Comic Report #30 - The Turning Point

I've been going hard on gamedev stuff for a while so I decided to turn out another comic page as soon after the last one as I could.  It's partly because I sometimes feel compelled to "prove" that I'm still keeping up with the comic, despite working on it all the time, and also because this particular page is an important point in the story and I really want to get it out there.

I don't want to think about how long it's taken me to reach this point, but for about the last sixty pages or so I'd been establishing a setting with a bunch of new people with connections to one another, as I think I'd mentioned before. Someone shot the Sheriff in this little town, and we don't know who. Lizzie had been bugging the Deputy Mayor for work, and she takes her up on that: if you can help her figure out who dunnit, she might have some better work lined up for you. This is the page that sort of lays out the theme of the rest of this story arc, which is "figure out who of all these new people we stumbled into would have the motive and means to shoot the top lawman", and it's my greatest regret that my creative output has been slowed so far down because I'm really excited to get this all out there. I'm building it for the archives though, so hopefully it will flow well when it's all done.

This page and the last one have been a bit easier on me, since they're not as many individual panels to paint. When I need to draw more action and less dialogue I draw more panels, and when I need the space I draw fewer. I always try to remind myself the comic started with six panels per page, so I try to use that number as my anchor for planning pages. Five gives me plenty of space to let the Deputy Mayor do her thing, and segue into the rest of the story arc.

I'm gonna jump back to work on this page and try to have it finished by this time next week. If I can do that two pages in a row I think I'll be in pretty good shape, or at least feel more confident about my output.  Thanks for being so patient with us!