who he is, where he's been and what his intentions are.  This is a bit of a callback as it specifically references the Sympathy for the Devil scene in the 190-200 block of pages.  The visual representation of Mr. Santos, Ms. Dennis and Mr. Sanders the Bank Guy kinda surfaces some dormant threads so a reader has some clues to build on.  A fun fact about Mr. Sanders: he's the guy who got put in the vault around page 200, but he's also one of Lizzie's diner customers in the first few pages of the comic.  

The last two panels here likewise weren't drawn last time.  The Mayor presumably keeps his connection to the Syndicate a secret so he has to maintain kayfabe, he can't just jump and accuse Monday of something and they both know it.  All of a sudden, though, he has a meeting with the Sheriff to get to so he, ahh, has to get going now.  The last panel has him shuffling away, with a positive interaction between Monday and Maria behind him, his own face filled with dread at the sudden complication his life has just encountered.

I really want to get this page done for a lot of reasons but I am sort of pinned down with other obligations for this month. This one may be a slow burn but I'm gonna try to keep the updates coming for you, slowly but surely.  After this page we'll be landing in a scene a lot of people seem to have been anticipating for a long time.  Until next week, take care!