Dead Winter Minicomics Batch #33

Hello!  It honestly feels like it's been a full week since my last update but it's currently the 9th and according to the timestamps I put up a new page on the 4th, so this makes sense.  I decided to spend this week making minicomics, since I'd been deprioritizing them to do other things and sorta burned my buffer lower than I'd like.  I did a mini a day for the four days between the 4th and now, which I suppose is why it feels like it's been longer than it actually has.  Anyways, I drew minicomics 87 to 90 this week, which means I'm only 10 minis away from the goal of 100, so I'm gonna try to make sure those last ten really count.  For now, though, let's have a look at the new minis!

#087: The minicomics have been a fun way to expand on in-game lore in ways I'd never really have time for in the main comic.  This strip features Diamond Doug, a one-off intermission character from page 482 who finds jewelry inside zombies who might have accidentally eaten them along with the rest of a person.  In the videogame he's the guy whose face we put on the sides of vending machines we're planning to implement, which is where he actually got his name:

From the one-off appearance he's been expanded to be a travelling merchant who moves from town to town selling or trading his wares, which is why he asks for old-world money instead of Tombstone's make-believe cash.  Also, Lizzie has been holding onto her old engagement ring for a long time, but her heart has since come to know itself better, so what can she do with it?  This strip ties all those little threads together.

#088: When I want to write Monday doing Monday things its fun to frame them around agent-looking dudes to frame him as a man who works a specific trade in specific circles and not just a guy who whacks whoever.  The suit-guys from the Sympathy for the Devil arc are coded to work for his former employer, Mr. Santos, so they're his adversaries today.  The "punch"-line here is something I've always wondered about this trope of secret agents with cyanide pills in a fake tooth- like, what if they get clocked hard enough and the tooth pops open?  I don't know if these kind of fake teeth exist in real life but they sure pop up in spy movies now and then.

#089: I've had this idea for a while but it's Games Done Quick week so I've had speedrunning on the brain.  Back in minicomic 049 Lizzie identified the Main Characters of the world and did not want to engage with them due to having unknowable powers at their disposal.  In this strip one of the MCs clips through a wall, mashes through Randy's dialogue, receives an item from him and backdashes into the distance.  The first panel of this strip makes me laugh a lot, especially the MC's eyes looking directly at Randy. I hope you can enjoy it as well.

#090: In the main comic there was a mention of a bathhouse in Tombstone- it's where Doris peaces out to after unloading Sally's training needs onto Lizzie- so I wanted to do a bathhouse page where nothing happens.  It was fun to design big painted murals on the wall and give it a relaxing sense of space.  However, rather than just have a page where the characters get the day off and nothing happens, I added another element to it; the strip about Lizzie being haunted by a brotherhood of swordsmen who also had X-shaped scars from two different battles was more popular than I expected, and people liked Hamish a lot.  Since Lizzie's X-shaped neck scars are uncovered here and it's already a bit misty from the hot water it was a fair moment to give them a second shot of spotlight.  I'd said elsewhere how "there are more swordsmen from different places and points in time", so I tried to include a fair variety here.  From right to left the swordsmen carry a Turkish kilij, a Nordic axe, a Celtic broadsword, a European longsword, a Japanese katana, a Chinese guandao, a Zulu short spear, an Indian tulwar and a French epee- the latter ghost being inspired by Julie d'Aubigny, a bisexual French woman who was a duelist and an opera singer who is 100% worth reading about.  This ghost also haunts Lizzie, it seems fitting.

Anyways, that's it for this week's minis.  I had started the next main comic page but I only got one panel half-sketched so there isn't enough to really share, but I should have plenty to show next week.  We have a gamedev post coming down the pipe soon too so keep an eye out for that today.  Thank you, as always, for your patience. Until next week, take care!